[quote=spdrun]One of the best tenants I’ve had was a freelancer. We talked about what he did, I was convinced that he actually knew what he was doing, and we signed a month-to-month lease on trial basis.

No employment verification requested, and I think I did the guy (as well as myself) a favor by being flexible.

Didn’t do a background check either. I feel that anyone who’s paid their debt to society shouldn’t be under disability for life.

BTW – the hole in your idea of large firms doing background checks, is what if something happened AFTER s/he was hired?[/quote]

Well if they, for example, get arrested for something bad, they wouldn’t be employed anymore either. And in my cases, if my tenants do something bad, I think that probably would ruin their chances of getting a green card. It’s not that I wouldn’t consider freelancers. It just happens in my submarkets, my applicants tend to be tech workers at a big company, so it makes my life a lot easier.