Tenant Screening

Tenant Screening Process

Envest Realty requires all applicants to go through a thorough screening process to determine eligibility for renting one of our properties. Currently, the application/credit check/background screen/eviction search is done for us by Rent Café. Rent Café uses Experian as the Credit Reporting Agency. We believe that our tenants should get credit for managing the payments for the place they call home. That’s why we use Rent Café, who works with the Experian RentBureau to include positive rental payment data in Experian credit reports. You pay your rent-on-time every month, you should get credit. Envest Realty charges you $45 per person who is going to be on the lease or an adult occupant. All adult occupants are required to submit to an application/credit check/background screen/eviction search.

The person or persons who will be financially responsible for the lease have to qualify using the ”Screening Steps” below.

Screening Steps

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6

Application

Envest Realty uses Rent Café to collect tenant application information. The application is done online and is a requirement for applying to rent our properties. The application questionnaire, as represented by the Rental Application on Rent Café, must be completed in entirety.

In addition, the application process requires a photo image or image of the following items:

Valid Driver’s License
A copy of your last bank statement
A copy of your three most recent pay stubs from your employer (or a letter from your employer showing your hire date, your job title, salary, and total income paid for the last three pay periods)

All of these documents/images must be uploaded to Rent Café, where your Rental Application was completed before we can consider your application.

Upon completion, applications are given equal consideration in the order that they are received.

Income Qualification

Our rent and debt to income ratios include:

Debt to Income Ratio (rent, credit card payments, car payments, etc.) of 50% or less
Housing (rent) ratio of 35% or less

Debt to Income Ratio is Total Monthly Debt (rent, credit card payments, car payments, etc.) and Rent payments divided by your Total Gross Income (before taxes).

The total income of all qualifying applicants who will have financial responsibility on the lease will be used to calculate the debt to income ratio for total rent.

Income Verification

Provide a letter “from your employer” to “Envest Realty,” which can be uploaded as a document to Rent Café during the application process. All employment verifications will be confirmed by phone during business hours to authenticate employer endorsements. If the person that signed is not available, we will ask for a call-back or to ask for someone else who may be able to verify the verification of employment. If we don’t receive that letter, you will need to approach your employer and ask them to call or email us and leave a valid company phone number for us to call and verify your employment information.

Rental History References

What does our rental history include? We will contact your previous landlord and ask them a variety of questions that are about what kind of tenant you were when you lived in their property.

How often did you pay your rental payment late?
When your landlord inspected the home/apartment upon you leaving, did you cleanly maintain the home or apartment, and was it in good repair?
When your lease expired, did you move and leave the property owing money to the landlord?
Were there any terms of the lease that you failed to fulfill, like parking, smoking, or others?
Did any of your neighbors or other tenants file complaints about you?

With your permission, all of these questions are done either by phone call, email, or letter.

Credit Check and Background Screen

Our qualification requirements include a credit check, background screen, and eviction screen.

For the credit check, a FICO score of about 600 or better is required
To Validate Debt for Income Qualification debt ratios
No active collections
No active bankruptcies
No felonies
No active convictions
No evictions

In many respects, we use similar standards as banks and financial institutions use for Conventional/FHA/VA financing.

Pet Qualification

Pets are allowed based on the property owner’s rules. If the property owner allows pets, they will need to qualify based on certain conditions. If you have a medically prescribed service animal, you will be allowed to have those animals based on federal and state laws.

You must complete a pet application and have the animal approved based on size restrictions, pet type (dog, cat, etc.), age, and other pertinent requirements set forth by our property owner.

All Pets pay an additional nonrefundable deposit ranging from $250 to $500.

Tenant Screening