Renting With Bad Rental History

If you have a bad rental history, chances are you may find it difficult to rent a new place. However, here are a few tips which you can utilize to rent a house or apartment, despite having a bad history.

Request your previous landlord for a favorable reference

If you have a bad rental history, it might be because of one or two reasons – you might not have been so regular with your payments, or you may have violated a condition of the lease agreement. Nevertheless, if you shared a friendly relation with your previous landlord, he/she might have something positive to say about you. Talk to your last landlord and ask for a favorable reference.

Never hide realities

Never hide the facts about your tenant history. If you were evicted by the previous landlord because of any reason, including non-payment of rent due to job loss, family issues or any other financial crisis, then discuss all these issues with your prospective landlords. Hiding a bad rental history may go against you, since most prudent landlords will run background checks on you and contact your past landlords to get more information. If your circumstances have improved since your last tenancy, make sure the new landlords know about it.

Load up with good character references

If you have a bad rental history, you may have a good record as an employee, a business partner or as a neighbor. Load up your tenancy request with good character references to show that you are a good tenant to have, and just had a few unavoidable issues with your last tenancy. If you can manage to provide four to five really good references from your circle, then your prospective landlord may consider you more favorably.

Offer incentives

If you fear your bad rental history might deny you a rental apartment or home, try offering some monetary incentives to landlords, such as a higher security deposit, or advance rent. Such gestures will go a long way in showing that you are a serious and dependable tenant.

Offer automatic payments through bank

If your bad rental history is on account of your inability to pay rent on time, you can talk to your bank and have them transfer your rent payments automatically into your landlord’s bank account every month. However, you will need to check whether your bank offers automatic payments, which are usually deducted from your account as soon as your monthly salary is credited. Such an arrangement may persuade a prospective landlord to trust you and allow you to rent with him/her.