Affordable rentals screening procedure

Affordable Rentals is a mid sized owner/operator of scattered site housing in Milwaukee. This is an outline of our screening procedure.

Please note that each owner needs to develop a screening procedure that works for them, their properties and their business style. Our may not fit your needs.

Our Procedure

• A prospective tenant see an apartment and decides they want it.
• Only after they choose a unit do they fill out an app. Everyone who has seen a unit is welcome to fill out an app.
• No app is accepted without a picture ID, which we copy. Without an ID you really don't know who you are screening.
• We require a $50 blank money order with the app to hold the unit while we process the app. The earnest money insures that the applicant is truly interested. The $50 is applied to rent and deposit if they are accepted. If they are rejected we give them their money order back, which is why it is blank.
• They also must provide proof of income (recent pay stub or award letter) and proof of current address (a recent utility bill or other major company's bill addressed to them) This is a self screening method.
• We then run them against a set, written criteria for evictions and criminal convictions. Fail and the app ends there.
• We then verify landlord and income. We check the address they gave, the address on their ID, the address on their pay stub.
• If everything is still okay we run a credit report primarily to find other addresses in the header and possible out of state evictions or addresses. We do not use scores as we find them inapplicable in our market. Too many people who have never missed a rent payment have outstanding medical bills etc. We only care about problems paying rent or utilities.
• Final step we send a field manager out unannounced to the address listed on the app. More than one in three fail at this point. Number one reason -they don't really live at the address they gave, #2 they have a pitbull the size of me, three is housekeeping and four is the house is not being used as a residence, but rather as a flop place for druggies.
• Everything is document. Two years from now if someone alleges they were wrongfully denied an apartment we can pull the file and say no and here is why.

One person has commented on this article.

No.1 Untitled

It was perfect

\n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ' title='Click to send email'>Submitted by Jim Swenson,  • 2008-10-23 17:29:19

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