Most landlords treat the reference call like a formality. You get a name and a number from the application, you dial, someone says "yeah, great tenant," and you move on. Done.
That's not screening. That's hoping.
We see it constantly across our portfolio in Hampton Roads. Owners who did everything else right — ran the credit, verified income, checked ID — and still ended up with a problem tenant because the reference call was either skipped or done wrong. And once that tenant is in, you're looking at a process that in Virginia takes months to resolve, and when you factor in legal fees, lost rent, and court costs, the total expense can add up to a significant sum before it's over.
This post is for rental property owners who want to actually use references as a real filter — not a checkbox. We'll get into who to call, what to ask, how to read the answers, and a few things about the Hampton Roads market specifically that change how all of this works.
“$1,813/mo | avg rental rate”
In This Guide
The Real Point of a Reference Call
A credit score tells you how someone has handled debt. A reference tells you how someone has lived in someone else's home.
Those are very different things. We've worked with owners who approved tenants with a 680 credit score and assumed they were set. One owner with a multi-family property in Virginia Beach skipped the reference call entirely and leaned on that number. What the score didn't show was a documented history of late payments and a prior lease violation. A two-minute phone call would have surfaced it. Instead, the owner absorbed two months of partial rent before bringing us in to manage going forward.
Credit is a starting point. References are the story behind the score.
Who You Need to Call
Not just one person. At least two prior landlords, and ideally going back three to five years in rental history. One reference alone is statistically unreliable and easy to fabricate.
We've seen the fabrication thing play out firsthand. An owner came to us after self-managing a single-family home in Chesapeake. He had accepted a reference from someone who turned out to be the applicant's brother-in-law. The tenant was evicted four months into a twelve-month lease. Total damage — roughly $6,800 in lost rent and legal fees by the time we helped process the eviction.
Two verified prior landlords, minimum. And when we say verified, we mean you looked them up independently — not just called the number the applicant handed you.
Watch for the "Great Reference" Trap
Here's a pattern we see often enough that we call it out specifically. An owner in Norfolk called one prior landlord and got a glowing review — enthusiastic, unprompted, nothing but praise. What she didn't know was that reference was the tenant's most recent landlord, who was actively trying to get that tenant out. A positive reference can speed up someone's departure, and prior landlords sometimes use it exactly that way.
Our standard is to call the most recent landlord last, after the others, and to ask specifically how much notice the tenant gave before vacating. That question alone breaks the pattern of a tactical reference.
What to Actually Ask
Most landlords ask one question — "Would you rent to them again?" That's fine, but it's not enough. The answer to that question alone can be misleading in either direction.
A structured set of questions gets you real data. Here's what we use:
- Dates of tenancy: Did they live there when they said they did?
- Rent amount: Does it match what's on the application?
- Payment history: Were payments typically on time, or were there recurring late payments?
- Notice at move-out: Did they give proper notice, or did they disappear?
- Maintenance behavior: Did they report issues accurately and promptly, or were requests exaggerated or withheld?
- Lease violations: Any subletting, occupancy, or pet violations during their stay?
- Would you rent again: And then wait for the pause before they answer.
That last beat matters. A landlord who hesitates before saying yes is telling you something, even if they won't say it directly.
Virginia Landlord-Tenant Law Limits What References Can Say
Many prior landlords limit what they'll share in a tenant reference — typically confirming only dates of tenancy, rent amount, and whether they'd rent again — though this often reflects liability caution and common practice rather than a clearly defined statutory requirement under Virginia law. Some barely answer at all.
Jade, our maintenance coordinator, tracks how tenants report and handle repair requests once they're in a property. She's pointed out more than once that problem tenants often have a history of either fabricating maintenance issues or ignoring real ones. That behavioral pattern almost always shows up in a reference conversation if you ask about it directly — you just have to know to ask.
Open-ended questions get further than yes/no ones. "Tell me about how they communicated with you during the tenancy" gets more useful information than "Did they communicate well?" Virginia landlords can answer the former without feeling like they're opening themselves to legal exposure.
The Hampton Roads Military Factor
Virginia Beach has one of the highest concentrations of active-duty military in the country — NAS Oceana and Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story are located there, while nearby Naval Station Norfolk the world's largest naval base anchors the broader Hampton Roads region. That shapes how references work here in ways landlords outside this market don't always account for.
