How Landlords Can Screen Tenants and Avoid Costly Evictions

Jude Aririesike (00:00)

If you’re currently renting home to tenants and you are not doing your due diligence, you’re not doing yourself a favor and you’re not doing that tenant a favor because sometimes they don’t know how to make the right decision based their

on their income. So it’s important for you to have that bridge that gap, do your due diligence, set them up for success. Could do that easily. And the way to do that is to set up a system where you could screen your tenants from, looking at credit scores, looking at how they think, the ability to, pay rent on time, and you could do all of that via The Green Key.

Dylan Silver (02:05)

Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today we’re joined by Jude Aririesike a real estate investor in New Braunfels, Texas, and tech founder behind The Green Key, a web application fAor landlords screening tenants and helping to effectively run

rentals. Jude, thanks for taking the time today.

Jude Aririesike (02:25)

Thank you very much, Dylan, for having me.

Dylan Silver (02:26)

What was the inspiration behind The Green Key?

Jude Aririesike (02:30)

I was inspired by one thing, particularly where I do real estate, where I have real estate real estate portfolio in San Antonio, Texas. I had I had a bad experience getting a tenant who potentially may have been evicted in the pr prior home. She did provide information that may not be accurate. Again, this is on the realms of probabilities, but

the story tends to go towards that same direction that it could be possible that the tenant was evicted because we don’t have a system of knowing if a tenant is recently evicted, because you can’t go real time on the court system to identify that tenant who was evicted. And then they will let you I’ll tell you some couple stories just to lease your property. So I eventually had to evict that tenant barely one month

getting her on the property. So I tend to ask myself, since we don’t have a tool to be able to determine right away, real time, when a tenant has been evicted from a previous resident, there must be a way to kind of like get into the mind of a tenant and determine the ability to pay rent on time that inspired The Green Key. The Green Key is basically a 20 question assessment that is conducted, which is more like the first gate to the door.

Where the tenant will be asked questions that will kind of get a deep dive into their mind, how they think, and the ability to make rent on time and still stay stable. Because for me as a landlord, I try as much as possible to set up my tenants to succeed. And part of that is doing due diligence, making sure that I run through their income, their employment history, see if they’re currently employed, making sure that they can make rent.

Whenever a tenant is looking for a home, they’re desperate. Sometimes they don’t think straight. So it will be a duty of a landlord to make sure you’re doing your due diligence before getting this tenant to avoid the evictions and all the all the bad energy that comes with that process. So yeah, The Green Key is a great tool for landlords and also a pathway for mortgage lenders to be able to assess tenants as

the first step to see if they qualify moving forward to buy a home. So The Green Key has a whole bunch of stuff from that assessment all the way to scheduling a tour and from scheduling a tour to completing a leasing application, getting conditionally approved, while the landlord takes time to manually review paperwork’s coming from, including previous landlords

from the job right on the system you can do all of that send documents receive documents and generate industrial grade leases sent to tenants to sign automatically you have the option to set up a moving checklist right on The Green Key so it’s pretty much a one stop job to keep your property running including rent tracking which is very important because

If you don’t track your rent, I mean it beats me why some landlords take cash today. Because if you do take cash, you don’t have a way to track your real estate portfolio. You don’t have a way to track the performance of your tenants. But right on The Green Key, you have the option to do all of that going forward. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (05:48)

I wanna ask you specifically about the tool that it uses to create this grade for tenants. Once someone is in the system, will they have like a score, if you will, for future landlords to see or some type of data so that they can see how they scored on a previous assessment or is it erased after they apply for one property?

Jude Aririesike (06:57)

So part of the design of The Green Key is also to provide an actionable tenant side report. So there are two reports that generated. The first report is the one for the landlord, which is extremely comprehensive, including all the questions that was the 20 questions, because it’s is grouped in batches based on what the system is looking for: stewardship, transparency, honesty

and and responsibility all that are put are configured around questions that the assessment provides so the answers are now summed with summary and actionable guidelines for the landlord to make that approval decision on the part of the tenant the tenant are also being provided how their performance how the way they think could impact

the ability to rent a home of their choice. They will be provided the same overall BRI score that is being shared with the landlord, but their side comes with actionable tools like provide them a guidance on how to look, what to look, and what they are not doing right based on the answers they provide. So they can download that report and take it to another landlord. Hey.

I took The Green Key report. Look at my report. Look at what it looks like. Now, a landlord can actually look at that report based on the report, the the data that was provided, could decide to say, hey, let me try this tenant and see if that works, right? So the report leaves in the system for the landlord side, and the tenant has the option to download the report. So when you complete the assessment, you get an email that your report is ready.

You could go ahead and download that report and I mean, take a look at how you performed and see what you don’t know about you, which the AI has tracked and giving you a guide guidance on how to perform better and become a good tenant going forward.

