finding previous Landlords as part of tenant screening (tenants, property, credit report)

[vkazman]

Hello,

Many people suggest to call to one or two previous landlords prior to taking a tenant. My question is how to find these landlords? While doing background check, I can find previous addresses only, I think, and not landlord's names and phone numbers.
I can ask this information from the prospective tenants, but they can give me potentially any names they want.

I appreciate your help.

Regards,
Vad

[MrRational]

Stop working so hard.
The onus is on the applicant to provide you with useful contact information for their references.
If they don't (or can't) supply useful contact information then that in itself is telling.

The minimum would be their current LL and the one immediately prior.
If there are more than X in Y years (2 LL's in 5 years?)... then that is telling in itself.

The far more difficult thing is how to determine if what these prior LL's say is meaningful to you.
Which gets you back to having objective data sources like credit reports to cross check.

[Zippyman]

Originally Posted by vkazman

Hello,

Many people suggest to call to one or two previous landlords prior to taking a tenant. My question is how to find these landlords? While doing background check, I can find previous addresses only, I think, and not landlord's names and phone numbers.
I can ask this information from the prospective tenants, but they can give me potentially any names they want.

I appreciate your help.

Regards,
Vad

I think the trick you're looking to avoid is having a tenant give you a friend's number instead of their actual landlord...

one tip is not to call the phone number they give you, but to look up the landlord's name in the white/yellow pages yourself.

In many areas you can look up the taxpayer (landlord's) name by the property address...

You can also call the number and say you work for "rent-a-center" and you're looking for (tenant's name)... a friend is likely to "clam up" and deny any knowledge of the person...

[vkazman]

Thank to all