Most landlords treat tenant screening like a checklist. Pull the credit report, verify income, glance at the application, and move forward. References? Those feel like a formality. A box to tick on the way to signing the lease.
But we’ve talked to enough owners, and dealt with enough problem tenancies, to know that the reference call is the single best risk-mitigation tool in the whole screening process. And it’s also the one that gets skipped, rushed, or faked most often.
If you own rental property — a single-family home, a condo, a small multi-family building — this one is worth reading before your next vacancy.
In This Guide
Why a Credit Score Won’t Protect You
Let’s be real. A 700+ credit score feels like a green light. You see it, you relax. Most landlords do.
But credit scores measure debt behavior. They do not measure tenant behavior.
A tenant can carry a 740 FICO and leave a unit with $1,800 in carpet damage, unresolved noise complaints, and two lease violations in their wake — and none of it will show up on an Experian report because the prior landlord never sued and never sent the balance to collections.
We ran into this exact situation. One of our leasing agents, Gus, was processing an application for a well-dressed applicant with a 710 score who presented well. The Concept 360 team made the reference call anyway. The prior landlord confirmed the tenant left owing $1,800 in unreturned carpet and cleaning charges that had never hit their credit file. That call saved the owner from a very expensive lesson.
Credit reports tell you how someone handles credit cards. The prior landlord tells you how they treat someone else’s property.
A strong credit score is a starting point, not a finish line. Always call the humans who actually lived with this tenant’s behavior.
The Reference You Should Be Most Skeptical Of
Here’s a take that might feel counterintuitive. The references an applicant hands you are the ones to trust least.
They curated that list. They chose those people.
What you actually want is the landlord they didn’t list. The one from the address immediately before their most recent unit. Applicants who have something to hide tend to list a landlord from two or three units back, someone who barely remembers them, rather than the one who watched them leave owing money.
Always ask for the contact information for the prior landlord before the one they gave you. It takes thirty extra seconds to ask, and it surfaces the version of this applicant’s rental history they were hoping you wouldn’t find.
The Phone Call Beats the Letter. Every Time.
We’ve seen owners accept written reference letters in place of a live call. Don’t do this.
One owner we worked with, before joining Concept 360, accepted a reference letter from someone claiming to be the prior landlord on a Long Beach unit. That “landlord” was actually the applicant’s family member. The tenant was evicted eight months later. Total cost to the owner: approximately $7,400 in legal fees, lost rent, and turnover.
“The tenant was evicted eight months later. Total cost to the owner: approximately $7,400 in legal fees, lost rent, and turnover.”
Our team now verifies landlord identity against county assessor records before treating any reference as valid. If the name on the letter doesn’t match the owner of record for that property address, it’s not a valid reference. Full stop.
A phone call is harder to fake. A letter is not.
A reference letter with no phone verification is almost meaningless. In California, it’s genuinely easy to fabricate. Always confirm the person you’re speaking to actually owns or managed the property in question — a quick county assessor lookup takes about two minutes.
What to Actually Ask on the Reference Call
Most landlords who do make the call ask the wrong questions. “Did they pay on time?” “Would you rent to them again?” Those questions get you yes/no answers that tell you almost nothing.
Here’s what a real reference call should cover:
- Payment history: Did they ever receive a 3-Day Notice to Pay or Quit? How often were payments late, even by a few days?
- Maintenance behavior: Did they report issues promptly? Did they report issues excessively, or escalate minor requests?
- Property condition: What did the unit look like at move-out? Were there charges beyond normal wear and tear?
- Lease compliance: Any lease violations? Unauthorized occupants? Smoking complaints? Noise?
- Reason for leaving: Did they give proper notice? Did they leave voluntarily?
- Would you rent to them again? Ask this last, after the specifics. The pause before the answer tells you as much as the answer itself.
Cover at least 24 months of rental history. Anything shorter leaves a real gap in the payment pattern picture.
The Non-Answer Is an Answer
Some landlords may feel an ethical or practical obligation to respond honestly to reference inquiries from other landlords, and providing false information could potentially expose them to legal liability—though renters should verify the specific legal requirements in their jurisdiction. So when a prior landlord says only “yes, they rented here from this date to that date” and nothing else, experienced property managers in this market treat that as a soft red flag.
If the tenancy went well, most landlords will say so. The ones who go quiet are often the ones who don’t want to get into it, but also don’t want to lie. They’ve landed on “dates only” as their middle ground.
We’ve seen this come up repeatedly in multi-family buildings across the South Bay, where a reference that reveals noise or neighbor conflicts at a prior address matters a lot. Shared walls mean one bad placement affects everyone in the building.
When you get a non-answer, ask one follow-up: “Is there anything that would prevent you from recommending this tenant?” You don’t need a monologue. You need to give them the chance to say yes or no to that specific question.
Section 8 Tenants and Student Renters Require the Same Standard
Two applicant types tend to get a pass on reference calls, and they shouldn’t.
