Woman fills out pre-screening questions on the 12th. Is denied for non-neutered dog (and admitted assault charges but I didn't say that.)

Six days later, fills out questions again. Non-neutered dog not mentioned. Assault charges not mentioned. 26-year job changed from K-Mart to Sears (okay that is kind of legit...) Reason for moving? Place is being sold or Needs more room, depending which set of questions you believe, and she has lived there either 8 or 9 years, again depending. Total household income has doubled in six days.

WMH, I would be very curious to hear more about your screening company. (Your whole process, really.)

I currently have an available home, who's prospective tenants, unlike my other homes, are tech savvy and most of my contact has been in the form of emails (%75) and text. The downside is that it has cut out some of the phone screening that I would normally do. Is this when you send out your screening questionnaire? ie.... "Here is the additional home info that you requested. If you would like to view the home, please complete this questionnaire." ...kinda thing?

I don't have this problem, often, but as the world becomes more electronically dependent, I too need to improve my process.

Screen x3. (Effort)

The Most Important Step in the Process.

Kinda like a Scorecard.

Thank you for the compliments, 1gr81!

A couple of things about my area: there are a LOT of people looking for housing, and there are almost NO available houses...and 99% of those looking don't make anywhere near enough to rent what IS available.

So when I post a house on CL/FB, I get a lot of responses. Over the years, I got tired of dealing with that 99% that are just a waste of my time and theirs - they simply do not qualify period. (LOTS of young people who want to live at the beach and make NO money or real losers "wanting to start over and I've always dreamed of living at the beach!")

I used to do phone calls - the STORIES consumed hours of my time. Gave that up and went to email, but again, the back and forth was just too much and too hard to track repeat applicants.

Now we use a Google Pre-Screen Questions Form which feeds a Google Sheet. The form is stored on our website (which we use for pretty much nothing else except to list our policies and procedures) although I can email a link as well.

The prospective tenant fills out the form, their answers are dropped into the spreadsheet and I get a notification of a new applicant. I can tell at a glance whether I will deal further with them based on pretty much three answers: #1 being income, #2 being non-neutered animals and #3 being violent crimes of any type. #4 is number of people (our places are tiny) but I don't often get that far.

As soon as I hit a disqualifying answer, I click a button and it sends a rejection email based on whatever the reason is.

"Thanks for your interest but your stated income does not qualify for this unit. Good luck with your search, though!"

"Thanks for your interest but we do not accept non-neutered/non-spayed animals as a matter of policy. Good luck with your search, though!"

"Thanks for your interest but we do not rent by the season, only by annual lease. Good luck with your search, though!"

(I do not reject for violent crimes, even if they admit them. There's always another reason!)

Not sure I want to share it "in public" but I'd be glad to share it at the Convention if anyone was interested, or by private email. It's pretty simplistic but works for us so far.

Google Forms are easy to use even from a smartphone so good for today's tenants. LOTS of YouTube "How To" videos.

I don't remember the rules about posting a web address here. I kind of remember my post, w them, being blocked several times in the past. Oh well...I'll try again.

I found this link (tutorial) really quickly. I think my search term was...."How to use a google questionnaire and have it input into a spreadsheet."

The link..... business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-create-web-input-forms-with-google-sheets--cms-28735

Jeffrey, Glenn says he would be happy to give a side presentation on this after hours at the Convention. How to create a simple form, how it links to the sheet, how to share it, etc. He used to present this kind of stuff for (a major tech company) so does have a clue how to present.

VERY SIMPLISTIC, nothing fancy but faster than watching a dozen YouTube videos, I guess.

WMH, that's awesome! (Catching out the lie because of a spreadsheet.) I've been keeping notebooks for each house with all the applicants. Husband has been wanting to help me in small ways with the business. I might ask home to create the spreadsheets, so I can search by name and phone number.

I have LOTS of repeats and in the past it required that I search through all my emails...and that's only if the name seemed familiar!

DH is our handyman but he's also the programming guy for our tech stuff. He's also the one who set up the mail-merge for our leases.