First published: 25 March 2025
Updated: 10 July 2026
The tenant you approve is the biggest variable in how a rental property performs. Get it right, and you collect rent on time, avoid unnecessary maintenance calls, and keep the unit occupied for years. Get it wrong, and you are dealing with missed payments, property damage, or an eviction, often within the first year.
Choosing the right tenant is not about instinct or a good first impression at a showing. It is a repeatable process: collect the right information, verify it, and apply the same standard to every applicant. This guide walks through that process step by step.
Key Takeaways
- A complete rental application collects far more than a name and income figure. It should include Social Security number, prior addresses, previous landlord contact details, employer information, and personal references, all of which you will need to verify.
- Every adult who will live in the property should be screened individually, including anyone acting as a cosigner or guarantor, even if they will not live there.
- Verifying an applicant’s answers by calling actual former landlords and confirming income with pay stubs catches most of the inconsistencies that a report alone will miss.
- Industry estimates often put the cost of an eviction at thousands of dollars, and more complex cases can climb much higher once legal fees, lost rent, and turnover repairs are factored in. The time spent screening properly is small by comparison.
- A vacant unit creates pressure to fill it quickly. That pressure is exactly what leads landlords to skip steps, and skipped steps are how avoidable tenancies turn into expensive ones.
- If screening consistently feels rushed, time-consuming, or difficult to apply the same way to every applicant, that is usually a sign that it is time to bring in professional property management.
How Do You Choose the Right Tenant?
You choose the right tenant by using a complete rental application, screening every adult who will live in the property (including cosigners), asking direct questions about income, employment, and rental history, and verifying every answer before you approve anyone. Landlords who skip verification or screen quickly because a unit has been vacant for a while are most likely to end up with a costly tenancy.
Start with a Long-Term View, Not Vacancy Panic
An empty unit puts pressure on a landlord. Every day it sits vacant is rent you are not collecting, and that pressure can push you to approve the first applicant who seems reasonable rather than the one who is actually the best fit.
That decision is rarely worth it. A few extra days of vacancy costs far less than a tenancy that ends in missed rent, property damage, or an eviction that can take months to resolve. When you are learning how to find the right tenant, judging applicants against your long-term standards, rather than how quickly you need the unit filled, remains the core key to finding the right tenant safely.
Build a Complete Rental Application Checklist
Tenant screening starts with the application. A thin application, one that only asks for a name and income, gives you almost nothing to verify. A complete rental application checklist helps you collect the same information from every applicant and gives you the details you need to verify their answers.
- Full legal name and date of birth
- Social Security number, collected and stored securely
- Current contact information
- State and driver’s license number
- Addresses of previous residences and dates of residency
- Contact information for previous landlords
- Current and past employers, with supervisor contact information
- Income and bank information
- Credit references
- At least three personal references, with their relationship to the applicant.
This checklist should match your written rental application requirements, so every applicant understands what they need to provide before they can be considered. Using the same checklist for every applicant also supports fair housing compliance because each person is evaluated against the same written process.
Important note: Collecting a Social Security number and financial details means you are holding sensitive personal data. Store applications securely, limit who on your team can access them, and dispose of the information for applicants you do not approve once you no longer need it.
How to Screen Rental Applicants Living in the Property
Every adult, generally anyone 18 or older, who will live in the unit should be screened individually, with their own background check, credit check, and rental history review. This applies just as much to a partner or adult family member as it does to the primary applicant.
If an applicant has a cosigner or guarantor, that person needs to be screened too, even though they will not be living in the property. A guarantor is only useful if they can actually cover the rent, and you will not know that without checking.
Questions to Ask a Potential Tenant to Reveal Problems Early
A good application tells you the facts. A direct conversation often tells you more, including why an applicant is moving, whether their income comfortably covers the rent, and whether their answers match what is on the application. Watch for evasive answers or details that shift between the application and the conversation.
The specific questions worth asking, and the ones to avoid for fair housing reasons, are covered in detail in our guide to questions to ask potential tenants.
Read Our Guide: Questions to Ask Potential Tenants, and Questions to Avoid
What Can a Landlord Ask on a Rental Application?
A landlord can ask for information that is directly related to whether the applicant can meet the lease terms. That usually includes identity, income, employment, rental history, references, intended occupants, pets, vehicles, smoking status, and consent to run credit and background checks.
Landlords should avoid questions that relate to protected characteristics, including race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, familial status, disability, source of funds, sexual orientation, gender identity, or military status. In Virginia, applying different standards to different applicants can create a fair housing risk, even if the landlord did not intend to discriminate.
Verify That the Answers Are Accurate
Not every applicant is fully forthcoming, so verification is not optional. Run the credit and background check once you have written consent. Call the personal, professional, and previous landlord references listed on the application, and confirm you are actually speaking with the past landlord rather than a friend or family member standing in for them.
