The Best Ways to Find Tenants for Your Rental Properties - YouTube

hey what's up family this is marsay aka the  property pastor here with kingdom legacy builders  

where our mission is to help everyday people  like you and me to build a lasting legacy  

for your children and future generations you know  we're using wealth building principles like real  

estate investing and we're here to teach you all  about how to find good tenants for your rental  

properties. If you've got your first property or  if you've dealt with an eviction before or you're  

scared to death about how do I find a good tenant  who's not going to drive me crazy who's going to  

pay their rent on time who's going to take care of  their property I want you to check out this video  

because we're going to give you some great tips on  the things to look for how to do that up front leg  

work so that you don't find yourself in eviction  court so that you don't get yourself in trouble  

through through discrimination and so that you  can build a great relationship so that your rent  

is paid on time your property is taken care of  properly and that you're able to sleep at night.  

So before we get started I want to ask that you  like and subscribe to our channel make sure you  

hit that like button below make sure you subscribe  to the channel every single week we're dropping  

new content great information as your virtual  mentor to help you along your journey so if this  

is your first time with kingdom legacy builders  or if you're a part of our kingdom legacy family  

I want you to drop comments about the things that  you're doing in your business right to help you  

to find great tenants so we're going to talk  today like I mentioned about how do we do the  

screening process and then also what are some ways  to advertise for these types of tenants so first  

let's talk about screening so tenant screening is  key right real estate investors there's a saying  

amongst real estate investors that you make your  money when you buy in other words when you buy a  

deal right you make your money upfront well it's  the same the same principle of pride applies when  

it comes to finding good tenants so in finding a  good tenant you want to do the upfront homework  

to do your research to do your background  and understand who it who it is that you're  

actually allowing to stay in your property so  I always look at a a screening process or an  

applicant as somebody who's applying for a job  right and you may ask yourself why is that right  

if they've got money and they're willing to pay  I want to bring them aboard but you've got if you  

were hiring an employee right that employee is  going to produce something right and the tenant  

they are producing rent and they are also  taking care of or responsible for your property  

so screening is key so let's talk about some of  the things right because because we want a tenant  

who's gonna like I said pay their money on time  pay their rent on time they're gonna take care of  

the property and they're not gonna drive you crazy  right so there's some some key principles that are  

simple that you can apply to your screening  process to help you to find a great tenant  

so very first thing you want to do is set clear  criteria set clear criteria and communicate it on  

your rental application so when a tenant comes to  to look at the property you want to make sure that  

they fill out a rental application you also want  to make sure that your criteria is very clear we  

put our criteria in all of our advertisements and  all of our things that on Facebook are our signs  

with flyers right everything that we put out for  the advertise it has our criteria the application  

has it everything is very clear in terms of what  the requirements are now a great rule of thumb is  

that the tenant needs to make three times the  rent in monthly income now that could be from  

their job that could be from some sort of you know  disability it could be from government assistance  

wherever it's from it just needs to be verifiable  and typically up to three times the rent and the  

reason that you want to do that is because people  tend to pay a whole lot of stuff before they pay  

their rent but you want to make sure that they've  got enough money left enough money to take care  

of all of their bills pay you and still be able to  live right because you don't want to find a tenant  

who's under qualified they may come and flash  cash really quickly but if all they can do is if  

they make one time to rent there's a very high  chance that you're not going to get your money  

additionally right you want to do you want to  make sure that they have no evictions on their on  

their background check right you want to make sure  that in their history they have never been evicted  

before so we ask that question on our application  but we also do a background check to verify  

that information that's public record eviction is  public record so you always want to ask whether or  

not they have had any evictions on their record  you know if you don't want your property to have  

smoke damage you you need to be very clear and  say that we don't allow smokers in our properties  

additionally the same way with pets right so and  if you do have pets right you want to make sure to  

make very clear there is a pet fee or a deposit  a non-refundable deposit and then a monthly fee  

for that pet so you want to have your criteria  very clear so income three times the rent no  

evictions right and if you don't want pets you got  to spell that out and additionally if you don't  

want smokers you have to spell that out just got  to realize that all of these things are going to  

become wear and tear on your property headaches  that you're going to incur later so criteria is  

