I answer the same questions about my rentals over and over

Updated October 2026 · Written by a self-managing landlord — 13 units in Pennsylvania since 2020

The last time I listed a three-bedroom, I counted. Forty-one messages between Friday night and Sunday night, and thirty-four of them asked something that was already in the ad: is it still available, do you take cats, who pays the water, is there parking, when can I see it. The seven that were left were the people I actually wanted to talk to, and they were buried.

The fix is not a faster thumb. It is answering before they ask: an ad that states every policy up front, an application that asks my two questions so I do not have to, and a review screen that puts the strongest applicants on top and folds the weak ones away. Here is that setup on a vacant single-family I am listing now.

One rule runs under all of it, and it is the one that keeps a landlord out of a fair-housing complaint: everything in the ad describes the property and its terms. Rent, deposit, pets, smoking, parking, who pays which utility. Nothing describes the person I am hoping to rent to. The tool is built so that it cannot, and I will come back to that.

How it goes, start to finish

1The ad writes itself from the pills, with every policy stated up frontfree to build; publishing is on the Starter plan

I do not write the ad. I click what is true about the house and the description is composed from it, in the order a renter reads: rent and deposit, who pays what, the features, the outside, then the policies. Cats allowed, no dogs. No smoking. Credit check required, applicant pays. Driveway, two spaces. Every one of those is a message I will not get, because it is already in the paragraph they read before they hit send.

The pills are the point. There is a pill for "cats only" and a pill for "hookups only" and a pill for "Section 8 accepted". There is no pill for the kind of tenant I want, no "quiet building", no "ideal for" anything, and there is deliberately no "Section 8 not accepted" either, because in a lot of places source of income is protected and the ad is published under my name. If an option would describe a person rather than the property, it is not in the list. The ad that comes out is one I can put on Zillow without a second read.

The listing builder: showing, pet, smoking, Section 8, credit check, laundry and parking pills selected, and the ad text below written from those selections — The policies as pills, and the ad text written from them. The application link in the ad is blurred here only because this is a demo account.

2My standards, set once

Before the first application lands I decide what matters, once, on a board instead of in my head at 11 p.m. Income of three times the rent and six months with the current employer are must-haves. A prior eviction or a smoker (the house is non-smoking) is a disqualifier. Pets and a credit score in the 600s are yellow flags: I look, I do not reject. Move-in timing is parked under Not Used for this one because the house is not ready until December anyway.

Every one of these is something an applicant tells me on the application, applied the same way to every applicant. That is the other half of fair housing: not just what I do not ask, but applying the same yardstick to everyone who answers. The board is private to me; applicants never see it and it never produces a report.

The Applicant Preference Board with criteria cards sorted into Disqualifiers, Yellow Flags, Must Have, Nice to Have and Not Used columns — Disqualifiers on the left, must-haves in the middle, the rest where they belong. Set once per listing.

3The application asks my two questions so I do not have to

The standard application already collects the things my criteria need: income, employer, time on the job, current and previous landlord, pets, smoking, credit range, move-in date, references. On top of that I add the two questions that were generating the most back-and-forth. One: have you read the full listing, including the cats-only, no-smoking and tenant-pays-utilities policies? Yes or no, required. Two: which showing time works, weekday evening or Saturday morning? A dropdown, so the answer is one I can act on.

The first question sounds blunt and it saves me the most. The person who answers no has told me something; the person who answers yes and still asks about dogs has told me something too. The second one means the showing conversation is already half done when I pick up the phone. The link to this application sits inside the ad itself, so the renter goes from reading the policies straight to answering against them.

The public rental application showing the Additional Information section and the landlord's two custom questions: a yes/no about having read the listing policies and a showing-time dropdown — What the renter sees: the standard questions, then mine, marked as landlord questions.

4Applicants ranked, weak matches folded away

Three applications came in on this house. The review screen reads each one against the screening qualifications (minimum income, minimum credit, rental history, no prior evictions, currently employed) and shows a ring: four of five, four of five, three of five. Open a card and it says which one was missed. Income, credit range and time on the job sit on the row itself, so I am comparing in seconds instead of opening three PDFs.

Then the part that gives me the weekend back: the Filters panel collapses anyone under a threshold I pick, here fewer than four of five. The third applicant is still there, one click away under "1 applicant collapsed", but he is not in my face, and I am not writing a careful email to a self-reported smoker with a 70-pound dog for a non-smoking cats-only house. The two who are left get a call about Saturday morning.

The Application Review screen: two applicants with 4 of 5 match rings, one expanded to show which criteria were met, and a strip reading 1 applicant collapsed, fewer than 4 of 5 criteria — Four of five, four of five, and one folded away. The expanded card shows exactly which criterion was missed.

Why this is worth a page

Nobody lists a rental because they enjoy fielding messages. The forty-one messages were a symptom: an ad that left questions open and an inbox with no sorting. Put the policies in the ad, put your two questions on the application, decide your yardstick once, and let the review screen do the first pass. The people you talk to are the people worth talking to.

Building the ad, the application and the ranking is on every plan including free. Publishing the ad to Zillow and the inbound-leads inbox are on the Starter plan.

The same application on a phone, showing the landlord's custom questions — The application on a phone, where most renters fill it out.

Questions landlords ask about this

What should I put in a rental ad?

Everything a renter would otherwise message you about: rent, deposit, the available date, who pays each utility, the pet policy, smoking, parking, laundry, whether a credit check is required and who pays for it, how showings work, and the link to your application. Describe the property and its terms, not the kind of tenant you want. The ad on this page was written from exactly those choices.

Is there a rental listing description generator?

LandlordPro's listing builder is one: you click pills for features and policies and the description is composed from them, with the property details and your application link, and it can be published to Zillow from the same screen. Because the options describe the property only, the text it writes does not stray into fair-housing trouble.

What questions should I ask on a rental application?

Income and employer, time on the job, current and previous landlord with phone numbers, pets, smoking, number of vehicles, desired move-in date, a self-reported credit range, references, and authorization to verify. Add your own questions only where they save you a back-and-forth, like whether the applicant has read your policies or which showing time works, and ask every applicant the same ones.

Can I say no pets or no Section 8 in a rental ad?

No pets is a property policy and is fine to state. Section 8 is different: many states, counties and cities treat source of income as a protected class, so an ad that says vouchers are not accepted can be a violation there. LandlordPro offers a Section 8 accepted pill and no opposite, for that reason. Check your state and local rules before deciding how to handle vouchers.

How do I rank rental applicants fairly?

Decide your criteria before the first application arrives, write them down, and apply the same ones to every applicant in the order received. Score on what the application reports (income, credit range, employment, rental history, evictions) and verify it before you decide. The review screen on this page does the first pass that way and shows, per applicant, which criteria were met and which were not.

Run your rentals the way this page shows

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For informational purposes only. This is not legal advice: LandlordPro is not a law firm and cannot interpret the law for you. Laws change, and cities and counties add their own rules. Verify the current statute yourself and consult a licensed attorney in your state before taking any legal action.