Before running a credit check or background check, use a credit report authorization form or written authorization language in the rental application so the applicant clearly consents to the screening process.
“Most application problems are not sophisticated. It is a phone number for a landlord who is actually a friend, or an income figure that does not match the pay stubs. Calling to check catches almost all of it, and it takes less time than most landlords expect.” Marc Blackwood, Real Property Management Pros
Tenant Screening Checklist: What to Verify Before Approval
Before choosing a tenant, work through the same tenant screening checklist for every applicant. At minimum, confirm:
- The applicant’s identity
- Written authorization for credit and background checks
- Gross monthly income and employment status
- Current and previous rental history
- Payment history with previous landlords
- Eviction history, if any
- Credit report details that may affect rent reliability
- References from landlords or employers
- Whether every adult occupant has completed the same process
- Whether the applicant meets your written tenant selection criteria
The goal is to make a consistent, documented decision based on the same criteria for everyone.
Do Not Cut Corners
Skipping any part of screening or verification saves a small amount of time up front. The cost of a tenant who stops paying rent, damages the property, or has to be evicted is almost always higher than the time it would have taken to screen properly.
Know When to Bring in a Professional
Self-managing landlords can conduct thorough screening. The trade-off is time: doing it properly, for every applicant, takes real effort that does not stop after you find someone who looks promising.
Most landlords do not decide to bring in a property manager for screening until after a bad tenancy has already cost them money. A property management company runs this process daily, which means a wider pool of applicants, a consistent standard applied to everyone, and an experienced eye for details that do not appear cleanly on a report.
Frequently Asked Questions: Choosing the Right Tenant
These are the questions Northern Virginia landlords ask most often when selecting a tenant.
What is a rental application, and what should it include?
A rental application is the form a prospective tenant completes so a landlord can evaluate and screen them. A complete application includes identifying information, Social Security number, current and past addresses, employment and income details, bank and credit references, and personal references, all of which support the background, credit, and reference checks that follow.
What do you need from an applicant before you can run a background check?
You need the applicant’s written consent, along with enough identifying information (typically full name, date of birth, and Social Security number) to run an accurate credit and background check. Most landlords use a credit report authorization form to document that consent.
How do you verify an applicant’s rental history?
Contact the previous landlords listed on the application directly, rather than relying solely on the applicant’s account. Confirm how long the applicant lived there, whether rent was paid on time, whether proper notice was given, and whether there was any damage beyond normal wear and tear. Verify you are speaking with the actual property owner or manager, not a substitute the applicant has provided.
What is a tenant screening checklist?
A tenant screening checklist is a written list of the steps and criteria a landlord applies to every rental applicant, typically covering the application, credit check, criminal background check, income verification, and reference checks. Using the same checklist for every applicant is also what protects a landlord from fair housing complaints.
How to reject a rental application and how to decline a rental application safely?
Apply your written screening criteria consistently to every applicant, and if you deny someone, put the reason in writing and keep a record of it. Denials based on consistent, documented, non-discriminatory criteria, such as insufficient income or a poor rental history, are the lowest-risk way to decline an applicant.
Do you need to screen a cosigner the same way as the primary applicant?
Yes. A cosigner or guarantor is only useful if they can genuinely cover the rent if the primary tenant cannot, so they should go through the same income verification and credit check as any other applicant, even though they will not be living in the unit.
Who to put as references on rental application forms?
Applicants should usually provide references who can verify reliability, payment history, employment, or prior rental behavior. The most useful references are previous landlords, current or past employers, and professional contacts. Friends and family members are less helpful because they are less likely to provide an objective view of the applicant.
Serving Rental Property Owners Across Northern Virginia
Real Property Management Pros manages rental properties across Northern Virginia, including the City of Alexandria, Arlington County, Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Prince William County, Fauquier County, and the Greater Fredericksburg Area.
If building and running a consistent screening process feels like more than you want to take on yourself, we are glad to talk through what our tenant placement process looks like for your property.
Related Reading
- Why Tenant Screening Is So Important
- Questions to Ask Potential Tenants, & Questions to Avoid
- What Does a Property Manager Do?
- Virginia Eviction Process for Landlords: Notices, Unlawful Detainers, and Writs Explained
- Top 10 Questions to Ask a Property Management Company
Article Sources
- MySmartMove. The True Cost of an Eviction. Accessed July 8th, 2026.
- Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation. Virginia Fair Housing Office: Suggestions for Housing Providers. Accessed July 8th, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Guidance on Application of the Fair Housing Act to the Screening of Applicants for Rental Housing. April 29th, 2024.
- Code of Virginia. Virginia Fair Housing Law, Title 36, Chapter 5.1. Accessed July 8th, 2026.