- put up some ads
- put lots of pictures
- ad as much of a description of the property
- be accessible, give options for text messaging
- be quick to respond and look to booking appointments
- mark a time slot for open house for tenants
- pre-screen tenants on the phone
- background checks
- income verification

#Find&ScreenTenants

So it's time to find a tenant. 1st of all, you're gonna start putting up some ads. We recommend free sites, like Facebook Marketplace, which tends to get a lot of traffic, and other websites, like Kijiji. Now, with Kijiji you do have pay options, which bumps up your ad and gets a little bit more eyeballs on the ad. So we recommend doing that. One of the keys with your ads is to put lots of pictures, lots and lots, as many pictures as the site supports. Add as much of a description of the property as possible in the verbiage, helping screen your tenants. You know, if it's not a right fit, they probably wouldn't call you. So then you're gonna post the ad, and you're gonna get a bunch of people contacting you. They're gonna ask you some questions about the property, or where it is, when it can be rented out and various things. So it's important for you to be accessible. So provide a phone number, give your tenants the option of text messaging as well as a lot of people like to text. Be quick to respond to your tenants and look to booking appointments. In today's environment, we have a lot of people wanting to rent. So you're gonna get a lot of people responding to your ads. The best style of booking appointments that we find that works a lot is you would mark off a time slot, sort of like an open house style. So let's say, Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m., you're going to have an open house for all the previous tenants who might have been interested in this property. Now, instead of giving your tenant prospects a two-to-four window, we recommend you giving them time slots. We also recommend that you have two people, two sets of people, one who can walk tenants through and feel the other party that might be still standing outside. So now when they contact you, it's important to set your expectations right off the top. See if you're getting a lot of interest, which we tend to see lately, you want to try to screen the tenants on the phone. So prior to booking an appointment to meeting, speak to them, kind of prescreen them over the phone. And the main requirements in prescreening is get a sense of who they are. If your property that you are renting out has certain specific locations, You want to let your tenant prospects know about this so that you can determine if it is a right fit for them. So it's important to do a sort of a basic screening on the phone so you don't waste their time or your time at the appointment at the open house per se. So the basic requirement that we're gonna use is 33% of your income to rent. So now we're down to, if you like what you hear on the phone, go ahead and set up an appointment for them to meet you. We recommend, again, an open house style. Open house style is great because, Free up the time, Saturday two to four, and line up all your tenants in 15 minute increments. And that way, you know, you get this auction effect, right? So you've got people standing outside. They know there's more people inside. There's someone in front of them, someone behind them. Very important, when you meet with the people, you get a sense you want to look at a gut feeling. So now, let's pretend the tenant is interested in your property. You would, at that point, have them an application for rent and you would have them fill it out and email it to you perhaps tomorrow. So you're gonna get now a bunch of applications. You're gonna look at all your applications, and you're going back to your income. Then you're looking at their credit bureau. You're going ask them for list of their current and past landlords. You're calling their references, their employer. There are two companies as well that do a great job on screening your tenants. One is neighborly.com, and you're looking at about $25, $35. and then the other company is SingleKey, okay? Both very good companies that you can use in your tools, in your toolkit to help screen out tenants. Now that you have all of your information, you're gonna put down all your applications and write out the pros and cons of each of them, okay? And then you're gonna pick one. Use your gut 'cause you met these people, use that as a guiding tool, and use the income and the credit bureau as a secondary tool to help identify your best tenant.