1. Pre-qualify applicants over the phone. Most people respond to an add placed in a local classified. Make sure you ask descriptive and open ended questions to the potential tenant that give you as much detail about themselves and about their situation.

2. Don’t immediately go to the rental unit if someone calls you saying they are sitting in front of it and want to view it. Schedule a time to meet at the rental unit because this will show you which tenants are serious. If the tenant doesn’t show up, it will give you a good indication of how reliable and trustworthy they are to rent to.

3. During the showing critique appearance and etiquette. Do they look like they would care for your property? Do they appear neat and clean? Do they behave respectfully or do they seem difficult to deal with? These are a few questions you may want to pay attention to when meeting the potential tenant for the first time since they can be good indicators on how they will act once they move into your rental.

4. Give an application and tenant guidelines while at the first showing. Make sure you have a formal rental application that allows you to do proper background checks on them. You want to be firm and show that you are a person that does not have much patience for ignorance. The more blunt and harsh you are up front, the more respect they will have for you and less of a chance they will walk all over you. Experience shows that if you give a tenant an inch, they will take a mile and then some.

5. Verify income and ability to pay security deposit and rent before they move in. This may seem elementary, but you would be surprised to know how many tenants try to get the landlord to delay either the security deposit or the first month rent a month or more out.  If a tenant can’t verify that they can make the first rent payment along with the security deposit before moving in, move onto the next potential renter.