Section 8 / HUD Voucher Holders
The HACLB (Housing Authority of the City of Long Beach) screening process covers income eligibility for Long Beach HCV applicants, while LACDA handles the same for unincorporated Los Angeles County residents. It does not evaluate tenant behavior. A voucher holder who left a prior unit with lease violations, neighbor complaints, or property damage will pass HACLB’s process just fine. The prior landlord reference is the only way to surface that history.
And under California’s source-of-income protections, voucher holders must be evaluated under the exact same criteria as any other applicant. That means running the same reference process. No shortcuts in either direction.
CSULB and LBCC Student Renters
Long Beach’s rental market pulls a significant student population from Cal State Long Beach and Long Beach City College. Many of these applicants are first-time renters with no prior landlord history at all. That’s not disqualifying, but it does change the call.
With student applicants, co-signer verification becomes essential. And rather than a prior landlord call, you’re looking for a parental reference and a conversation with whoever is guaranteeing the lease. The absence of rental history is its own data point.
The Competitive Market Creates the Biggest Pressure to Rush
In submarkets like Belmont Shore, Bixby Knolls, and downtown Long Beach, a well-priced rental can draw multiple applications in 48 to 72 hours. The pressure to approve quickly is real.
We hear from owners all the time who skipped the reference call because they were afraid of losing a “good” applicant to another landlord. Some of them paid for it later.
A single month of vacancy on a Long Beach single-family rental can represent thousands of dollars in lost income, depending on the property size and location. Rushing past references to fill that vacancy faster frequently costs more than the vacancy itself. Replacing a problem tenant after the fact, especially on a property covered by AB 1482 rent control buildings more than 15 years old (so constructed before approximately 2011 as of 2026), can take three to six months and cost $5,000 to $10,000 in legal fees and repairs. A 10-minute phone call is the cheapest insurance in the business.
Why Pet-Owning Applicants Deserve a Fair Look
One quick note on pets, since it comes up often in reference calls. When owners ask whether a prior tenant had pets, they sometimes use that information to screen pet owners out of the pool. We’d push back on that.
About 66% of U.S. households own a pet, according to the 2023-2024 National Pet Owners Survey. Eliminating pet-owning applicants eliminates roughly two-thirds of your rental pool before you’ve even checked a reference. Concept 360 recommends that owners accept pets with proper insurance requirements in place, because narrowing the pool that aggressively almost always extends vacancy time.
A reference call that confirms a tenant with a dog left the unit in great condition is a better signal than a no-pets policy that keeps you from finding that tenant in the first place.
How Concept 360 Handles This
We manage 575 units across Long Beach, South Bay, and North Orange County. Our vacancy rate sits at 4.0%, and reference verification is a direct part of why turnover stays low.
Our team verifies landlord identity against assessor records, covers the full question list on every call, and flags non-answers the same way we flag confirmed violations. Our leasing agents, Gus Rodriguez and Jonathan McCarty, run every reference call through the same documented process so nothing gets skipped when a unit is moving fast and the pressure is on.
One review from a long-term owner using our platform put it simply: “Their costs are much lower than the companies we had vetted when we first selected them” — and they’ve stuck with us for two years. Part of what makes the economics work is that we don’t skip the steps that prevent expensive mistakes later.
We track median repair time through Property Meld, currently at 3.7 days. Catching the wrong tenant before move-in means that maintenance pipeline stays clean instead of getting clogged by a tenant weaponizing maintenance requests as a lease-breaking strategy.
If reference screening feels harder or messier than it should be, we’re open to a conversation about how we handle it.
FAQ
How many landlord references should I call before approving a tenant?
We recommend covering at least 24 months of rental history, which typically means calling two prior landlords. One reference alone leaves too much room for a problem tenancy to be hiding just outside the window you checked.
What if an applicant has no prior rental history at all?
No rental history is common with first-time renters, especially students near CSULB or LBCC. In these cases, shift to a qualified co-signer, verify the guarantor’s income and identity thoroughly, and conduct a parental or employer reference in place of a landlord call.
Can a prior landlord legally refuse to answer my reference questions?
California landlord-tenant law addresses various duties of honesty and disclosure, and prior landlords who limit reference responses to dates of tenancy generally face minimal legal exposure—though landlords should consult an attorney about their specific obligations before providing or withholding information. If that’s all you get, treat the non-answer as a yellow flag and ask directly whether they’d rent to this person again.
Does a tenant’s credit score matter at all if I’m doing a thorough reference check?
Yes, credit is still useful as one data point. It gives you a window into financial habits and outstanding debt obligations. But it measures credit behavior, not rental behavior, and should never substitute for a live reference call to the humans who actually managed this person’s prior tenancy.
How do I verify that the landlord reference I’m calling is the actual property owner?
Look up the property address in the county assessor’s database and confirm the name matches the person you’re speaking with. In Long Beach and the surrounding area, that’s the LA County Assessor portal or the OC Assessor for North Orange County properties. It takes about two minutes and it’s the only way to catch a fabricated reference before it costs you thousands.
Is it legal to ask about a Section 8 tenant’s prior rental behavior during a reference call?
Yes. California’s source-of-income protections prohibit discriminating against voucher holders, but they do not prohibit running a standard reference check. You can and should ask the same questions you’d ask for any applicant, covering payment history, property condition, and lease compliance.
