When it comes to finding tenants for your rental property it is pretty obvious that you will want to find someone who not only pays their rent on time and in full but also helps to keep your blood pressure down too.

One of the best ways to ensure that you have high quality tenants is to use a letting agent to manage the sourcing, checking and running of your tenants and tenancy agreement, but even then  you should be aware of the ways that you can ensure you only attract the highest quality tenants possible.

Ask those questions

When you first assess a potential tenant it is likely that you will want to speak to them on the phone as well as email. It is during these initial conversations that you will have the opportunity to ask a variety of questions that will help you ascertain whether or not they are the right type of tenant for you.

Important things to ask include:

·         Are you employed?

·         Do you have any pets?

·         Are you a smoker?

·         Are you looking for a long or short term let?

They may seem like obvious questions to ask, however it seems that sometimes even these things get overlooked when it comes to a new let being agreed. 

Meet face to face

Once you have had that initial discussion over the phone it is time to arrange with the tenant to meet face to face. This is important in order to gain further information about the tenant. Meeting face to face can also relax you both as you will have more idea on what the other person is like and also will be able to envision a face during those phone or email conversations.

Follow up their references

If you do decide that these tenants could be the right ones for you then one sure fire way to ensure that they are appropriate and trustworthy is to follow up on the references that they provided you with and also perform checks on their credit.

These are standard if you use an estate agent to manage your rental property and can prove valuable when searching for a tenant.

It isn’t always possible to call a previous landlord but these are often the best people to tell you about the history of the person looking to live in your property. Be wary of references that may be friends or family members as they are less likely to give you an accurate portrayal of the person applying.

Just by doing these few seemingly simple tasks before signing those rental agreements you are more likely to attract and secure a high quality tenant who can give you many years of stress free rental income.