Dylan Silver (09:02)

Let’s talk about what landlords are currently doing because you mentioned not having a clear idea of what a tenant background might look like as far as rental history goes. Currently what are the processes that landlords will do to vet tenants right now without The Green Key? So

Jude Aririesike (09:21)

Frankly, Dylan, it shocks me that some tenants, sorry, some landers basically ask you, Do you have your security deposit? Do you have a first rent and asset? And how they do that, I have no idea. I had set up a system and I personally do moving walking for my tenants to connect with them, to go to net, to get to know them, to let them know I’m here for you, I’m your biggest fan.

As far as you pay your rent or time, I let them know the system that I operate. So my system is designed in such a way that you have three days grace period. First, second, and the third. By the third, The Green Key sends out a notification: Have you paid your rent? and gives you a reminder to do your rent. Now, on the fourth, if you do not pay your rent, you’re gonna receive.

10% late fee of your monthly rent. If you on the fourth, you’re gonna get the first notice of default of the leaks and give you pathways, including providing options for rental assistance based on state guidelines. I will provide you links, for example, those who live in San Antonio, options for rental assistance, all that are provided by the fifth.

They you begin to get a daily lay fee of $50. Okay, this is like standard for all my rental portfolio. By the fifth, you get another letter, second notice of default, and giving you again partway, what you owe, as well as the left fee. By that fifth, if that payment is made before the end of business day, you are good to go. By the third, by the by this, okay, so we have the fourth.

We have the fifth. By the sixth, I’m hitting the courts. I’m going to the courts to report that payment default and wait for my court day. The reason why I set up that system is that I noticed that a lot of tenants take advantage of the landlords. They feel like, the system grinds very slow. They can afford to stay in the property without paying rent for the next maybe one month. So I kind of like feel like this is not okay.

I tell my tenants, look, I don’t, I haven’t paid this property like off. Okay, I do mortgages, right? My system is set up in such a way that if the tenant does the mortgage, I pay the rent. That does the rent, I do the mortgage. That way I’m not putting myself on the bind or other properties or taking monies from other properties to pay for a particular property. And from the one, I let them know like, look, work your system in that same process.

Give them all the right notification from day one on the on the on the walking movie walking. I try to explain all this in detail. And a lot of my tenants, other than one particular tenant, I currently am having issues with the same tenant. So let me shock you, Dylan.

I told you from the beginning of this podcast, I told you I’m a very compassionate guy. I try to show empathy to people. I try to show kindness to people. That’s the way I was raised. And I’m also a Christian, a Catholic man. For me, compassion is great for humanity. But all the time, most of the time, people take advantage of guys like me, who show a lot of empathy to people. So when I got eviction with this particular tenant I was talking about, I looked at her face, I saw misery.

I thought even though the judge told me, do what you gotta do, move out of the property by the end of that day. That’s what he told the tenant. I saw misery in her face. She was almost getting ready to start the process of going to the next steps, which is putting a petition to contest the appeal. I’m sorry, I’m frightened, I’m trying to find the right word. Appeal. And I called her, said, Look, I’m sure I’m not, I’m not.

I’m not I’m not a lawyer. I’m not gonna advise you. Point number one, but I’m just gonna say this to you. If you’re going to make an appeal once a judgment is given, remember that you are required to put down your one month rate as a security deposit for you to proceed to an appeal. And you currently work, the only option you have available for you is to what do you call it the they call it the poverty.

Like you have to prove that you are extremely poor to not pay that deposit, right? Yeah, so you’re currently work. There’s no way you’re gonna prove that. And you have you’re required to provide that a one-month rent as a bell bond. I’m trying to find the right one again. That they call it, but you have to provide that deposit for you to proceed to make an appeal. But what I can do for you now, let’s have a conversation. You have a family, I hate to take you.

Out of a home you have built for yourself. Let’s work some numbers here. How much are you willing to come up today so that I can let you stay in that home without going to the next steps? The whole nine years of getting the bailiff to come and throw you out of the home once the time given the court has passed, which is seven days, I believe it was five days from the court date. So we worked out something at the end of the day. I had this tenant in the home and she promised.

Me that she will continue to pay her rent on time beginning after that eviction. But it’s been a hard time. She gets all the reminders in the world to just pay rent. So it’s been a battle. So it kind of breaks me to pieces when I see stuff like that, because this particular tenant has a good job, but there is no financial discipline, there is no sort of money.

Education, because you could be making a whole lot of great income, but if you don’t have financial literacy, if you don’t understand money skill, the tendency for you to default in payment are always there, both in your personal life and even in home you’re in. So it is quite a challenge, dealing with all this. So for to your question, Dylan, I don’t know what the

all other lawnless are doing, but what I can tell you is they are not doing the due diligence before getting tenants to their residence. And they go through that vicious cycle of eviction, broken leases, and all of that. But you could actually help these tenants by making sure first are they is the whole base fit for their needs in terms of their finances from day one so that they do not see a property they can’t afford, provide.

