How To Choose Between Prospective Tenants- Which?

Funny story.

In my latest tenant-find escapades, I strategically narrowed my shortlist down to two wonderful prospects. But I made a right pig’s ear out of the situation, because I somehow said “yes” to both applicants. Needless to say, sorting that mess out was a right awkward palava, but it’s another story for another time!

Tenant referencing: DONE!

Just to clarify, in order to get to this stage (choosing between multiple promising prospective tenants), the presumption is that the remaining shortlist all passed a thorough rectal examination (a.k.a referencing), including:

• Credit checks
• Previous landlord reference
• Employer reference
• Face-to-face interaction

If not, then that should be your starting point. It will be one of the best and most efficient ways of whittling down your list of prospective tenants. You can read my complete guide on tenant referencing to help you get started.

Don’t fall for any gimmicks or incentives!

My first tip would be not to get swayed by superficial gimmicks or incentives that tenants may offer in order to win you over (often happens in a heated rental market). For example:

• Several months rent upfront
• Larger deposits
• Guarantee of a long-term tenancy
• Willing to pay above the odds

While they’re all certainly appealing incentives, and shouldn’t be entirely ignored, the important point to note is that they don’t necessarily result or correlate with the quality of tenant you’ll end up with.

Simply, the better tenant may not be in a position to exceed their budget, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

This is completely anecdotal, but in the past I’ve been proven right by being suspicious of generous incentives.

If you’re using a letting agent

I don’t use traditional high-street letting agents to source tenants or manage my rental properties anymore, I’m completely self-managing, and fully reliant on sourcing tenants from online letting agents.

However, that wasn’t always the case. There was a time when I didn’t know any better, so I was eager to hand over large sums of cash to my local agent to fully manage my properties. I used to wholeheartedly believe that was the “convenient” solution. Perhaps it still is for many landlords, but that certainly wasn’t my experience.

Ultimately, after years of good and bad experiences with my management agent, I realised that they’re just as able as I am at finding bottom-of-the-barrel, deadbeat tenants, capable of pushing me to the verge of suicide.

What I mean is, even those that we deem as the “professionals” managed to fill my vacancies with shocking tenants, even after allegedly passing strict referencing protocols. And I’m not throwing shade on agents, I’m simply saying that no one gets it right 100% of the time.

If I was personally still using my local high-street agent to manage my affairs, I wouldn’t leave it entirely in their hands to make the final decision on who gets to live in my property. I would look over the applicants and conduct my own analysis. Arguably, that beats the purpose of paying through the nose for a management service, which I completely understand, but what I’ve learned over the years is that no one cares about my property/investment as much as I do, which inherently means I’m likely to make better decisions (especially because I’m not incentivised by a cash-grab).

So, if you can, get involved and have your say, even if that entails having a conversation with the most promising applicants [determined by your agent] over the phone.

My single best tip: use your gut instinct and intuition

The reality is, if you’re still confused by your options after you’ve exhausted all the tools you have available during the referencing and screening process, the only remaining heavy artillery is your perception and gut instinct.

I know, I know, and believe you me, I can hear your disappointment. After all that, “you’re telling us to use our bowels”

Yes, I am, and that’s not a bad thing either. I’ve been a landlord for over a decade now, and it didn’t take me long to discover that my gut is the most effective tool when it comes to referencing tenants, and more often than not it’s yielded great results.

The single best decision a landlord can make before accepting any tenants is to meet and greet them (preferably during the viewings), and establish whether or not you can build a good rapport with a particular applicant. Sometimes you just “click” with someone and everything becomes clear. There’s never been a case where I’ve had the exact same chemistry between two applicants when interacting. I’m not saying that one has always been better than the other, but they have certainly been “different”

There is no substitute for human interaction, it’s so very telling. That’s precisely why I personally conduct all my tenant viewings, and recommend for all landlords to do the same if possible.

I’ve actually written another blog post on the topic of Early Signs Of Potentially Awful Tenants, which nicely supplements what I’m saying. In short, it’s a list of observations I’ve made during viewings, which effectively made me think twice about the applicants. These are observations no referencing or screening tool would have unearthed. For example:

• Late arrivals (with no apology or attempts to provide pre-warning)
• Dirty footwear and no intention of removing them before entering the premises
• Applicants with poor visible poor hygiene
• Poor communication skills

You’re never going to get it right all the time

There really is no silver-solution bullet to finding and choosing good tenants, if there was, bad tenants wouldn’t exist.

But as I touched in earlier, we can all do our best to stack the odds in our favour to avoid disaster. And in my opinion, we’re onto a pretty good start by:

• Thoroughly referencing tenants
• Being involved with the process
• Using our gut instincts and perception

Nothing ground-breaking by any means, but hopefully I’ve managed to provide food for thought.

Happy hunting, friends xoxo

P.s. I’ve updated this blog post from its original form, so some of the comments below may seem totally bizarre and out of context, and quite frankly, ridiculous. My first iteration of this blog post covered more of the details regarding my absolute balls-up of accepting two different tenants: a sweet old lady (with absolutely gigantic knockers) and a family of three, which consisted of an outrageously attractive daughter. Seemingly, it distracted folks from the actual point of my blog post.