key and what happens if your criteria is set in  your description some people won't even apply for  

it now there are still going to be some people who  who tell lies to you they're going to write on it  

on the application i've got no evictions i've got  a stellar you know stellar background everything's  

great and it's wonderful right they're going to  tell you that because they're they're banking  

on you not doing a background check so that's  the next thing so you set your criteria but in  

addition you need to do a background check now  on a background check you're going to check for  

evictions uh you're going to check for uh criminal  background you want to know whether or not they're  

a sex offender uh you want to know whether or not  they've ever been connected convicted of felonies  

misdemeanors all of those kind of things and  the thing that's so critical about evictions  

is that if they've been evicted before there's  a decent chance they may get evicted again and  

and everybody's got a story and that's one thing  that i've learned in this business is everyone  

has a story now some some of those stories are  legitimate right but some of them are not so if a  

person has an eviction right and you decide okay  i'm going to let them come aboard because they  

had a divorce or whatever that is the next thing  you want to do is check their references so on an  

application they should put you always want to ask  for references of previous landlords right and i  

typically we typically like to go back one or two  landlords right because we may you may not want  

to just check the landlord they're living they're  renting from now because that landlord a lot that  

landlord could just be one so desperately to get  rid of the person that they say you know what yep  

they're a great tenant and they're just glad to  get them off their hands but you want to go back  

a few cycles because you know two landlords would  go they're going to tell you you want to ask that  

landlord hey did they pay their rent on time how  are they in regards to the property you know were  

they were easy to work with right you want to  make sure you want to check those references  

you also want to verify their employment history  right you want to call up and call that employer  

make sure that that they are employed there you  know a lot of folks will ask for proof of of  

employment like like a pay stub things like that  you want to know how long they've been employed  

so if they come and apply to your property and  they've only been employed for a month or you look  

in their employment history and they have switched  you know in the last year they've had three jobs  

that's going to be a problem right so you want  to do your homework and make sure that you're  

checking references for employment you want  to make sure that you're checking references  

for previous landlords right all of those things  really matter because the person has a history and  

you got to recognize that if you go and you apply  for credit they're going to check your credit  

report what's the same way with with a tenant you  know if you go apply for a job they're going to do  

a background check so treat that tenant as an  employee and you will find that you find much  

much better tenants if you ever get a tenant that  comes they just flash cash and they say I'm ready  

to move in today you may have a problem right  that cash will be right in front of you and it's  

very tempting because you may have been sitting  around like hey I really need to fill this unit  

but if you fill that unit and then a month later  you're an eviction court eviction is expensive and  

it takes a lot of time especially during COVID  19 where many states have have input eviction  

moratoriums where so it takes a very long time  in my state evictions are painful you know in my  

state we basically have to um we have to apply for  aid on behalf of the tenant we have to enter into  

an agreement where they can catch up back rent  with no late fees so tenant screening is critical  

so we really in my company we really focus on  screening for a high quality tenant and we don't  

compromise now if you're looking you may be saying  well where how do i run these background checks  

where do i go right if you're using like Zillow.  Zillow has a background check feature i personally  

use mrlandlord.com we'll put that link in the  description mrlandlord.com they actually will give  

you your first two uh screenings for for free you  won't have to pay anything for them specifically  

you know we're paying about 20 to 25 bucks to  do tenant screenings and we're getting full  

background checks we're getting eviction history  we are we're getting a criminal background a whole  

you know whole litany of items uh for the tenant  to understand where they're coming from but other  

thing that i want you to be very careful of in  screening tenants is that you have to be careful  

that you do not discriminate because if you  discriminate you can get sued right you can  

get into a lot of trouble for discriminating so  you can't discriminate on race religion right  

gender age handicap status there are so many  different protected classes so you have to be  

very careful to not discriminate so these are some  things that have helped me to find great tenants  

tenants that stay for years tenants that pay their  rent on time tenants to take care of the property  

that's the kind of tenant you want you  don't want to kind of just going to be  

a headache because that's a really easy way  to start and quit really fast as a landlord  

but in addition you may be asking okay  well how do i find these folks right so  

you know looking at how do you screen but then how  do you find them right so there's a whole host of  

