As a rental property owner, it’s only natural to want the best of the best when it comes to selecting tenants. After all, tenants can make or break your rental business. However, you have many responsibilities to handle on the regular including dealing with non-payments, routine property maintenance, perhaps a full-time job, and your family life. All of this can be quite overwhelming. But we’re here to tell you not to skimp out on investing in a solid tenant screening process. You’ve invested a lot of time and money into your rental property – so why not use tenant screening to protect that financial investment?

Here are the Top 5 Reasons Landlords Screen Tenants

Screening Tenants Protects Other Tenants and the Community
Whether you have other tenants on the same property or not, tenant screening can help keep your local community safe. Renting to someone with a violent criminal history can endanger other tenants and/or neighbors. The saying “past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior” certainly rings true here. Reviewing each potential tenant’s criminal history is an easy, inexpensive way to help minimize your risk of renting to a dangerous person.

Screening Tenants Minimizes Your Risk of Getting Sued
In today’s litigious society, people sue at the drop of a hat! As a landlord, you are required to follow state and federal regulations regarding screening a tenant. You can easily take the guesswork (or added hours of research) out of the process by utilizing a tenant screening service designed for landlords. Working with a professional tenant screening service guarantees compliance and protects landlords from potential trouble down the road.

Screening Tenants Reduces the Risk of Property Damage.
Tenants have complete access to your property. That means they could cause thousands of dollars of damage and leave you with the bill. A thorough tenant screening process allows you to look at the person’s prior eviction records to see if and when the tenant was evicted for property damage. By screening applicants for any criminal history of property damage you can substantially reduce your liabilities and better protect your property.

 Screening Tenants Saves You Money.
The ideal tenant is someone who pays rent on time and takes care of your property. Unfortunately, not all tenants are ideal. Sometimes, terrible tenants inhabit your property, and you find yourself dealing with the eviction process and all associated costs. Between time, damages, court costs, and having to pay the mortgage until a new tenant arrives, an eviction can easily financially strap a landlord. Reviewing a tenant credit report can steer you away from tenants with shoddy financials, helping you to avoid the eviction process altogether.

Screening Tenants Verifies the Tenant’s Credibility.
In a perfect world, your property would be filled with honest tenants who paid on time, caused no property damage, and were friendly to the neighbors. You may initially think someone checks all those boxes, but keep in mind many people tend to present themselves in a better light during interviews. Cross-checking facts is a great reason to run a tenant screening report.

Have no idea where to start but are now convinced you need a tenant screening process? We’ve got you covered with a very affordable tenant screening product ideal for landlords who don’t manage hundreds of properties.

Smart Landlords Screen Tenants with SmartMove
SmartMove, a convenient tenant screening service, is This service makes it painless for landlords to run an online tenant credit check, eviction history, and criminal background check in minutes. The landlord simply emails a screening request to an applicant, the applicant authorizes screening by providing personal information online and SmartMove sends the landlord the tenant’s credit check, criminal, eviction, and Income Insights reports. This solution removes the hassle of compiling each of these reports separately and carrying the burden of protecting the prospective tenant’s personal identifying information.

Landlords can enjoy free account signup and take advantage of pay-as-you-go rental screening services, the cost of which you can always pass off to prospective tenants. Regardless of whether you use SmartMove or piecemeal the tenant screening steps together yourself; you are likely to enjoy more time, better profit margins, and a happier experience for everyone involved!

You can learn more about SmartMove by clicking here.