State Specific Question About: ARIZONA (AZ)

What are background check NO GO's

Whatever you want, as long as you are consistent with how you apply them. I find it depends on the property type how much I'll let slide, but in general:

1) No eviction with unpaid judgment balances. More than one eviction is a NO GO regardless of paid or not.

2) No convictions for a felony within the past 3 years.

3) No violent felony convictions, period, regardless of how long ago.

4) Patterns of drug use/possession. I understand someone may have smoked some weed 5 years ago and may still be smoking it now, but 3 counts of possession with intent to distribute...nope, sorry. I don't need dealers in my houses.

5) General patterns of trouble with law. Someone who racked up 5 misdemeanors over the past 3-4 years is a trouble magnet, even if they are "minor" offenses.

6) No convicted sex offenders, period. No time or desire to wade through their "stories" to learn if it was a "innocent offense" or something else. If something goes wrong, the neighbors and media will crucify me without regard to whatever the "story" was/is.

Keep in mind that just because they have a conviction for a certain crime on their record, they almost certainly did something worse, and simply pled guilty for a lighter sentence.

So with that in mind, I don't allow any misdemeanor or felony on record. I do allow civil infractions (traffic tickets etc) as long as they are not something like noise violations.

In addition to what others have said. For me (my tenants are A- B to B+) I don't want any violent crimes or domestic violence, ever. As SID said, I may miss some good ones but I don't have time or energy to dig through the riff-raff and find out which ones would be ok.

If they previously lived in Com miefornia... Definate NO GO! ;)

No lawyers, cops, law students, paralegals or court employees.

Ten extra plus points if they hold a CCW permit! My experience is ccw permittees are responsible people. The fact they have a permit means they have passed a far deeper security check than you can run.

On credit report - looking for long history of paying bills on time. Credit score is nice, but what you are looking for is a long line of "pays as agreed" and no pattern of late payments.

No evictions. No criminal background, no drugs, no sex offenders.

For me, an eviction is a no-go. Because when I think what it took to actually get to court...nope nope nope. I can see a tenant breaking a lease and moving, but forcing a landlord to go through all the steps to a completed eviction...forget it, life's too short for that.

For me -- no hair dressers. no mechanics. no one with truancy violations. no one with overdue fines - I don't look at the crime itself (other than drug dealers & sex offenders) but how they handled their punishment.

hair dressers "do hair" on the side and I don't want that traffic nor all that extra hair down my drains ...to say nothing of the wear and tear from the kids they bring along that no one watches while the "customers" get their hair done and gossip.

mechanics are filthy ... their hands are dirty, their clothes are dirty, their boots are dirty.... the majority I've run into do not clean up prior to coming home and coming in the house. You can see a path from their boots ... door frames, appliances, etc., are always dirty.