The First-Time Landlord Checklist: 9 Things to Do Before You List (2026)

By Matthew Whitaker, founder of Evernest. Updated July 2026.

One note before we dive in. Landlord-tenant rules vary by city and state, and they change often. Everything below is general guidance based on what we've seen work across 50 markets, not legal advice. If anything here conflicts with the laws in your area, follow your local and state law, and check with a local attorney or CPA when you're unsure.

If you've never been a landlord before and you're about to list your first rental in the next 60 days, this is the checklist that will save you $10,000 in mistakes. We've onboarded more than 9,000 owners at Evernest, and across all of them the pattern is the same: the expensive problems almost never come from bad luck. They come from a step that got skipped before listing day.

So here are the nine things to lock in before you list, not after. I'm Matthew Whitaker, founder of Evernest and author of How to Rent Your Home. Grab a pen.

The short version. Before you list your first rental, lock in nine things: your legal setup (the LLC decision, city registration, and required disclosures), a landlord insurance policy, a turn-ready maintenance baseline, researched pricing, your listing and showing setup, written screening criteria, a state-specific lease, separate bank accounts, and three months of PITI in reserve. Skip any one of them and it tends to cost you later. The full checklist is at the bottom of this post.

1. Legal prep

This is where most first-time landlords either freeze or overdo it. Three things to handle.

First, the LLC question. Everybody wants to know whether to put the property in an LLC. The honest answer: for one property, maybe; for three or more, probably. There are real tradeoffs to understand first, especially the due-on-sale clause in your mortgage. Transferring a deed into an LLC can technically give the lender the right to call the loan, and if you're sitting on a low rate you don't want to put at risk, that matters. This is a one-hour conversation with a real estate attorney and your CPA, not a YouTube video (including this one). But it needs an answer before you list.

Second, rental registration. Some cities require landlords to register rentals annually, including Baltimore, Minneapolis, and parts of New York. Check your city clerk's website before listing day. Missing it isn't a felony, but it's also not a fight you want to have in front of a tenant.

Third, required disclosures. If your house was built before 1978, federal law requires a lead-paint disclosure. Some states add mold, flood-history, or radon disclosures on top of that. These aren't optional, and they belong in your lease or your addendum stack from day one.

2. Insurance

The minute your house becomes a rental, your homeowner's policy stops covering you. It just stops. A homeowner's policy covers an owner-occupied property; a landlord policy covers a rental. They are different products, and an insurer can deny a claim if the home was rented under the wrong policy. Call your carrier the week before the tenant moves in, not the week after.

What you want is a landlord policy, often written as a DP-3. Three coverage details matter most. Choose replacement cost, not actual cash value, so a claim pays what it costs to rebuild rather than the depreciated value. Set your liability limit at a minimum of $500K, though $1M is better. And make sure loss-of-rent coverage is built in, so you keep collecting income if the property becomes uninhabitable after a covered loss.

Then add an umbrella policy. A million dollars of additional liability runs a few hundred dollars a year, and if you're not forming an LLC, this is where your practical liability protection actually lives. Finally, require renter's insurance from your tenant, with a $100,000 minimum in liability. Verify it at move-in and reverify at every renewal. Don't let it run on the honor system.

3. Maintenance baseline

Before your tenant walks through the door, the house has to be genuinely turn-ready. Work three categories.

Safety items first: working smoke detectors on every level (and ideally inside or outside every bedroom), carbon monoxide detectors if you have any gas appliances or a gas furnace, GFCI outlets where code requires them, and solid locks on every exterior door. These are non-negotiable and, in most states, the legal minimum.

Then deferred maintenance. If the water heater is 15 years old, replace it now, not when the tenant calls at 11 PM on Thanksgiving. Same for an HVAC system at the end of its life. These repairs are going to happen either way. Your only choice is whether they happen on your schedule or on the tenant's emergency schedule, and tenant-emergency timing is always more expensive and causes a ton of brain damage.

Finally, cosmetics. Neutral paint, clean floors, and a professional move-out clean, not a homeowner clean. Budget $200 to $500 for it. It's worth every dollar, because the listing photos you take next are only as good as the condition underneath them.

4. Pricing research

I made a whole separate video and post on this, and if you haven't read it, go do that after this one. Here's the short version. Don't trust Zillow's Rent Zestimate as your answer; it can be off by 10% to 15% in either direction.

Triangulate three sources instead: what's currently listed nearby, what's recently leased (which matters more than what's listed, because it's what tenants actually paid), and a paid tool like Rentometer or your MLS if you have access. Cross-check all three. If they agree, you found your rent. If they don't, you found your homework problem, and you need to solve it before listing day.

