Tenant Screening

Free Background Check Manual

Several years ago, I started a background check company, proclaimed myself king and anointed Mr. Brz vice-king. We had a lovely website, lots of lovely traffic, tons of people calling and went broke in record time. Something about giving all the goods away without compensation of a monetary sort probably contributed.

Couldn’t help it though… most calls were from nonprofit groups with zero budget and pitiful sob stories. I gave away background checks right and left and wrote them off with great abandon… until the vice-king informed her highness that the coffers were empty and the website was coming down.

In a final effort to salvage the business, I wrote a background check manual complete with forms, links to state and local internet resources, articles with step by step instructions and all sorts of goodies and offered it for sale as a download. I tried like everything to talk the freeloaders into buying the manual and running their own background checks. Didn’t happen. So down came the website and all the files went in a box somewhere.

The Part Where We Become Landlords

Our adventure with real estate began shortly thereafter and I found that all the information I’d toiled over was imminently practical in the real world of tenant screening. By running our own background checks, we save a bunch and I can customize each screening based on the information found on the credit report and during preliminary calls to ex-landlords and personal references.

Yesterday, while over visiting Rents “R” Us,  a recent post on tenant screening brought to mind that  box of cd’s and files. Considering the sad state of our storage room, honestly there didn’t seem to be much hope, but apparently miracles do happen. So, over the next few days, I’m planning to weed through the files and post anything that might be relevant to tenant screening, including the background check manual.

It may take a bit as I’ve got to find the best way to organize 50+ pages of manual, plus forms and whatnot.

Check back soon if you’re interested.

Quick Update: The background check manual is ready. Click the “Tenant Screening” tab at the top of this page for updates :-)

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Tags: background, background check manual, background checks, screening, tenant screening, tenants