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@SharonLea wrote:The tenant applications I've seen all ask for employment information, salary, and the most recent payroll stubs. What should I do if I'm retired and don't have this sort of information? There's no space on the application that asks about savings and investments, which will be my primary source of income.
In that case, I would put down your required minimum distribution from these retirement accounts as your annual income... and be certain to include a statement regarding your assets in these accounts.... Although they are protected assets, they will be available to you as a means of paying your rental obligation
@scotbe wrote:Do you have any suggestions for a family who recently moved to a new city and can't find anyone who will rent to them because of their credit rating? They never had this problem in their previous city; however, they had to move because of a job transfer (promotion and raise for husband). Wife has recently been unemployed so has gone back to school. I don't know their financial particulars; I don't think they use credit cards much (maybe scant history is part of problem), but they probably had difficulty paying student loans. Except for a few weeks house-sitting, they've been living for months in a motel with four school-age children; furniture, toys, etc., in storage. Pretty rough!
I've only been turned down once because of my credit and that was with a private owner. Typically it works better with larger corporation type rental complexes, and I am upfront about it and end up usually just paying higher deposits if required as long as I can show proof of imcome 3x the rent amount (this part being the biggest problem as I was a single parent).
I moved since I retired. What the landlord accepted as proof of income was a letter on company letterhead verifying my monthly pension payments and a copy of a letter to my IRA custodian stating my requested automatic monthly distributions.
When I am doing my background checks on tenants I pull the following reports:
Eviction report, criminal background check, credit reports & scores, sex offender registry search, and tenant score. It is very important that you take time with this and check thoroughly for each tenant. There are also other reports and information out there that can further help your decision. I like to use http://myrental.com/ tenant screening services when doing my background checks because it gives me everything I need all in one place.