During the first 5 years of being a landlord (2006-2011), I chose all of my new tenants based on my 'gut feeling' about them and nothing else. As I look back on those years, I did okay in choosing good tenants but I never felt really confident that I had chosen the best applicant among the those who had applied. I did have everyone fill out an application but that was about it.

In 2011, I attended my first Mr. LL convention and soon after that my applicant screening procedures started to improve for the better. I am now doing more through background checks, checking employment status and looking at credit reports, however, my gut feeling about applicants seems to still control my decision making.

My gut has let me down before, but I still trust it.

Just because someone looks good on paper doesn't mean they are going to be a good tenant.

On the flip side I have had a good feeling about a prospective tenant even tho they had a murky background.

Sometime ago on this forum, someone made a comment about gut feelings which I have appreciated. It went something like this:

After 50 years 75% gut and 25% verify. My last eviction was 18 years ago. During Covid i collected 100% of my rents. I currently have a moving out PITA but my abundance of before pictures is in my favor.

I'm at the point that I'd rather keep a property vacant than take a chance on someone who's short a few marbles. I do come across those youthful beginners who have limited job history, limited income, limited savings and limited credit history. But they graduated college while holding down a job to support themselves. Have little to no debt and can hold a meaningful conversation. They have pride in themselves, take care of what they have and understand the value of a good days work and the value of a buck. For a hard worker not on government assistance and the above I'll rent them an "B" apartment. I've seen them grow, move out and become a success in life.

Scott,

If you do not trust your gut anymore, then what do you trust?

I know some LL's who put all of their trust in Fico scores and anyone above 700 is automatically accepted without reservations.

A lot of what may be described as "gut feeling" may have been lead by verbal/physical cues.

The way someone turns a phrase. The "is that all?" sort of entitlement attitude.

The desperation which is a sheer turn off. I don't even get past the first few sentences when someone immediately presents a hard luck story or parfum de desesperement.

My Gut is always the final decision - But give your gut TIME to say YES this is the one - Do NOT Hurry your gut feeling.

Look for red flags and acknowledge those flags.

Like you, I started out screening fairly rudimentary. I did do a credit check and tried to confirm income, but that was about it.

Like you, I've since become much better and more thorough. While not every tenancy ends well, I'm batting over 95%. Pretty decent industry average for an "amateur" who doesn't do this full time and learned most things by trial and error.

Here's what I've found: when my "gut" tells me something is wrong, it's because something definitely is wrong. There's no mystic force at work: there's something legitimately bad that--if I look int he right places--I will find 99% of the time.

Can people hide and lie? Certainly. Will I catch them always? Certainly NO!

But! It's much harder to lie when the truth is in plain sight. How do we find the truth that is in plain sight?

1) Credit report.

2) Criminal background report.

3) Land lord reference (current and previous), if available.

4) Confirm income. It's their job to prove to MY satisfaction that their income is sufficient and stable.

5) Social media research. Oh, the things they POST for the world to see, including me! Can't find them? Make it part of your application process that they send you an instant message on Facebook. That will get you to their page. Again, it is THEIR JOB to provide me the info I need to research them. Offer them $5 off the app fee if you want to create an incentive, or just require it. The folks who are good will do it. The folks are bad will make excuses about "privacy", etc regarding a platform so public that someone from the other side of the world can find them off, if they have the time. I don't have the time, so I require they send me a quick "ping".

And finally, the one you KNEW was coming!!!!

6) The 2-minute in home inspection, which some of us on this site swear by and which others either ignore or just swear (ha ha, that's a funny)! The place a person lives will tell you 1,000 pictures and "stories" worth of information. Failing to do it is planning to fail, in my book now.

When I have done ALL SIX, and ALL SIX are good, I have NEVER had a bad tenancy. Ever. Not. Even. ONCE.

So the question now is: are you doing all these things and still getting a bad "gut" feeling about the resident? If you have done all of these things and the tenant still had to be evicted, what was the reason for the eviction that did now show up on the above 6 items? I'm always up for improving my techniques, and the way to do that is put a name on what makes the "gut" uneasy. I would bet you a 24-case of Coors that there's something quantifiable we've been labeling as "gut" instinct because for one reason or another, we've not scoped it out thoroughly.

