If you want your tenants to be happy renters, it starts before they move in. You’ll need to make sure that the place is clean, with new carpet and a fresh coat of paint if necessary. You’ll need to make sure the appliances are in working order and that everything is safe and up to code. Then there’s the job of finding renters and managing the property. If you think all you’re going to have to do is collect a check every month, then you may want to think twice before you buy anything.

If something goes wrong with the property, you’re the first person your tenant is going to call, even if the responsibility lies with them. It’s important to create a clearly defined list of who is responsible for what in the lease, but chances are you are going to responsible for fixing the air conditioner if it breaks down in the middle of the summer, and if the basement leaks in the spring, you’ll be required to fix it. Make sure that you or your representative is always available to your tenants to avoid unhappy renters.

If one of your tenants trips on a crack on the driveway and gets hurt, who is responsible? It’s a question that you should know the answer to before you allow anyone to move in. While you can’t be held responsible for everything, you can definitely be held responsible in the event of negligence; for instance, if you know the crack is a hazard but refuse to fix it. You’ll likely have liability insurance, but this doesn’t mean you can neglect the property.

If you rent for any length of time or have more than one property, you may have bad tenants at some point, and there’s not much you can do about it. You’ll be chasing down late payments, fixing problems on the property you know aren’t your fault, and you’ll be making costly repairs after they move out. Best case scenario is consistently late rent; at worst, you’ll have to evict someone and lose months of unpaid rent.

It seems like choosing good tenants from the get go is the easiest way to avoid bad ones, but this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Unfortunately, you can’t really know what kind of renter someone is until they move in, no matter what a credit report or previous landlord tells you. The best way to a good tenant is to never neglect checking someone’s history, and always listen to your gut. Sometimes even the squeakiest of clean people can give you a bad vibe; if this is the case, you may be best to move on to the next applicant.