Tenant pre-screening questionnaire template

Timing

1. When do you need to move in?

The single most common mismatch: nothing else in the conversation matters if the dates cannot meet.

2. What lease term are you looking for?

You offer twelve months; they want four, or the reverse. Better discovered now than at the kitchen counter.

3. Where are you in your current lease?

Notice already given means a real deadline and a fast decision; “just looking” may be six months out. Both are legitimate, at different points in your calendar.

Household size

4. How many people will live in the home, including you?

Every unit has a written occupancy limit and you need the count to apply it — the number and nothing more, with no follow-up about who they are or how they are related.

5. Will every adult who lives there complete an application?

Your screening only works if it reaches everyone on the lease, and saying so now prevents a surprise third adult at signing.

Budget

Disclose before you ask. Rent, deposit, recurring fees, the income criterion you apply and your pet terms belong in the listing and at the top of this page, so the applicant can do the arithmetic against your real numbers.

6. The rent is [amount] and the deposit is [amount]. Does that work for you?

A yes/no against a stated figure is the least intrusive budget question there is, and it catches the applicant who skimmed the listing.

7. Our criteria require household income of [your stated criterion]. Does your household meet that?

Income is the most common reason an application fails; asked as a yes/no against a published criterion it is both more respectful and more defensible than “what do you earn”. Note the word household.

8. Can you document that income?

An applicant who knows what to bring turns a showing into an application the same day — and the question is about paperwork, not where the money comes from.

Pets

An assistance animal is not a pet and is not handled by your pet policy. If an applicant raises one, route it to whoever in your firm handles accommodation requests and do not improvise.

9. Do you have any pets? If so, what kind and how many?

Pet terms are a hard constraint and a large share of applicants have a pet, so this question saves more wasted showings than almost any other.

10. Have you read our pet terms (deposit, monthly pet rent, any limits)?

The terms are published; this confirms they were seen, and surfaces the applicant hoping to negotiate at the showing.

Must-haves

11. Is there anything this home must have for you to take it?

Parking, in-unit laundry, ground floor, an elevator, a second bathroom — if the unit lacks it, the showing is a courtesy tour and you both know how it ends.

12. Have you seen the listing photos and the floor plan for this exact unit?

Several similar units at one address generate showings for the wrong unit constantly; ten seconds here prevents a wasted trip.

Logistics

13. Do you know the building and the block already?

You are collecting a fact, nothing more: someone who has never seen the street is still choosing a neighbourhood, and that helps you read the calendar.

14. What is the best way to reach you, and may we text you?

Confirmations and reminders work by text, and you need permission to send them.

15. If we sent you a booking link now, which days this week work?

This is the hand-off from pre-screen to showing; asking it as a question keeps the applicant in motion instead of waiting to hear back.

What to leave out

The list above is short on purpose, and what is missing is not an oversight. Federal fair-housing law defines protected classes and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development publishes the list; many states and cities add more. Which ones apply to you depends on where the building is. Nothing here interprets a statute — check your own jurisdiction and have your written criteria reviewed by someone qualified to do it.

What a template can give you is a test. Does the question find out whether the person meets a written criterion, or does it find out who the person is? The second kind goes. So leave out:

• Anything about marital status, children or plans to have them, beyond the occupant count in question 4.
• Anything about where someone is from, what language they speak at home, or their accent.
• Anything about religion, including friendly questions about holidays or a place of worship.
• Anything about a disability, medical condition or medication — including “is that a service animal for something?”
• Anything about age beyond confirming that every applicant is an adult.
• Anything about the source of income, as opposed to whether it can be documented.
• Anything you would not ask every single applicant, in the same words, in the same order.

Three more categories are worth leaving out for practical rather than legal reasons. Questions you cannot act on — “why are you moving?” produces a story you are not allowed to use. Questions that belong on the application — rental history, references, background and eviction questions have their own rules, and asking them by text before a showing gains you nothing. And documents: no pay stubs, no identification, no Social Security number before a showing. Data you do not need yet is liability you do not need yet.

The order that keeps a good applicant from bouncing

1. Open with your facts (above).
2. Timing — questions 1 to 3. Fast, factual, and they qualify or disqualify on their own.
3. Budget as yes/no — questions 6 and 7. You have already shown the numbers; you are asking for agreement, not a disclosure.
4. Household count and pets — questions 4, 5, 9 and 10.
5. Must-haves and the exact unit — questions 11 and 12, the one place you invite a sentence.
6. Documentation — question 8, which by now reads as “here is how to be ready” rather than as a demand.
7. Contact and booking — questions 13 to 15, ending with a link they can use immediately.

Two minutes, fifteen questions at most, identical for everyone, and a next step at the end.