Three co-applicants applied last week to rent from me. After each one filled out their app answering "No, I've never been evicted or had eviction filed against me" and paying the $25 per person application fee, I quickly found all three on an eviction that began in April and was just finished with judgement in favor of the landlord for rent and possession as of May 8th. Set out date is likely this week, based on my past experience.

She sent another "I'm suuuuuper interest" response to the same property yesterday. I responded, "We've already corresponded on this"... a polite way of reminding her we'd rejected her application that very same morning.

Now, she just emailed me again through Zillow asking for an application link. What else can you do? I sent her a new link. $25 more in the kitty it sounds like.

Beer money for the month is covered.

The vast majority of renters these days seem to be low performers. I had one just apply 2 years later and my notes showed me she no showed on a tour. Nope!

I see the same names popping up every time I list a vacancy. Even though Zillow claims to have a stipulation on credit score, they ignore it. I have added the phrase "professionally managed" on some of my ads and it seems to be working. I'm getting NO replies now instead of all bad ones. LOL.

I'm with mapleaf18 on the no show. I leave them in my phone saved as "no show" and don't even bother with any future calls -- even two years later.

Sid: Nice catch on this one! In my area, it would be extremely difficult to find an eviction case that just ended 5 days ago. They probably thought most wouldn't see it on any record yet. You must have a good court system there if you're finding them when they aren't even a week old yet. Nice!

Sid,

I am curious about your applicant's Fico scores. What is your minimum fico score that you require of any applicant? Mine is 600 and it is listed in my Zillow Ads. Is yours any higher? We do have the same lousy tenant pool but just in different states.

Roy, I don't pull formal credit or background checks.

I've described my screening process before, but here goes again. I have a list of "quick DQs" that I go thru before I do anything else.

Step 1 - Did they admit to being evicted? If not, proceed.

Step 2 - Do I find them on Missouri Case.net with an eviction?

SQEEEEEEALLLLL!

That's the sound of the brakes being applied. Automatic DQ. I do not proceed. They're gone because they lied on Step 1 AND I found them being evicted on Step 2. It really wouldn't have mattered if they hadn't lied, except I would've saved 30 seconds looking them up online.

Jim,

"Applicants lie, what do they have to lose?"

$75 in application fees so far. Maybe another $75 if they really aren't paying attention to my repeat warnings and outright denial of their previous applications.

Roy,

Typo above. I DO normally pull formal credit and background, but not if I find them first in my informal check. There's no reason to spend money pulling the formal check if it's just going to tell me what I already know.

Sid,

Since you do pull formal credit reports with Fico scores, what is the minimum score you will not give an immediate DQ to?

Agree with John on this one. Applicant is working frantically to sign a lease before the eviction shows up on public record.

Roy, the score is irrelevant. It's what is on the report that matters. I do not have any "minimum" score for either DQ or acceptance. That said, I'll give an example of what I generally find when researching the report.

More than 2 currently active collection accounts: DQ.

More than 2 charge off accounts in the past 2 year: DQ.

More than 3 account past due: DQ.

Someone in any one of those conditions typically is a 550 or lower. But I've also seen someone with a 550 who had only one small past due account. I think it was $50 or so from a revolving line with a $500 limit. She didn't have any other accounts, so that one thing trashed her score.

Likewise, one time I had an applicant with a 760 score who had one small credit card paid on time and a store card she hadn't gotten a bill from in over a year. Go figure.

Scores are meaningless. The information is important.

Roy, I don't have a minimum score either. I rent to a lot of first-time renters: straight out of college, or newly employed with a good job for the first time ever (Coast Guard, nurses, teachers, nowadays the trades are coming back yay.)

WMH,