Applicant Screening

Attracting good qualified tenants is the name of the game! It is our goal to create a good tenant/landlord relationship. This will help you to both receive rent on-time and encourages the tenant to keep the property in a well maintained condition. Moreover, if we find a good tenant, and they like living in the home, they become a long term tenant. Long term tenancy reduces the vacancy rate, which in turn increases your profit.

There are two types of tenants out there. We call them Type A and Type B tenants. Type A tenants are similar to a real estate buyer: they are highly motivated tenant; they are educated on the market; and, they know that a property management company will have many more options to choose from. These tenants expect to pay for a property management company.

Type B tenants have less than perfect credit; they rarely have enough money for their 1st month’s rent plus security deposits; they may want to negotiate shorter leases; and, sometimes they don’t take good care of the property. These types of tenants will often move other tenants in; they may have criminal backgrounds; and, past evictions.

Type B tenants won’t normally call a property management company because they know how hard we will scrutinize their file, their credit, and their background. At RE/MAX Specialist property management, TEAM Swanson only does our best to present you Type A tenants. When a prospective tenant is interested in your property, we require an application from each adult over 18-years of age that will be living at the property. We then screen each application for:

 Credit history from Experian and Equifax

 Credit summary

 Risk score model

 FICO score

 Fraud search

 Eviction search

 Bad check search

 Bankruptcies

 Driver's license verification

 Employment verification

 Income verification

Preparing Your Home To Lease

Renting out a home is no different than selling a home. Prospective tenants are going to look at several homes before choosing one. You owe it to yourself to make your home show the best that it can. Proper staging is crucial when showing a home.

Staging a home is about creating an illusion. It is beyond decorating and cleaning. It is about perfecting the art of mood setting. Staging makes your home look bigger, brighter, cleaner, warmer, more loving, and it makes tenants want to rent your home. Staging is all about what you do after everything has been cleaned, painted, clutter cleared away, minor repairs made; it is all about dressing the home for sale, the samething goes as for leasing.

We can help. Upon listing your home, we can conduct an inspection of your property and highlight the features that will help assure that it is rented out quickly and for maximum dollars.

Security Deposits

We always require a security deposit from your tenant. The security deposit is used to make repairs to the property, if any are required,

at the time the tenant moves out. The minimum security deposit we will collect is equal to one month's rent. In addition, if you allow pets in your rental, we will collect an additional security deposit equal to $250 per pet. The security deposit received from the tenant will be held in our RE/MAX Security Deposit Trust Account until your tenant moves out.