It makes me biasless. The tenant I thought would be awesome in paper really screwed us over. Now I have no idea how to judge a good perspective tenant and it is a crapshoot. It wont be because of race though.

Yes did thorough DD.

It’s a reminder that your own stereotypes exist for a reason. You’ll never remove that from the human brain. It’s not always a bad thing (your brain takes in cues, combines them with experiences, and uses that to make decisions while spending less energy).

But we should be careful to not let our own biases be baked into systems and processes.

Most people won't waste any time unless someone is recommended. In an atomized society network is key. A very good and active network will help you go against the odds.

Too bad there isn't a service that could look into the historical background of prospective tenants to gain references, criminal, credit, job and salary information. Completely objective and mostly without inherent prejudices.

We may even call it something like "a background check".

Just spitballing ideas!

How well do background checks work on foreigners?

Could work. Could also be considered an invasion of privacy. Depends on your jurisdiction.

Because someone who has a stolen food from a store once is a bad tenant? Or someone who once forget to pay a credit card bill is bad tenant? Landlords should simply not be allowed to deny a potential tenant unless they can't pay. You don't play games with living essentials.

You've obviously never been in the position of being elderly, living in a country where pension funds got dilapidated by politicians (no matter how much you paid into it), needing money and your only source of income being a flat you're renting.

My dad had one squatter, who was a respectable 60 years old lady: she just stopped paying and the legal and justice system is so shit that it took more than a year to get her out of my dad's flat - meanwhile she trashed the flat, changed the gates to lock us out and started burning stuff.

You don't get to decide who lives in my property, I do and you can be damn sure I'll think very hard what's my chance the tenant will pay or not based on any data I have available. If they're students or asylum seekers they're more likely to trash the place and go unpunished.

It would be less relevant if I could reclaim my flat immediately (fine, I'll eat a loss of a month of rent) after breach of contract, but that's not the world we live in.

So the legal system needs to be fixed. Putting the power of sheltering people into the hands of landlords is ridiculous. The government wouldn't decide who lives in your property. You can always choose to not rent it of course, or rent it to a friend. But if you want rent it and you have someone willing to take it you can't say no.

This would only be fair, if by law rent is paid before the month owed, and a person can be evicted with one day's arrears.

Oh, and a deposit for damage paid too, which has no bearing on the above rent and late eviction.

That might start to be fair with your logic.

I might add, this is the same logic with pre or post pay things. Prepaid phone vs postpay on credit...

Rent, in my country at least, is already paid in advance. Daily eviction powers are inhumane and unnecessary with rent that is paid in advance. Damages should be factored into the rent.

THe way I would envision is that landlord is not allowed to manage any of that. Let's say you have a property, you can go to the government and say: "Hey, I have this property that I want to rent.". With the option of also giving a specific tenant if you want. The government then takes over completely. They get a free for managing the property and you get the rest. Government handles everything from eviction to damages to new tenant search.

This is not inhumane, if you can't block people based upon their inability to pay, or upon their past treatment of rental units.

It has to be fair for both parties.

And rent paid in advance is only so, if not in arrears.

But understand, my comment was responding to a post claiming that there should be no way to have a choice in whom you rent to.

I've seen units with a years rent in damages. Ripped carpet, holes in walls, smashed appliances and lights, etc.

But people want there to be no way to chose renters, based upon credit and past history?!

edit: your edited post clarifies things a bit. My primary concern is about forcing costs on the landlords, if there are no reliably checks. So I am open to ideas that take this into account.

edit2: more clarity here, that 'year's worth of rent in damages' was gross, not profit. It happens too frequently too. EG if rent is $100, a year of rent is $1200, but it isn't as if the landlord pockets that. Not even remotely close. Some landlords only make 30% on their units, when property tax, upkeep, water and other included things are involved.

So massive damage can take years to recoup!

Why not sell the flat if it doesn't make you any money and extracting rent is so difficult?

The flat was the source of income until someone started squatting. So it was making money. And I would expect selling it would be close to impossible with someone squatting in it already.

Sometimes it's painfully obvious who is giving their idealistic opinion and who is speaking from personal experience.

I just place people being able to have a roof over their heads over the needs of the rent seekers that are even in a position to squeeze the lower class by having essentially superfluous property.

Does forgetting to pay a credit card bill once do anything to credit checks? I don't know if I got lucky, or what. I forgot one once when I thought I had put it on auto pay. It was late enough that the next bill was what made me realize but it never showed up on my credit report.

How would you have perspective tenants prove they can pay reliably? A pay stub alone cannot tell if the person is reliable. They could have any number of other factors contributing to not being able to pay.

There’s a lot of factors that make up your credit score. Sometimes (usually?) a late payment isn’t reported until the following billing cycle (so essentially 2 months) meaning if you’re otherwise very prompt you’ll be fine.

For future reference, if you ever miss a payment you can always call the company and get it resolved before the credit bureaus know.