Need advice on selecting tenant (apartments, rental, security deposit, credit score)

[tianwaifeixian]

Just got an application. The rent is $1600. Tenant shows $8000 as pretax monthly income. The credit score is 646 according to tenantbackgroundsearch.com. What concerns me is that the tenant has 10k student loan (national collegiate trust) in collection and 7-8 medical bill collections with amount of several thousands. And the tenant also has about 190k active student loan. Any suggestions on whether I can rent to this person or not?

Thanks a lot

[BC1960]

This belongs on the real estate board.

[michgc]

He has bills in collection? Pass

[oregonwoodsmoke]

What do his current and prior landlords say about him?

Can you go by where he lives now and see how well he cares for the place?

I don't accept roommates or parents as landlord references and you have to verify that you are talking to the real landlord

[AZ Manager]

Collections or current/recent late payment histories are a pass for me but I can be extremely picky.

[Mr_Geek]

Collections is a pass. Depends on the market though. Here it's a landlord's market so they can be picky.

[tianwaifeixian]

Now the market is slow. The application we got all having some issue on the credit history. Even though our property is in a very decent location:-(

We have rejected 3 applications so far due to poor credit history or collection history.

Ideally we'd not rent to this person. But we have to pay for vacancies. So I'd like to know a little more about what are the things I really need to care about and what are the things that maybe ok. I heard ppl say tha medical collection is ok. Some ppl say student loan collection is ok too but some say default on student loan is a big thing. So we do want to know more about it. We are in the process of checking previous landlord. They were apartments.

[Mr_Geek]

Rental history MIGHT allow me to overlook medical debt in collections. See if you can get ahold of their most recent landlord.

[tianwaifeixian]

Originally Posted by Mr_Geek

Rental history MIGHT allow me to overlook medical debt in collections. See if you can get ahold of their most recent landlord.

thanks! How about student loan collection? Someone says it is huge deal some days it is not. By the way, this person has around 5k balance in bank account

[adjusterjack]

Originally Posted by tianwaifeixian

Just got an application. The rent is $1600. Tenant shows $8000 as pretax monthly income. The credit score is 646 according to tenantbackgroundsearch.com. What concerns me is that the tenant has 10k student loan (national collegiate trust) in collection and 7-8 medical bill collections with amount of several thousands. And the tenant also has about 190k active student loan. Any suggestions on whether I can rent to this person or not?

Given that the prospective tenant makes $8000 per month gross income and has $5000 in the bank I would take a large security deposit, at least the equivalent of two months rent if your state law allows it, with the express provision that a security deposit cannot be used as rent.

The trouble with being in the landlord business is that, no matter how good prospective tenants look financially, they can always go belly up and leave you with an uncollectible judgment.