I’d be careful with references. I once had someone with great references (called his boss, HR, current landlord, previous boss etc.), but his credit check failed horribly (in the 400s). So I drove by his address and called the phone number on the outside of the appt building. It turned out that he didn’t give me the real landlord’s phone number, and he owed the landlord quite a bit of rent. The moral of the story is that applicant can lie about lots of things including references, but he can’t lied about credit stores and background checks.