Your Applicant may be a PRO if......

PRO applicant? What is that? They are applicants who want to become your tenants and they have perfected methods of gaining the keys to your property without paying rent.

They usually come on the weekend and need to rent a home right away. They come in clean cars, usually with 2 adults and one or more children......AND they have a story.

             * Their current landlord is selling the home they rent

             * Their current home has MOLD*REPAIRS*FIRE and they need to move ASAP

             * They just came into town and their JOB starts MONDAY

             * They just came into town and they need to get their KIDS in school MONDAY

She is frazzled and he is not prepared. The children are quiet....they have no references, past/current landlord information (although now they are usually in FORECLOSURE) and they ONLY have CASH because they packed their checkbook.

The SCAM may involve signing a lease and giving a portion of their CASH to their new landlord; however, their PRIMARY OBJECTIVE is to obtain the keys to the property. They may ask the landlord to keep the utilities on for a week or so while they get their accounts set up which will set the landlord up for a charge of "retaliatory eviction" if the utilities are terminated during the eviction process.

The landlord will feel GOOD for a few hours that they have gotten their home leased and ASSISTED a family new to the area; however, once they get the keys, the cooperation, smiles and communication stops.

Since the landlord did not come prepared with application paperwork or have the resources to check their credit on the weekend, the landlord would have handed the keys and possession of their most valuable asset to PRO tenants......and whatever cash was provided to get the keys will be the LAST money the landlord will see for several months.

There are some variations....

I've had a single woman in a beat-up SUV with a canoe on the top try to rent a $2,000/mo property in an exclusive country club area. She kept saying her "trust attorney" handled everything and that she would be returning to her beach home for her children and that I should call her attorney on Monday. She did not get the keys.

I've had the well-dressed family call me on a Friday and want to rent a home on Saturday and when I presented them with the application paperwork and offered to meet them later after I ran their credit report, they left the blank applications on the front porch as they walk to their car.

Fortunately for me, many PROs no longer contact professional property managers. They know we have procedures and resources to check their credit. They do; however, continue to contact private landlords who post on Craigslist or who put ads in newspapers.