Tenant screening - first-time landlord. I did the Zillow Application. Background check is clean. Good to meet in person.

Key flags:

1. Credit score is 568. She says it’s incorrect, and there has always been an error and she will produce an updated credit report, which she hasn’t.
2. Retired from a government job, says her pension is $20,000 per month, which seems very excessive, but not able to produce consistent monthly stubs.

Is there a way to clarify these? Or should I drop this tenant

funny
Posting as :
works at
You are currently posting as works at

No….. huge red flags. Keep waiting. Which city are you in? If SF, I urge extra precaution

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San Jose

I’d be apprehensive too

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DROP. You will completely regret it if not.

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I'd keep looking for new tenants. At the very least, this tenant has failed to provide the requested pay stubs, and has yet to provide the credit report they volunteered. These documents could arrive in your email at any moment, at which point you can re-evaluate, but until then, keep looking for better candidates.

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Remember, with picking tenants, the cost of making a mistake is enormous.

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Can anyone pension even be $20000? 🫨

I don't think that's realistic with a govt job, and I didn't think it was even technically possible, but I think it is *technically* possible!

The top of the pay scale (GS-15) is 191k/y for the SF Bay Area. Federal pension under the old CSRS system is capped at 80% of peak salary so that would max out at 12.7k/mo. If the timing lined up exactly and they were in Congress (including as a staffer) for that whole time, they could have hit that max in 32 years, switched to FERS the last time that was possible in 1998, then been a cop/firefighter/air traffic controller/etc (to qualify for a boosted rate) for the next 26 years, and retired this year (at the top of the pay scale in SF). That gets you (if my math is right) to 19.7k/mo, after a minimum of 58 years of service, so you'd be retiring no younger than 74. (Though you'd be getting less social security, since the years you were in CSRS you weren't covered by it.)

20k per *year* is a lot more plausible, 20 years of service ending at age 62 in GS-11 gets you there.

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Why not wait and keep reviewing applications from other potential tenants in the meantime? Can you do both?

Do you really need to pay to do this? Are you not getting enough applicants on Zillow?

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Government employee and fellow first time landlord (but thankfully our property is not in CA). (1) I’d be really cautious…unless they can provide details on the error and prove it, and especially here in CA, I wouldn’t trust it. We rented to someone with credit issues, and they usually do pay, but have had issues at times, so you should be ready, willing, and able (ie a missed payment won’t make you unable to pay your mortgage) to accept that. (2) She should be able to produce a document from her pension system that says her monthly pension is X dollars. $20K monthly = $240K annually seems excessive but not necessarily impossible depending on level and years of service. Keep in mind that the typical pension for 30 years is 60-70% of your highest salary…to get 100%, if the pension even allows, you typically need 40+ years.

Good luck!

The credit score report is less concerning to me than the pension statement. If she could provide good pay stubs and you could verify them, then that would be fine. But the combo of the bad credit report and the pension is highly suspicious.

Yeah just wait until some tech bros shows up.

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