Ideally, you’d have tenants who paid promptly every month, never complained, and lived in your property for a long time while maintaining it in pristine condition. But that ideal seldom happens for the simple fact that we’re dealing with human beings. They move, get sick, marry, have different temperaments and needs, and so forth – all of which can affect the goals you have for your properties.
However, there are general guidelines you can follow in order to get the best possible tenants, the ones who do pay on time and who seldom complain unless there’s a good reason to do so:
Guideline 1: Qualify Your Applicants
This is a vital first step, because it helps identify great tenants and eliminate potential trouble-makers. The process of qualification involves a combination of asking good questions and using your intuition about an applicant. What are good questions to ask? Here’s a suggested list to which you can add your own questions:
