Screening a prospective tenant is a 4-step process. You want to do a credit check, a criminal background check, a prior rental history check and an employment check. If you find yourself tempted to short-circuit the process, just ask yourself if you would hand over a sack with a large amount of cash to this total stranger...because that is what you are more or less doing by giving them the keys to this asset.
For the credit check, there are lots of on-line services that will do this check for you. To identify these services, just go on line and Google "screening tenants" or such such. I tried that search and got quite a number of suggested sites. For example, Experian does a cheap credit check. You will find services that will do all 4 types of checks for you. However, I have found it best to do my own phoning for employment history and rental history. You may prefer to hire that part of the screening done for you.
Tenant always pays for the credit/screening search. They expect to pay an application fee of $25-$50 when they put in an application.
As for criminal background, the landlord has been held liable for criminal acts done by a tenant where the landlord knew or could have known about the prior criminal background. Do you have liability insurance for your rental? It is usually available very cheaply as a rider on your home-owners coverage. If you don't have any, check with your agent about covering yourself on your homeowners policy.
You will want two continuous years of rental history or 2 landlords whichever is longer...and you don't want any breaks in that history. The probability is very high that the break is hiding something the prospective tenant doesn't want you to know. Just don't rent to that person. It isn't worth the risk. And, don't farm out the work of making the phone calls
And, the last piece of the puzzle is phone and verify employment and pay level. You want to be sure that your new tenant can afford to pay the rent. If their monthly take-home pay isn't 3 times the rental amount, you may end up having a tenant who is going to struggle financially. You don't want them to not be able to pay rent.
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