One more thing... we HAVE to quantify our "gut" feeling at some point, because.... you guessed it. The Govt will punish you if you don't and you offend someone who is in a protected class. Imagine this: you deny an applicant of a certain "marginalized" group, which today is almost everyone. Literally. In a recent class I took by a local expert property manager, even denying a person because they are SHORT would create a "disparate impact" on women, who as a group tend to be short. I am not making this up.

They call and complain to the Govt. You get a nice little "invitation" to court. Opposing you is a squad of Govt-funded lawyers, the ACLU, and whatever else lawyer feels like skinning an evil land lord.

Attorney: "Your honor, we can prove this land lord violated my client's fair housing rights. What criteria did they use to deny my client?"

LL: "It just didn't feel right."

Judge: "You committed illegal discrimination against this person and expect me to believe that? Judgement for the plaintiff."

We MUST quantify our "gut feeling"... or roll the dice and pray you don't ever deny anyone with a grudge against LLs.

I say it again: EVERY gut feeling has a reason grounded in reality. My job is to FIND THE REASON, and with the current crop of applicants, it's often not hard. Look at the credit report. 50% of applicants fail right there. Look at the background. Another 20-30% fail there. Verify income is SUFFICIENT and STABLE. Another 10-20% fail there.

It's TOO EASY to deny the ones that make you feel un-comfy for VALID, LEGAL reasons. My guess is most of the "gut feeling" going on today is shoddy screening in reality, passed off with "gut feeling" as an excuse for why full due diligence was not done.

Tell me what tenant you screened that met ALL SIX of the criteria above and still failed to perform...then tell me what was the cause that wasn't covered. Anything other than illness or job loss, which you can't screen for, is 99.99% likely due to insufficient screening.

I am never 100% confident about a tenant. They can always surprise or disappoint me.

I try not to trust my gut and use my process to weed out the bad apples.

One of you famously said - look for reasons to disqualify not reasons to qualify.

As others have said, it is up to them to prove they are finacially and morally responsible to be able to take care of SFH.

In my case, gut feeling counts for a lot. I rent mostly to middle-class tenants, able to pay and with middle-class values. I put a high premium on at least an A.B. degree (not the degree itself, but the personality and background). I can spot one from a distance of one mile. Other than that, I need to check credit report (expect NO derogatories), do they work where they claim to work, do they have a position commensurate with a college degree (if not, why not), previous landlord has the same impression with experience. Life became a lot easier when I finally made this a policy.

Sid,

ALL of MY APPLICANTS (which are Class C and D) COME WITH MUTLIPLE RED FLAGS ATTACHED TO THEM. And they ALL have lousy credit histories/scores too.

I really wish I had Moshe's tenant pool of college educated applicants but that is just not the case here due to the Class C and D hoods my houses are in.

Roy,

To answer the question you asked me:

All of mine are also in C/D neighborhoods. I rarely see an application with a 700 fico score. It's far more likely that I will end up with a stack of 30+ applications that belong in the trash can. So I started asking questions that help me determine how cooperative an applicant will be as a tenant.

I'm like Ken. If your gut tells you No, then it is a No. If your gut tells you Yes, then time to do more research including credit report and so on.

Don't "trust your guy" to accept someone that you haven't fully vetted normally anyhow.

Scott,

Jason I applaud you.

Altho I credit myself with being more than thorough, my gut has been pretty good to me. A good many have been likeable in the past, and clever or so they thought.

Jason I applaud you.

Altho I credit myself with being more than thorough, my gut has been pretty good to me. A good many have been likeable in the past, and clever or so they thought.

glitch...

...the application looked fine but didn't include where they were living now. So I asked and let them talk. Turns out per their landlord, they were hold overs for 2 weeks at the time, still living there, with two cats where no pets were allowed.

I got the facts...next!

Using gut is my weakness too, but when dealing with folks who all have issues you have to discriminate among them.

In home visits are crucial…I do section 8 and they go through some degree of selection process to be awarded a voucher. I check facebook, criminal record check, make sure they have a valid drivers license, past landlord,

Roy, I'm really confused my friend. You're asking me "how do I deny people with multiple red flags.... all my people come with multiple red flag."

