The most important thing that you can do for your investment property is to find dependable tenants.

So you have to screen applicants ruthlessly.

It may be tempting to accept the first applicants for your property, especially if it has been vacant for a while however it pays to make the extra effort to screen your applicants, to avoid potential problems later.

Here are some screening tactics from RealRenta to help you ensure that you acquire the best possible tenants for your investment property:

• Find as many applicants as you can- tailor the marketing to attract the type of tenant that you want.
• Don’t bother checking any applications without proof of income or ID
• Ensure that they have given 100 points of ID
• Ask for 3 most recent pay slips and/or a bank statement highlighting their income
• Call their previous landlord or property manager and ask for a copy of their tenant ledger
• Call the applicant’s employer and verify income and character
• Call any character references
• Request Bad Tenants Checks via the RealRenta platform, checks range from $29 through to $67

For more information about accessing Bad Tenant Checks and minimising your Property Management costs visit www.realrenta.com.au  and use RealRenta for Free for up to 2 Months and never Pay High Property Management Fees again!