You bought yourself a brand new rental property and the ink has barely dried on the deed and you can't wait to rent it and start earning some money.
When you want to make money investing you want to have all the right information, using the right landlord forms will give you the critical information you need in order to know whether or not the tenant is a valid option or not.
When you are screen prospective tenants you can't really tell by meeting them if they are responsible with their financial obligations or are they going always be late with their payments and damage your property in the process.
Before you meet your tenant face to face you should have your landlord form in place to have them complete, this gives you an advantage to make sure the tenant is going to be the best fit for your needs.
When your tenant is filling out the form make note of how forthcoming they are with their particulars, if they are asking lots of questions and aren't giving you complete information it may be some cause for concern.
Your landlord form should ask for particulars about the renters employment background, this help you find out whether the renter is able to service the rent, if they are self employed you can ask them for their income tax records since they do not have a salary slip like employed tenants do.
You should get the tenant to furnish their latest salary slip or confirmation letter from their HR department.
After you have confirmed that the renter earns enough money to pay the rent you want to find out whether or not they will pay it on time, there is two ways to go about getting this information, your landlord form can request permission from the tenant to get a copy of their credit report or you can ask them for references from their most recent landlord.
If they do not have a landlord reference or won't provide one then you must rely solely on what their credit report indicates.
Rent is not recorded on a persons credit file so you cannot tell whether or not they pay it on time but if their credit score is high then you can be fairly sure they will, on the other end of the spectrum if their score is unusually low then you must find out why it is.
If the reasons seem invalid or if your instincts tell you this doesn't make sense then you should move onto the next applicant otherwise you may be setting yourself up for more headaches than you bargained for.
If the tenant has passed the employment and either credit check or landlord reference on your landlord forms then the next form you will need to prepare is the lease, a lease can be from month to month up to one year depending on what you and the tenant agree to, once the lease is signed and you receive the payment the unit is rented and you are on your way to becoming a successful real estate investor