One of the many questions Beaverton, Oregon, landlords have about their property is how can they prevent crimes from happening in their properties. One of the things I tell them is to make sure you screen your tenants very carefully!
How can you do this? In my
opinion, one of the biggest mistakes landlords make in screening
tenants is to
call the potential tenant’s current landlord. If you have
a bad tenant and
someone calls and says they are thinking about moving into their
property, are
you going to tell them they are bad or let them move out of your
property and
let them become someone else’s problem?
This is why I suggest you
contact the two landlords prior to the present one.
These landlords have nothing to lose or gain by telling you the truth
about
their past tenant and you usually get the real hard honest truth about
them by
doing this and that can save you a very big headache later.
There are a lot of other ways to protect yourself from bad tenants and from having crime happen in your property. This is where the Beaverton Police Department and a local lawyer have teamed and together. On the first Wednesday of the month, at 6:30pm at Beaverton City Hall, you can come to their totally free forum and learn how to become a smarter and more successful landlord!
For more information on the forum, feel free to contact:
Officer Gregg
Magnus
Beaverton Police
Department
PO Box 4755,
Beaverton, OR 97076
W: (503) 526-2516 E: gmagnus@ci.beaverton.or.us
Todd Clark - Broker / Sales Coach
Palazzo Realty Group
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739
Todd,
Great start. Lenders never except the word of the current landlord. Not even recites from the landlord will prove anything. We demand canceled checks. The reason is simple if you turn the applicant down he might not move and I could be stuck with him!
I'm not sure of the previous landlords ether For many years I was sectary of the Kalamazoo Concern Landlords and we had to give up our problem list and advise our members not to report anything that wasn't in the public record.
Get a credit report, check the public record and drivers license, if possible show up at their current address! It's a nuance but nothing compared to the hassle of a bad tenant and evictions! I read on AR recently that a landlord would walk potently tenants to their car to look inside, thinking they'll be good tenants if even the inside of an old car was clean, it was new to me.
Bill
Todd ---- that is a great idea --- contact the 2 previous landlords --- you are always coming up with great solutions.
Getting the right tenant is the biggest challenge I found the trick of going back a few landlords to get accurate info a few years ago a good way to get the real info on a person
Todd
Good information you have posted.
Our property management division is very careful to screen tenants and particularly criminal activities. Also the police have gone out of their way here to assist in "cleaning up" some problem properties...they make a statement by making a repeated presence until the crooks finally go away..
I never heard of landlord lessons, how unique, that is truly a good public service because there are so many laws regarding tenancy they need one just to know how to do it legally.
Hi Todd... what a GREAT idea. Thanks for sharing this tip with us all!
I love the idea of checking out their car, because you are so right, the car is an extension of the home!