I have been noticing that it is a whole lot harder now to get tenants to prescreen, and it seems that a lot of you on here may be experiencing the same thing.

I am thinking that they may have learned that they are screening themselves out.

What are your thoughts about it?

I don't know if people are refusing to pre-screen. They can't reach me unless they do, so I only hear from the ones who cooperate.

NE, when the inquire on Zillow they get an automated response to a link to prescreen. And if they inquire on Turbo Tenant (actually through whatever 3rd party) I would message them to send an email to prescreen. Both of those also ask the tenants to prescreen and lots of times the don't. Now I try to text them for prescreen and it works better for results but takes forever and sometimes they won't due that either.

Jason, it won't let me post the link here, but it is a Google form.

Pre-Screen Form

* Indicates required question

Email?

How did you hear about our property?

Full Name / Phone Number

Full Name of any other adults that will be residing in the home.

Are you new to the area? If yes, where are you coming from?

Do you rent now and are you current on your rent?

What is the reason that you are moving?

Is your monthly Net (after tax) income at least $5000.00?

Were you ever EVICTED or asked to move out of a house you were renting?

Have you EVER had a judgment placed against you?

Have you EVER filed for bankruptcy?

How many will be living in the house?

Do you generally Smoke or vape inside of the home or do you go outside?

Requested move in date?

What type of animals do you have? (please list, breed, weight, and age)

I ask one question, "how's your credit?", getting an answer is less than 50/50.

I don't need a number, I don't need specifics, I don't need a long story, in fact "good" has never steered me wrong, people who are brief have good credit.

I prescreen a couple people and eventually make an appointment to show the place tomorrow evening at 6pm. Once I do that, I don't pre-screen, I just schedule people for 5:45 or 6:15. Sometimes I can get 3 or 4 back to back. Then I screen them in person. Hit rate to get these people to show is 2-3x better than when I prescreen.

I have tried and DON"T believe in a tenant going thru their own Screening process. This will allow them to look up codes, laws and statutes designed to help potential tenants dupe their landlords.

For example, here in California, Los Angeles, many things are illegal to ask the applicant. If it's on a form and they due a google search, they will be able to omit these questions/answers and then file discrimination claims if I refuse to rent to them. My bad!

Instead I hold common open house showings, two a week per apartment,sometimes 3 a week for a single family home.

I am still pre-screening with my application.

I do not charge for the application as I do not run credit checks. Once I do I am sure it will all change.

Since I am in a backwater part of the world I do not get a large amount of inquiries. I can spend a couple of minutes checking the free state database for civil and criminal history.

As of right now I have one empty that I am working on. I have a tenant for it as soon as I am done.

I have two more that are coming open. One my son is in. He is dragging his feet about fully moving to his new place 40 minutes away. That's fine. He pays under market, but I can't work on it right now anyhow. The other soon to be open asked for another 30 days as her new house is still being worked on.

Thank you,

I don't except Zillow applications, but Zillow ask them to fill out a prescreen and so does Turbo Tenant without my input.

I accept Zillow apps, I just don't trust them.

They are good for a faster DQ.

I have a canned response telling them they need to go to my website and get my application. If they so not then it is on them for poor communications. I can browse the Zillow app and decide if I want to even send them the link to my application.

Are you getting many inquiries but just not getting anybody to fill out the form or are you just not getting any hits period?

If you're getting inquiries, then it's time to drop back and punt: Review your process from a tenant's perspective from beginning to end. Is there anything in there that would throw up a red flag to make them think you're a scammer? What is the content of the automated reply they receive? Does it redirect them to an easy to remember website or does it ask them to click on a link to your form (A link that zillow disables on their end, so the link will never work).

I would guess for the ones that do fill it out, they only provide a fraction of the information that you request. In my experience, you have to ask each question individually or they'll just skip it.

Thank you, Jason.

I am not getting as many inquiries as I used to get a few years back. I believe partly to all the new apartments being built.

On the inquiries that I do get, on Zillow anyway, they get an automatic reply asking them to click on the link to my prescreen form. Sometimes I will get someone that says the link doesn't work, at which point I send them a message to email me for the link. Sometimes they follow through and sometimes they don't. However, other times people will use the link that is automated on Zillow and seem to have no problems using it. This makes me think that the others are just trying to avoid the screening process.

According to one landlord in NH (Lumberjack Landlord) the new builds are practically giving them away with $99 move in specials (no sec dep) and 2 months free rent. However he notes that his lowest performing tenants have decided to move out of his units into the new builds.

Some video about the effects of the 3% rent stabilization program in St. Paul MN from 2022 (they amended it earlier this year because it was having such a poor impact on the local housing economy--- being able to compare Minneapolis to St. Paul was very helpful in highlighting the direct effects). One thing about the St. Paul rent control thing was that it did not exempt new build from those restrictions--- and the result was that so many construction projects were getting cancelled because of the shift in the rules.

It was mentioned that in TX, rent control is specifically against the state constitution, so similar cities in our state-- like Austin-- weren't able to take that approach for managing its housing. Instead, the local authorities had to take the "let's build more housing and increase the supply" approach--- and that worked to bring prices down much better than rent control did.

That is another thing around here, in that the local government and media have been pushing affordable housing and incentivizing new builds.

I just write in my Zillow listing that everyone has to fill out my application. I then give the biz web addy, without the dot com. I figure that most people should realize how to get there.

Did a Google search for just the name. They tried to change it to something else but asked if I wanted to search for the biz name anyhow. That linked up with my site.

When I tried to load the dot com into the Zillow ad they kicked it. (I use the free listing) This and a picture of the sign I put in the window with the site name on it seems to work.

The last place I filled had tenants who had been there 13 years I think. It was a complex of single story multi's. The management must be from a big city or another state as they decided to bump rents by a lot in this area.

My people are happier with me, plus they are saving a little money as well.

Of course every area is different, but I answer the phone and have a very simple pre-screen that is done over the phone and doesn't seem to upset anyone. They mostly think we are just chatting. Still I had very few applicants and one house was vacant for two months and the other one, three months. I had very few people come out to look at them. The house that took three months had exactly two showings.

So, I don't know how the pr-screen online affects your number of applicants, but whatever the problem is, the prescreen can't be all of it.

There are multiple things at play here. Over priced rents is one of them. Even most the folks that do actually apply barely make enough to cover 2.5X rent on my rent that is below most others and they don't have move-in cost.

As I mention in another string, I have four apartments to rent. After wasting a few weeks with pre-screening, I've abandoned it and have gone strictly to an open house model over the past couple of weeks. I've not rented the apartments yet. I have had a decent number of showings. I thought I had one rented, but that fell through this week. That was the one referral from the realtor.

At this point, I do prefer the open house set up as it takes less time and I can still screen effectively. You still get flakes though. I've had a least three people who've said they'd complete an application and then crickets.

The jury is still out, but the way I'm doing it, the tenant still needs to put forth an effort. My time commitment is limited to sending canned responses and invites to open house and the time at the open house.

As I mention in another string, I have four apartments to rent. After wasting a few weeks with pre-screening, I've abandoned it and have gone strictly to an open house model over the past couple of weeks. I've not rented the apartments yet. I have had a decent number of showings. I thought I had one rented, but that fell through this week. That was the one referral from the realtor.

At this point, I do prefer the open house set up as it takes less time and I can still screen effectively. You still get flakes though. I've had a least three people who've said they'd complete an application and then crickets.

The jury is still out, but the way I'm doing it, the tenant still needs to put forth an effort. My time commitment is limited to sending canned responses and invites to open house and the time at the open house.

Thank you for that reminder, GKARL, and for the descriptions.