Why the urgency? A rental listed at the wrong price does one of two things, both bad. It sits empty and bleeds carrying costs, or it trains you to lower your standards and accept the wrong tenant just to fill it. Getting the number right up front protects both your cash flow and your screening discipline.

5. Marketing setup

This is the lightest item on the list, but it has to be done before photo day. Decide where you're listing. The big four in most markets are Zillow Rental Manager, Apartments.com, Realtor.com, and Facebook Marketplace. In most markets, Zillow plus one or two of the others covers about 80% of qualified inquiries, so you don't need to be everywhere.

Set up the accounts, confirm pricing, and write your listing description before photo day, not after. A written description forces you to decide what's most compelling about the home, and that decision shapes which photos you prioritize.

Then consider a self-showing platform like Rently, Tenant Turner, or ShowMojo. If you expect any real inquiry volume, self-showing technology will save you dozens of hours standing around in an empty house, and landlords who use it consistently report no drop in applicant quality.

6. Written screening criteria

This is the item most first-time landlords skip, and it's the one I'd least want you to. Before you receive a single application, write a document that states exactly what your standards are: minimum gross income of three times monthly rent, a minimum credit score (typically 600 to 650, though in some markets you may go down to 580), no evictions in the past five to seven years, and verifiable rental or ownership history.

Why does writing it down matter? Two reasons. The first is fair housing. If you decline an applicant against a criterion you wrote before you saw the application, you have a defensible, consistent record. If you invent the criterion mid-process, you have a fair housing problem, because it looks like the rule was built to exclude a specific person.

The second is emotional consistency. The moment a great-looking applicant shows up, human nature pushes you to relax the rules to fit the person in front of you. That is exactly how good-faith landlords end up with bad-faith problems. The rules go on paper before the applications arrive, period.

7. The lease

I've said this in three other videos and I'll keep saying it: do not use a generic lease you found online. Landlord-tenant law is state law. A California lease is illegal in Texas, and a Texas lease is incomplete in New Jersey. Use a state-specific lease. Your local rental housing association will sell you one for $50 to $150, platforms like TurboTenant and Avail include one in their service, and a local real estate attorney will draft one for $300 to $600. Worth every penny. If Evernest operates in your state, you can grab a free state-specific lease at evernest.co/lease.

Think of the lease as the operating manual for the relationship. Over a long enough timeline, something always goes sideways, and when it does, the lease is what you reach for. If it's vague, you're negotiating every issue from scratch, usually from a weaker position. If it's thorough, most disagreements resolve themselves because the answer is already written down. The lease is the document you write before anything goes wrong, so that when something does, you're not improvising.

8. Bookkeeping

One rule, no exceptions: do not run your rental through your personal checking account. The minute you decide to rent out your house, open a separate bank account. Every dollar of rent goes in, every dollar of expense comes out. It costs you nothing and saves you hours every April.

Three accounts is even better. An operating account for rent in and expenses out. A reserve account where you auto-transfer 10% to 15% of every rent payment to build your maintenance and vacancy reserves. And a security-deposit account, which many states require to be held separately, and some require to be interest-bearing, so check your state's rule.

Then track every dollar in a real platform: Stessa, Baselane, or the bookkeeping built into TurboTenant or DoorLoop. A spreadsheet works in a pinch. But if the IRS ever audits you, commingled finances are the fastest way to lose deductions you were otherwise entitled to. Clean books aren't just tidy, they're how you keep the tax advantages that make rental ownership worth it. Don't commingle.

9. Your emergency fund

This is the item that separates the landlords who make it from the ones who don't. Before you list, have three months of PITI in reserve: principal, interest, taxes, and insurance, three months of all of it. Then add a $5,000 buffer for the surprise capital expense that always seems to show up in year one.

The math behind the rule is simple. If your rental sits empty for a month, and it can, you absorb it without panicking. If a tenant stops paying and you have to evict, and that sometimes happens, you have the runway to do it right instead of cutting corners. If a water heater dies, and it will, you don't have to reach for a credit card.

I've watched two kinds of first-time landlords. The ones with reserves make calm decisions. The ones without make panicked ones, and panicked decisions are where the real money gets lost. You'll be one or the other. Choose now.

The first-time landlord checklist

A printable recap. Get all nine locked in before listing day.