Um... you deny based on one of the multiple red flags.

To be clear: Red Flag are legitimate, legal reasons to deny someone.

"Roy's gut" is not a legitimate, legal red flag.

"Credit score of 500 due to multiple unpaid bills...being evicted right now....doesn't have a job/makes only $800 per month..." are all legitimate, legal red flags for denying an applicant.

The only time you get into trouble is if you find yourself in front of a judge on discrimination charges and have nothing to say other than, "Your Honor, I had a bad feeling about this person. My gut told me not to rent to them." The judge will interpret that as Roy is a racist/sexist or some other "-ist" and throw the book at you. Don't let that happen!

Nope. You want to come armed to the teeth with the multiple red flags you spoke about.

Btw, I don't buy it that all your applicants have multiple red flags. If they do, something is seriously wrong. Your houses look nicer than mine, but I still find decent candidates. Not perfect obviously, but decent. Mine have "yellow" flags that can be overcome. Things like no credit (as opposed to BAD credit), first time renter, old criminal history (as opposed to currently getting busted twice a year), etc.

Find the yellow flaggers. It's going to take you longer. As many of us have said here, for every 1 vacancy, it takes at least 100-200 responses you have to sift through. 100-150 will weed themselves out during pre-screen. Of the 50 or so who pass pre-screen, 40 will never tour or apply. Of the 10 or so who do tour and apply, 5-8 will be duds. That's why your pre-screening must be quick! Use the red flags to DQ 90% quickly and efficiently. No more than 10 seconds per interested party until AFTER they tour and apply!

Eviction? DQ.

Living in a hotel? DQ.

No job or insufficient? DQ.

3 Pit bulls? DQ.

Etc.

Now, I know you like to "talk" to people. That's fine, so do I! But save it for after they've pre-screen and you've seen their application and everything looks okay on the surface. You can still have a sane life while talking to the 3-4 folks who look decent on paper. Do it while you're having your 2 minute in home inspection.

I never trust my gut when it comes to thinking positively about a prospective tenant, as I am a bit of a pushover.

But when it comes to negatively, yes. I then look for reasons to deny. Example: well-spoken woman with good qualifying income and two nicely behaved kids wants to rent our house, which is similar to the one they had before the divorce.

For some reason, my spidey sense was tingling. I checked further, and found that I could deny based on the lack of a final disposition of custody (if she didn't get the tax credit on the 1040, then she was over the qualifying percentage) and also the short period of time that she'd been on the job. I hated doing it, but I turned her down.

Fast forward a few months - I see in the paper that the former husband committed suicide just before the kids were dropped off for a weekend visit at the old house. These little girls saw Daddy and ran out screaming before Mommy drove away. Everyone was so traumatized that Mom had to quit her job, and then pretty much overstayed her welcome with a family who had taken them in "temporarily." (I was acquainted with that family - they blamed ME over making what was a deal with the woman/kids for "temporarily" become two years!) Had I rented to her, I would likely have been drawn into that drama and have had to add to it by filing for eviction once her money dried up.

Roy,

The question you ask "like why are you on disability when you seem completely healthy" would likely get you drawn and quartered in court here.Maybe it just Ma but I thought that question would be illegal in most states.

You might ask a RE lawyer about it,..

As far as trusting my gut, I used to think I was pretty good at that. But I either have lost that talent or moreover, I believe that things have changed. Some tenants are learning new things probably somewhat because of the Internet, tenants have gotten wise about how to screw the system. Some are masters at lying while looking you square in the eye.

They also know some good tricks about how to cover their past. Have you seen some of the books advertised on the Internet of how to screw your landlord? Maybe it's worth you looking at some of them.

The service that Jeffrey mentioned here. It is a good resource.

Only trust your gut when it’s telling you NO!

If your gut says yes, double check the app and verify…because people lie.

I don’ meet them. It’s pointless. They put on a show and many lie.

ANY gut feeling is not based on truth, it’s based on them trying to make a good impression or a 10 minute interaction. We cannot really KNOW them.

We deal with the prospects who fill out the entire app and pay. We KNOW their income and rental history. I don’t need to meet them.

BRAD