Does a 60 day furnished tenant get the same screening as a 12 month one?

Question

First rental is close and I've read more about screening than about anything else, so of course I have a version of this question nobody I ask can agree on.

The standard long-term process I understand: application, credit pull, criminal and eviction search, income verification at some multiple of rent, landlord references. It takes a few days and applicants expect it.

On a 30 to 90 day furnished stay, half of that seems to fall apart. A traveling clinician's income is documented by an assignment contract, not pay stubs from a job she started last week. Her last landlord was another furnished unit in another state and might not answer. And she needs a place in nine days, so a five day process means she books somewhere else.

So one camp says screen less. Take the assignment letter, take a photo ID, take a bigger deposit, and lean on the fact that the person is only there for two months and is employed by an agency that vetted her. Speed is the product in this niche.

The other camp says screen more, because the damage a bad furnished tenant can do is worse. Your furniture is in there. A holdover in a unit you've already promised to the next tenant is a much bigger problem than a holdover in a long-term unit, and eviction timelines don't shorten because the lease was short.

Both of those sound right to me depending on the hour. There's also a middle version I've seen described where direct bookings get the full process and agency-placed or insurance-placed tenants get the light version because someone else already did the work.

What do you actually do?

samantha_ruiz · Answer

Four units in and I run the full process on every furnished stay, and I've lost bookings over it. I keep doing it because of one tenant who cleared a light screen, stayed 41 days, and left me a unit that cost $2,800 to put back. The deposit was $1,500. A bigger deposit only helps up to the size of the deposit.

What I did change is the clock. I pay for an instant screening product, I ask for the assignment contract and one bank statement instead of pay stubs, and I can turn an application in about four hours if the applicant answers her phone. Speed and thoroughness were only a tradeoff for me while my process was slow.

omar_haddad · Answer

keystone's $2,800 is about right for a bad furnished turn, and I'd add that the damage in a furnished unit tends to be diffuse rather than one broken thing. Scratched table, stained mattress, cracked TV mount, missing pans. Individually small, and together it's a new furniture order and three days you can't rent.

wren, whatever you decide on screening, do a written inventory with photos at move-in and get it signed. That has recovered more money for me than any credit report ever did.

carlos_nunez · Answer

Middle option here. Insurance placements come with the carrier or the housing company as the payer, and if they're paying I care much less about the occupant's credit than about that company's terms. Direct bookings off a listing site get the whole thing.

One warning on the light-screening camp: agency vetted means the agency checked she's licensed and can do the job. It does not mean anybody checked whether she pays her rent.

devon_pierce · Answer

quarry, that last line is the clearest thing I've read on this. I'd been assuming the agency did something like a tenant check and there's no reason they would.

kevin_lombard · Answer

I went through this twice, and what caught me off guard is that eviction takes the same time no matter how short the lease is. I had somehow pictured a short stay as being easier to end. If it isn't, then the short term is a reason to screen carefully rather than a reason to relax, at least the way I'm now understanding it. Also I gather how holdovers get handled varies by state, so I'll ask locally before I get confident about it.

Does a 60 day furnished tenant get the same screening as a 12 month one?

5 replies