Make sure you do a background check. Not sure why no one has really emphasized this. A good credit check with a good landlord recommendation is always a must for me.

That, and make sure that the tenants aren?t recently divorced and going through issues. I had a tenant who had an excellent credit history and turns out, it was her exhusband that had the good history and the woman prioritized buying a Mercedes Benz SUV and a BMW over paying the rent. Needless to say, she was gone via eviction by the next month.