ways that you can actually find good tenants but  then you've got to screen those tenants so i want  

to talk a little bit about some of the methods the  first method is the newspaper right so every paper  

every local paper has a classified section they  have you know print and on web right but what i  

have found is that newspaper advertisements  really don't work that well typically  

they're expensive and they have a short reach so  unfortunately in this day and age the newspaper is  

not really that good anymore you know what you'll  find i mean i've used newspaper before years ago  

and i was spending hundreds of dollars you know  sometimes upwards of one or two hundred dollars  

a week just to run an ad and getting very very  low turnaround on those ads additionally though  

you can use yard signs right so in front of  the property your property manager landlord or  

whatever can put a yard sign that simply says  for rent you can put a flyer for the property  

put a contact number in there i recommend you  don't use your personal number right you can get  

a google voice number and things like that right  but you can put a yard sign as well with a contact  

number and you'll get plenty of calls on top of  that though there are services like craigslist  

or you can advertise that now I'm not a huge fan  of craigslist advertising because we tend to get  

some all different sorts of types some folks are  scam artists some folks are all over the country  

you just get a you get all sorts with craigslist  craigslist then there's zillow right you got  

zillow you got apartments.com there are a whole  host of of different uh web-based advertising  

uh mechanisms where you can go and post your your  rentals you can post some military uh military  

military sites that go out and actually find you  know if you live in a military area like i do  

right military by owner is a great place to go  where folks are coming in and out of the area  

and that's a really good one but  using some of the web-based services  

like zillow and zillow's recently started to  charge for some of their their some of their  

services so it's not quite as attractive it  used to be totally free and we did really well  

with zillow but then they started charging  now i think it's like 10 bucks which is not  

crazy right so it is still affordable way better  than the newspaper but there's still a whole lot  

of other free services one of my favorite that  we've been using i use it for lease options  

i use it for for rentals all sorts of different  things is facebook marketplace so facebook  

marketplace works great guys and there's really  a source where you can go and you can link that  

to you know to your personal page you can link it  to maybe your business page and in it folks are  

just going to message you right they're going  to say hey is this property still available  

and then what i do is i'll forward that on the  property manager or the property manager sets  

it up themselves you know whatever that looks  like if i'm doing a you know something off to  

my own where my property manager's not involved  i can put a facebook facebook marketplace ad  

in and then i'm getting tons of leads right so  in it like folks are so active on social media  

and if you post a marketplace you will get hits  right you will get opportunities now when it comes  

down to showing that property is going to give you  a little bit of extra free game when it comes down  

to showing property you're going to run into no  shows you're going to run into people who who  

you know say they're going to come and don't come  now a quick tip that i'll give you guys right is  

to actually set up open houses versus individual  showings that does several things number one it's  

efficient it's an efficient use of your time right  so instead of you showing up for an appointment  

at 9am on tuesday and another one on thursday and  then on saturday and then only two people show up  

schedule overlapping appointments on one day  right or have an open house so what happens  

is that you actually build in competition so  depending on your unit if you got a great unit  

that a lot of people are calling for you calling  you one instead of you setting these individual  

appointments set up either an open house or set  up appointments that basically overlap one another  

because what that does is it creates competition  and the person who comes in and looks at the  

property they know if they want it they gotta  go ahead and apply for it right i always try  

we always charge application fees because we just  pass that on to run the background check and it  

also lets the tenant know that we're serious right  let's know that hey if you want this property you  

got to be serious about it you need to go ahead  and apply today right so we do all of those things  

because they just help us to screen tennis out to  just weed out because there's some great tenants  

but there's also some really bad ones and you  just gotta recognize that if a tenant has been  

evicted before if the tenant doesn't make the  money if the tenant you know has bad references  

chances are they're going to be a bad  tenant for you so do your homework  

up front right utilize great advertising methods  and you have no problem keeping your units full  

these have worked for me to build my portfolio  nine we've got nine properties in our portfolio  

just almost 30 doors and it they've worked  really well for us over the years so i hope  

that this information has helped you out if you  got questions you got comments make sure you drop  

them in the comment section if you you know we're  answering them we check our page constantly and  

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god bless you i can't wait to see you again  soon take take care be safe and god bless