Documentations that might not be accurate to be able to get it home, at the end of the day, they start defaulting on rent payment. So you have to do your due diligence from day one. I know landlords that when they see your credit report and there’s a collection, that’s a deal breaker. Once there’s a collection in your account, it’s a deal breaker. And I tend to agree with them because if you have collection on your account,

And then you’re looking for a home. The tendency for you to default again and have collection in your account is something that should be concerning. Because if you look at your credit report and you’re seeing there’s a collection on the account, you’re not trying to dispute it if you think it’s inaccurate or make an effort to have it removed from your credit report. That’s right there is a show of financial lack of financial discipline. Yeah. So

What the tenant what the landlords are doing right now, if they’re not taking advantage of the new technology to, process tenants and clearance,

Dylan Silver (17:18)

What about folks who will say, Well, look, I I’m only going to accept folks with, seven hundred plus credit and a and no collections on their credit report. Is there are there enough renters out there to f to fill th that renter pool?

Jude Aririesike (17:32)

Dylan, you brought a valid point. Now let me shock you, Dylan. Every single day there’s well over 16,000 properties listed in the city of San Antonio. So when you have that large pool of properties with limited renters, some of them low income renters, the bar becomes incredibly low. So if you are renting a property in the city of San Antonio, for example,

And you have a benchmark of 700 score, 700 credit score. Trust me, you’re gonna hit a vacancy that will run in months. So that’s why I try to use several resources to be able to push my property out there. I use Facebook Marketplace, I use Avail, I use Zillow. So the interesting thing about Avel, I’m not marketing for them though. When you listen to Avel, Avail shoots you over to almost about 12.

Other platforms, including realtor.com, where landlords like me, private landlords like me, do not have access to. Because for you to list in realtor.com, you have to be a realtor. But you don’t need to be a realtor to be a landlord, right? So you use Avel, list your property in Avell, Avail shoots it on Realtor.com, Trulia, a whole bunch of places they shoot it to. So you now have a lot of

a lot of eyeballs looking at your property. But it’s incredibly tough. Like I speak to you right now. I have a property that’s sitting on a vacancy. My vacancy rate has never exceeded two months. I panic, frankly. I panic the first month if I don’t rent, but I have never had the option of hitting two months without renting my property. To me, that would be a big dint on my.

My financial planning because frankly Dylan to have financial discipline the ability for you to meet your obligations is tough for a lot of people I have never, ever fallen late on any obligation ever. So I’m not I’m not I’m not saying I’m a superhuman person or there’s something special about me. No, I’m just

One humble guy, I try to live by the books, do the right stuff. And it takes a lot of hard work. You just have to be intentional. That’s one of the things I told you when we first started the podcast. Being intentional in what you do, saying to yourself, making that decision to yourself, I will honor my obligation 100% and get intentional about it. And that’s, I mean, a lot of people lack that ability.

To actually honor their words, honor their financial obligations. So it is tough. And once that culture is built around yourself, you will always have issues with your landlords, with mortgage lenders, with where you have obligations, even with friends. When you take monies from them, hey, I’m gonna give you tomorrow, and the tomorrow comes and say, sorry, but I couldn’t do that, because you have built a culture, it becomes a Muslim memory.

For you to actually not honor the what you say, so i it’s tough.

Dylan Silver (20:36)

Absolutely, Jude. And you talk about being able to, never be late and repay all of the debts that you have on time and early. And one of the things that I think a lot of people run into, even investors, right, is they will overextend themselves because they have gotten to a point where they feel comfortable. And the answer then is to take on in many cases more debt that is not based on an appreciating asset like real estate.

But that might be, a car and everyone knows that a car is not always in many cases the best investment. And so when we

Jude Aririesike (21:10)

It’s not an investment I told you.

Dylan Silver (21:13)

Exactly

Right. When we look at, the types of debt that people have and where they’re choosing to use their money as an investment and also a store of value, that is a great precursor to their overall financial well being, not just at that moment in time, but in the future, right? If you could buy the car, buy or save and buy a home, which one are you gonna do? We aren’t coming up on time here, though,

Anything you’d like to say directly to our audience here?

Jude Aririesike (21:43)

Okay, so all I could say here is first of all thank you, Dylan, for having me today and giving the opportunity to talk about The Green Key. This the Green Key is a tool that is being built for landlords for landlords. You’re currently if you’re currently renting home to tenants and you are not doing your due diligence, you’re not doing yourself a favor and you’re not doing that tenant a favor because sometimes they don’t know how to make the right decision based their

on their income. So it’s important for you to have that bridge that gap, do your due diligence, set them up for success. Could do that easily. And the way to do that is to set up a system where you could screen your tenants from, looking at credit scores, looking at how they think, the ability to, pay rent on time, and you could do all of that via The Green Key.

If you’re currently renting home to tenants and you are not doing your due diligence, you’re not doing yourself a favor and you’re not doing that tenant a favor because sometimes they don’t know how to make the right decision based their

on their income. So it’s important for you to have that bridge that gap, do your due diligence, set them up for success. Could do that easily. And the way to do that is to set up a system where you could screen your tenants from, looking at credit scores, looking at how they think, the ability to, pay rent on time, and you could do all of that via The Green Key.

Dylan Silver (23:02)

Jude, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for your time.

Jude Aririesike (23:05)

Thank you, Dylan. Thank you for having me.