Are you considering becoming a landlord in Albuquerque, New Mexico? If so, you're on the right track to financial success: landlords here make an average of $78,516 yearly, per ZipRecruiter.com.
However, your income would still largely depend on your tenants (i.e., if they can afford to pay rent on time). For this reason, it's imperative to have an effective tenant placement process in place.
If you're unsure where to begin, don't worry. Our property management experts at PMI4U have shared tenant screening and placement tips to help you get started, so read on.
1. Understand Tenant Screening Laws
The first step to successful tenant placement is ensuring the process complies with all applicable laws. According to the City of Albuquerque, one of these is the Fair Housing law, which prohibits housing discrimination. Under this law, it's illegal for landlords to select tenants based on their:
- Income sources
- Ancestry, color, national origin, and race
- Religion
- Sex
- Physical handicap
So, while it's your right as a landlord to screen tenants, you must be careful when doing so, especially when asking them questions. For example, you must never ask them, "Can you afford the rent?" Instead, you should just use screening tools like income and credit checks to determine their viability.
2. Implement a Thorough Tenant Selection Process
Finding tenants you can rely on to pay rent on time and care for your property requires more than just income and credit checks. You must also take the time to review their:
- Employment history
- Rental and eviction history
- Criminal background history
To ensure your tenant placement process complies with all applicable laws, inform the applicant about all the checks you'll run on them.
3. Be Consistent
A surefire way to get into legal trouble when screening tenants is inconsistency or screening only specific applicants. If you're going to check an applicant's criminal background history, you must do so for every other applicant. Otherwise, you may find yourself facing housing discrimination complaints.
4. Conduct In-Person Interviews
Part of your tenant screening process should include in-person interviews. Face-to-face interviews are an excellent way to get a better feel for your prospective tenants. They can also help you assess their honesty; their answers must match the information they've provided in their rental application.
5. Consider Hiring a Property Management Firm
Comprehensive tenant screening takes lots of time, so if you were to do this yourself, there's a possibility you may become lax. Avoid this risk by partnering with a full-service property management company. They can help you with tenant screening, marketing, lease enforcement, rent collection, property maintenance, and evictions.
Outsource Your Tenant Placement Process to the Pros
Understanding tenant screening laws and screening tenants consistently and thoroughly are just some of the most critical strategies for finding the best tenants. If you don't have time to do all these, consider partnering with PMI4U.
PMI4U is a full-service property management company delivering tailored solutions, from property marketing to tenant placement, rent collection, and lease enforcement. Our owner, Tom Dickerson, has been in property management since 2007. Andrew Foote, another of our real estate experts, has also been a real estate expert for nearly two decades.
Connect with us today to learn how we screen tenants and our property management services in Albuquerque, NM. We'll even include a free property analysis!
