I was doing my biannual business review of the rentals. In essence, I spend a few hours looking over records and statistics looking for the bigger picture. Things like what's working, what trends do I see, what do I need to shore-up. It's a process of working on the business rather than working in the business for just a few hours on a regular basis. It helps me improve my business little by little.

As I was looking through tenant records, one of the places my mind took me was less obvious traits (which are buried in the data). Those that distinguish good tenants from bad tenants. Here's a few I spotted. Please feel free to add to the list. As you do, I challenge you to begin thinking about how you can improve your screening process with better fidelity based on the differentiating traits.

Good tenants pay rent early (some up to a month early) when they have a little extra cash show up in their pockets.

Bad tenants take a trip to Vegas to reward themselves when a little extra cash shows up and then are broke and late the next month.

Good tenants call the police to break up a loud party next door at 2 in the morning and simply give me a heads up so I am aware later.

Bad tenants expect me to solve the problem for them (it was not a party on my property) and I have to redirect them to the police.

Good tenants never miss an appointment with my maintenance folks.

Bad tenants have at least 1 missed appointment the last year.

I intend to update my previous landlord reference questions to incorporate some of this. For example. Instead of asking if a tenant is current on rent. I will replace with "Which best describes the majority of rent payments made by the tenant the last few months they rented from you: 1)Before the date due, 2)On the date due, 3)after the date due." That will give me more fidelity into the actual traits I'm looking for. I will also revise the question about service calls to catch missed appointments.

I was toying with adding some Emotional Intelligence questions of the applicant but I'm afraid the invasiveness would put off some good applicants so I'm tabling it for now. It would also be tough to do without them eliciting AI's help answering which would defeat the whole point.

Here's an example of what a question could look like:

Tell me how you would handle the following situation: Your neighbor next door whom you've met once is having a very loud party in the backyard late at night which is prohibiting your family from sleeping. What would you do?

We did this style of interviewing at my day job back in the day and it was quite useful in seeing what behaviors an applicant would bring into the work environment.

Thank you, MikeA, and thanks for the examples.

Recall a time when there was a conflict between you and a neighbor. How did this conflict get resolved.

--------

I like hearing your thought process about working on your business. I know I make more money and get more time when I make a weekly log of things I do, and how much money I make by doing them.

As 6X: Communication.

A good tenant gets back to me within the day, almost immediately, not just when they need service.

A bad tenant does not contact me for service but tries to do it themselves, making matters worse (i.e., plumbing, electrical, appliance repair)

A good tenant details what may have led up to a service need.

A bad tenant just texts can you check out the xxxxx?

A good tenant takes care of their own problems.

Don't worry about turning off good tenants with personality profile questions.

Good tenants cooperate and do whatever is asked of them.

3 ‘You shoulds’. If they get up to three times whee they had a’better suggestion ‘better idea’ during the application process, they likely over-estimate their knowledge, skills, abilities, and probably would drive me nuts. I have a friend that does this, and I can only take them in measured doses. And, when we get together, there is a frequent griping about how bosses or waitresses or neighbors do things wrong. I corrected this friend enough that I don’t get the ‘you shoulds’ directed at me, but did previously.

I had a friend what was a you should have user as well.

Had not seen him in years, then he found me and started showing up. The last time we had met I didn't own any RE.

He started off telling me how I should run my little empire, all the while complaining about how he doesn't like his W2, never has time for anything and never has the money for the things he wants.

He finally got a clue and stopped showing up. Didn't take long for the wife and I to remember why we didn't stay in touch.

859 posts to this thread before mine.