Many landlords roll the dice when it comes to filling their vacancies. They post an ad, collect a few paper rental applications, and rent it to the first person who comes to the table with the security deposit. Legally screening tenants involves asking for a legitmate rental application, a credit report, verifying prior landlords, and also running a state and national criminal + eviction report on the prospective tenant. Many service providers out there nickle and dime landlords. We’re changing eveyrthing with VerticalRent. Here are the Top 10 Reasons to Screen Tenants with VerticalRent:

1. History often repeats itself with renters. Don’t roll the dice or give up the keys to your invesetment properties without properly investigating a prospective tenant. A “proper investigation” is subjective, but we’re fanatics about helping you analyze risk and reward. The reward is a good tenant who pays rent on-time and doesn’t damage your property. The risk is a bad tenant who damages your property and doesn’t pay rent. Our historical credit, criminal, and eviction reports help you pinpoint problem tenants quickly and weed them out!
2. Liability. With VerticalRent, you have a secure and electronic audit trail with your current, prospective, and past tenants – starting with the initial rental application, powered by AppSingular. If one of your tenants engages in illegal activities on the premise of your investment property, having the screening results on file can protect you from liability.
3. Obtaining AON Tenant Rent Default Coverage Insurance. Many capable individuals shy away from becoming a landlord because of the “what if” scenarios and “horror” stories relayed by others. Rent default coverage has been sold overseas for years, but has not been available in the U.S. until very recently. In 2011, AON introduced tenant rent default coverage. But, you need to have the “proper investigation” reports on record about the tenant. VerticalRent provides you the platform to obtain the proper rental application, credit, criminal, and eviction report – allowing you to obtain AON Tenant Rent Default Coverage. If the tenant is an anomoly and doesn’t pay rent ontime, you’re covered.
4. Property Damage. With a background investigation, you will know whether a previous landlord has tried to sue a prospective tenant for damaging their property.
5. Avoiding Squatters. Our online rental application, powered by AppSingular, allows you to quickly weed out prospective tenants who have squatted in an apartment. Evicting a tenant, although not overly complicated, does take a little bit of time. Asking the right questions on a formal rental application legally binds the tenant to truthfully answering. VerticalRent’s additional screening products verify the tenant’s truthful answer on the online tenant application.
6. Knowing Who Breaks Leases. You want stable renters who live up to the commitment of their lease agreements.
7. Moved While Owing a Landlord Rent. It happens all of the time in college towns. Local professionals buy up a few apartment buildings and build a secondary revenue stream with the influx of college students who rent from them. The unfortunate news is that most of these college students are not local and will often skip rent towards the end of a semester. Since history often repeats itself with renters, you will know if they have done this in the past.
8. References. Beyond landlord references, your tenant can authorize you to contract neighbors, employers, credit bureaus, creditors, and all other individuals necessary to perform a thorough and investigative screening. Your online rental application, powered by AppSingular, ensures that you have the authorization to do so.
9. Other Occupants. You should always sknow what other occupants will be living with a tenant in your dwelling. An online rental application, powered by AppSingular, will allow you to screen the other occupants – not just the primary on the lease agreement. You can also enable online rent collection for each tenant living in the dwelling – allowing each to pay their share of the rent individually through an online portal.
10. Peace of Mind. Everyone has varying tolerances for risk. The introduction of rental default coverage insurance by AON allows risk-adverse individuals to throw their hat into the financially rewarding business of landlording. VerticalRent gives landlords the online tools and peace of mind needed to make educated renting decisions

http://www.letstalkpm.com/profiles/blogs/top-10-reasons-to-screen-tenants