Nobody has a perfect rental application — we get it, we’re all human!
You’ve likely been directed to this page because you let us know about some extenuating circumstances that you’re concerned about for your rental application. We have heard it all, from divorce, to identity theft, bad prior landlord, etc. So just be upfront and we’ll try to work with you. But we also are really good at discovering when someone just has an excuse versus a reason.
This page is designed to help answer those questions for you.
FIRST: If you told us before or during your application that you’ve got some issues that will come up during the application — THANK YOU — the value of you being proactive about bringing up these issues is not only helpful, but helps start off the landlord/tenant relationship on the right foot.
SECOND: Know that we do verify everything in your application, and by you putting down any detail you’re giving us permission to verify it. We will call/email or otherwise contact your employers, former landlords, etc. We will review your credit history, etc.
THIRD: We believe in giving people opportunities to explain things that do not add up on our end, or things that simply don’t make sense. We are humans and understand that things happen, but help us understand the whole picture.
Now with that out of the way, here are some (but not all) of the ways we evaluate our tenants for their application. It is okay to be deficient in some areas if you make up for it in others. We use an objective measuring system to ensure that prospective tenant meet our requirements.
- Can everything on the application be verified?
- Credit score: lowest and average scores, total calculated monthly payments, DTI, percentage of late payments, number of recently late payments, collection actions (medical debt is excluded)
- Income stability: includes length with current employer and overall lenght in industry/job
- Employment reference: includes job title, length of employment, current pay, and expected changes to pay/title/hours.
- Housing stability: how long have they lived at their current location, and how long have they lived in the area
- Housing reference: number of late payments, complaints from neighbors, damage to property, did they break lease, did they receive their full cleaning deposit, verify date and rental amounts
- Public record search including evictions, bankrupcies and criminal records. (NOTE: A criminal record does not automatically result in a rejection, as each applicant is evaluated individually)
Also see:
Credit Reports are generated either by Zillow or Avail depending on which application system the applicant selects. They may pull from different credit reporting agencies, but are genearlly considered to present a similiar applicant profile and no consideration is given to either method of application. During the application process you will be provided the name of the credit reporting agency in use at that time.