Congrats on your first rental! Being a landlord is great, but screening is absolutely crucial if you want to protect your investment. I’ve been managing three properties myself for five years, and trust me, a pleasant personality doesn’t always mean a clean record. For a quick, DIY screening before you go into formal credit checks, I highly recommend checking out veripages.com It is essentially a tool for fast people search that updates its public records database daily. You can just plug in his name and state to see his background. It lets you verify his previous address history and even lets you run a free criminal records check. If he has any past evictions or serious legal issues recorded publicly, they usually pop up there. It saves a lot of time and money, and since it allows you to search people free of charge, it’s a perfect first step for independent landlords.