When it comes to running a property management business, the quality of your tenants is just as important as the quality of your properties. So, when it comes time to fill vacancies in your property, it is always advisable to screen applicants before going into business with them.
Active screening involves the evaluation of existing applicants based on factors like credit scores, eviction history, and income, and it is often done with the aid of property management software. [CN1]
Rather than looking at existing applicants, passive tenant screening allows you to take steps as a landlord to draw better applicants in the first place who are more likely to be aligned with your priorities. This article will guide you through how to start implementing passive screening in order to strengthen your applicant pool for future vacancies. [CN2]
Develop an Ideal Tenant
Passive screening has a lot to do with how you market your properties to potential tenants, and the best place to start is to consider what kind of person you hope to market to. If your ideal tenant is someone with a particular income, that may impact some of the strategies that you use to market in order to reach that particular audience.
It is important to remember that your ideal tenant should be consistent with the practical considerations of your property. For instance, if you have a vacancy near a college campus, it may not be the best option to rule college students out entirely from your target applicant pool.
You should also keep in mind that any considerations you make for your ideal tenant should be equitable and fair under the Fair Housing Act. You should not make these decisions based on factors like age, ability, race, gender or sexual orientation. Instead, an ideal tenant might be one who has a reliable employment history.[CN3]
However, if you don’t have the needed experience to find the right tenant for your property, you can always delegate work to experts in New York residential property management. With their extensive knowledge and expertise, they can help you attract and identify those perfect tenants who are reliable, respectful, and financially stable. They will also screen all potential candidates, looking at things like income, credit score, rental history, criminal record, and references.
Ask Your Applicants Where They Heard About You
Now that you have your ideal tenant in mind, compare them against the tenants that you currently have. If you have existing tenants that you find to be qualified and good to work with, knowing where they found out about you and your listing is a good way to know what marketing strategies are attracting those kinds of people.
Different platforms for marketing are bound to attract different types of applicants. For instance, an audience that engages with a social media advertisement is likely different than one that engages with a physical advertisement in a newspaper. Collect data on which platform is attracting the tenants most like your ideal tenant and figure out where to advertise a rental property.
When considering how specific digital marketing can get with demographics and targeted advertising, remember that there may not be a one-size-fits-all solution for where and how to market. You might want to experiment and find a blend that works best for you.
Make Your Business Professional
As a landlord, you’re looking for trustworthy and reliable applicants who pay on time and help you maintain a healthy business. Similarly, qualified tenants are looking for landlords and properties that are trustworthy and reliable. A good way to help you appear more trustworthy to those tenants is to create a professional image and a positive user experience for them.
A good way to achieve this is by using property management software. Using a sleek digital platform for your business can not only look nice, but it can also show tenants how to pay rent and how to file maintenance issues. If you minimize the hassle for your tenants, you’re going to look better in the long run.
Conclusion
Passive tenant screening techniques can alleviate some of the stress of the active screening process that comes with a new pool of applicants. It pays to be efficient with finding applicants that generally align with your requirements for a qualified tenant. Not only can employing passive screening tactics help you with your applicant pool, but they are also good general business practices that will help you take your property management business to the next level.
The active screening process is invaluable to making sure that your applicants will be reliable tenants, but in order to get a good applicant pool in the first place, the importance of passive screening cannot be overstated.
In general, “software” cannot be counted or pluralized. I usually just say “property management software” or “a property management software platform” [CN1] [CN1]
Great! [CN2]
I would be a bit more specific here. Discriminating based on where the tenant lived prior is often a proxy for race or ethnicity-based discrimination, so it’s effectively illegal. In many states it’s also illegal to discriminate based on “source of income,” so instead of saying “particular employment background” I would say something like “has a reliable employment history”. Just some small nuances to know [CN3] [CN3]