1. Legal prep

• Decide the LLC question with an attorney and CPA, and watch the due-on-sale clause.
• Check your city's rental-registration rule.
• Prepare required disclosures (lead paint if built before 1978; mold, flood, or radon as your state requires).

2. Insurance

• Switch from a homeowner's policy to a landlord policy (DP-3) before move-in.
• Choose replacement cost, $500K to $1M liability, and built-in loss-of-rent coverage.
• Add an umbrella policy, and require $100,000 renter's insurance from the tenant.

3. Maintenance baseline

• Confirm smoke and CO detectors, GFCI outlets, and solid exterior locks.
• Replace an end-of-life water heater or HVAC on your schedule, not the tenant's.
• Repaint neutral, clean the floors, and book a professional clean ($200 to $500).

4. Pricing research

• Don't rely on Zillow's Zestimate; it can be off by 10% to 15%.
• Triangulate listed comps, recently leased comps, and Rentometer or your MLS.
• Settle on the number before listing day.

‍5. Marketing setup

• Pick your platforms (Zillow plus one or two others covers about 80% of inquiries).
• Write the listing description before photo day.
• Set up a self-showing tool (Rently, Tenant Turner, or ShowMojo).

6. Written screening criteria

• Put your standards on paper before the first application arrives.
• Set income (3x monthly rent), credit (600 to 650), eviction history, and rental references.
• Apply the same rule to every applicant.

7. The lease

• Use a state-specific lease, never a generic online template.
• Source it from your housing association ($50 to $150), TurboTenant or Avail, or an attorney ($300 to $600).
• Treat it as the operating manual for the tenancy.

8. Bookkeeping

• Open a separate bank account and never commingle.
• Run operating, reserve, and security-deposit accounts, and auto-transfer 10% to 15% of rent to reserves.
• Track every dollar in Stessa, Baselane, TurboTenant, or DoorLoop.

9. Emergency fund

• Bank three months of PITI before you list.
• Add a $5,000 buffer for year-one surprises.
• Reserves turn emergencies into decisions instead of crises.

Frequently asked questions

What do I need to do before renting out my house for the first time?

Lock in nine things before you list: your legal setup (LLC decision, city registration, disclosures), landlord insurance, a turn-ready maintenance baseline, researched pricing, your listing and showing setup, written screening criteria, a state-specific lease, separate bank accounts, and three months of PITI in reserve. The expensive problems almost always trace back to one of these being skipped.

Do I need an LLC to rent out my house?

Maybe. For one property it's optional; for three or more it's often worth it. The key tradeoff is the due-on-sale clause: moving a deed into an LLC can technically let your lender call the loan, which matters if you have a low rate. It's a one-hour conversation with a real estate attorney and your CPA, and you want an answer before you list.

Is homeowner's insurance enough for a rental?

No. The moment your house becomes a rental, a homeowner's policy stops covering you, and an insurer can deny a claim if the home was rented under the wrong policy. Switch to a landlord policy (a DP-3) with replacement cost, at least $500K to $1M in liability, and loss-of-rent coverage. Add an umbrella policy, and require renter's insurance from your tenant.

How much should a first-time landlord keep in reserve?

Keep three months of PITI (principal, interest, taxes, and insurance) before you list, plus a $5,000 buffer for the surprise capital expense that tends to show up in year one. Reserves let you absorb a vacancy, an eviction, or a dead water heater without making a panicked decision.

What screening criteria should I set for tenants?

Write your standards down before the first application: minimum gross income of three times monthly rent, a credit minimum around 600 to 650 (some markets go to 580), no evictions in the past five to seven years, and verifiable rental or ownership history. Then apply the same rule to every applicant, which protects you under fair housing law.

How do I set the right rent?

Don't rely on Zillow's Rent Zestimate; it can be off by 10% to 15% in either direction. Triangulate three sources: what's currently listed nearby, what's recently leased (the most important, since it's what tenants actually paid), and a paid tool like Rentometer or your MLS. Settle on the number before listing day.

Where to go from here

If you want the full nine-item checklist plus the "before you move on" lists at the end of every chapter, it's all in my book, How to Rent Your Home. The free PDF is linked below, and there's a printable one-page version of this checklist you can take to listing day.

And if you'd like a free rental analysis on your specific property (what it can rent for, whether you're ready to list, and the next steps we'd recommend), that link is below too. No pressure, no obligation. And we don't just do full-service management. We can also just do the leasing for you if you'd prefer that.

About the author: Matthew Whitaker is the founder of Evernest, which manages 15,000 houses for 9,000 owners across 50 cities, and the author of How to Rent Your Home.