When my wife and I got married, we each owned a house. We moved into one and started renting the other. Eventually we moved to another house and started renting both of our original ones. Now that we have rented them out a few times, I wanted to make myself a check list for doing it again. Decided to post it online in case its helpful to others. Here are the main steps that we take.
1) Advertise house on Craigslist with rent, square footage, pictures deposit required. We don't allow pets, so we emphasize that too.
2) Clean house. Identify anything that needs fixing and schedule repairs.
3) Show to people for about 1 week. We've averaged about 6 parties looking at it. We try to pick some week night or weekend to show to as many as we can so we can save some trips. Ask people about when they would plan to move in. (UPDATE: on our 4th time renting, the house became vacant in early December. There was virtually no interest from anyone to see it until January, then it still took us another month to get an interested party)
4) After showing to several parties, pick the one party that seems the best of those that still want to move in. We sometimes have 2 or more parties who want to move in after they look at it, sometimes just one.
5) Ask the people you chose to fill out applications, one per adult. Email them application and document about credit rights. Tell any people that you didn't choose that you're going forward with someone else but will call them back if the first choice doesn't work out (which has happened twice). NOTE: applicants should not send their SSN by email, for security reasons. If they are scanning and emailing the application, then have them tell you SSN over the phone instead of writing on application.
6) For each adult applicant, do: credit check, employment verification with employer, residence verification and referral with current and past landlord. All of that should be on application. For credit check, must have SSN, DOB, and signature giving approval so those also need to be on application. We also do background checks because my wife is a private investigator, but those can be expensive otherwise. If you do that, then you should get permission for that too. We charge $20 per application to pay for credit checks, but only if we pick them to move in.
7) If you want to accept them after that, then let them know right away. Get deposit and have them sign lease soon if move-in date isn't for a while. Otherwise, get deposit, application fees, and pro-rated rent and sign lease at walk through time right before move in. Set time to meet for walk through and transferring keys.
8) Create lease agreement and send to tenant for review, along with EPA Lead pamphlet (only for old houses).
9) Send tenant phone numbers to change utilities into their name and explaining trash procedure.
10) Make sure you have enough keys for them. Bring keys, garage door openers, camera, lease, and walk through check list to final walk through.
11) At walk through, review condition and any special instructions for each room. Take broad pictures to document general condition of each room. Takes 20-30 minutes. Go through lease together explaining every item, 20-30 minutes.
12) Sign lease, get check for deposit, pro-rated rent, and application fees. Give keys.
There are lots of templates for applications and lease agreements, so find the ones that you like best. In my opinion on the lease agreement, the more detailed the better to minimize misunderstandings or disagreements on responsibilities.
UPDATE: Regarding signing lease on move-in, we had a case recently where we had 3 people who said they wanted to move in, then we ran the applications for them, then they changed their minds. So we spent $50 on application fees for nothing and had the property unlisted a few days. That made us think we should get a signed lease and deposit earlier. Or rather than signing the lease up front, maybe get the deposit and have a separate paper that says deposit will be forfeited if applicants back out.