A prior landlord in this area might give an abbreviated or neutral reference for a tenant who left mid-lease — not because there was a problem, but because the tenant received PCS orders. That's a completely different situation from a tenant who skipped out.
Always ask directly: Did the tenant leave voluntarily, or did they leave under military orders? That one question reframes a short tenancy from a potential red flag to a non-issue.
Don't Trust Letters. Make Live Contact.
We've worked with long-distance investors who accepted self-submitted reference letters from applicants — polished, professional, and completely unverifiable. Letters can be written by anyone. They have no accountability attached.
Our team uses Rent Check as part of the tenant screening process. It automates verified landlord outreach and timestamps the responses, which means a tenant can't submit a forged document or coach a friend to pretend to be a landlord. The response comes directly from a verified contact, and the record is clean. For owners managing properties remotely from outside Hampton Roads, this kind of automation isn't just convenient — it actually closes the loophole that fake letters exploit.
Cross-Reference with Public Court Records
Virginia's court system is publicly searchable at courts.virginia.gov. You can search General District Court records by name — and in Hampton Roads, that means you can check Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, and other jurisdictions individually. It takes less than ten minutes.
We always cross-reference what a prior landlord tells us with actual court filings. A reference from a self-managing private landlord in Portsmouth may be less documented than one from a professionally managed property — and discrepancies between what a landlord says and what the court record shows are worth taking seriously.
Section 8 references require one additional step. When screening a prior HCV voucher program tenant contact the local Housing Authority in addition to the private landlord. HCV program records may contain information about a tenant's history with the program, including prior terminations, though what Housing Authorities will share with prospective landlords varies by agency policy and applicable privacy rules—landlords should contact their local PHA directly to understand what disclosures are permitted. — something a private landlord may not volunteer or even know about.
Do the Reference Call Before You Decide
Calling references after you've already mentally picked a tenant is almost useless. Confirmation bias is real — landlords hear hesitation from a prior landlord and rationalize it away because they've already pictured that applicant in the unit.
References need to happen before any internal decision, and they need to follow a consistent question set so answers from multiple applicants can actually be compared. Treating it as a scripted, documented process makes it useful. Treating it as a conversation at the end of the approval chain makes it theater.
Across our 475-unit portfolio, the patterns are clear on which reference red flags actually predict problem tenancies. The ones that matter most: vague answers, unprompted praise, hesitation on "would you rent again," and a landlord who can't recall specific details about a tenancy they supposedly managed.
If you're a property owner in Virginia Beach or anywhere in Hampton Roads and the reference process feels like it's slipping through the cracks, we're open to a conversation about how we handle it for our owners.
FAQ
How many landlord references should I collect before approving a tenant?
A minimum of two prior landlords is the baseline — one reference alone is too easy to fabricate and too narrow a sample to reveal patterns. Going back three to five years in rental history gives you a clearer picture of how someone has actually lived in other people's homes across different situations.
Can a prior landlord in Virginia legally tell me if a tenant was evicted?
Virginia landlords can confirm tenancy dates, rent amounts, and whether they'd rent again. Many won't go further because of liability concerns. The better move is to cross-reference the reference conversation with a free public records search at courts.virginia.gov, where General District Court eviction filings are searchable by name across Hampton Roads jurisdictions.
What should I do if the reference call sounds too positive?
Press a little harder. Ask for specific examples — "Can you describe a time they had a maintenance issue and how they handled it?" Genuine references recall specifics. Tactical ones tend to stay vague and enthusiastic. A landlord who stumbles when you ask for details is telling you something worth noting.
Do I need to handle references differently for Section 8 applicants?
Yes. For HCV voucher program tenants, contact the local Housing Authority in addition to the private landlord. The Housing Authority can confirm whether a tenant was ever terminated from the program for lease violations, which private landlords may not know or may not disclose. It's an extra step that takes about five minutes and can surface serious issues a landlord reference would miss entirely.
Is it safe to accept a reference letter an applicant submits with their application?
Tenant-submitted reference letters are unverifiable. They can be written by anyone. The only reference that carries real weight is one you obtain through direct, live contact with a verified prior landlord — or through an automated verification tool that timestamps responses and confirms the source independently.
How do I handle a reference from a military landlord who gave a short or neutral answer?
Ask directly whether the tenant left voluntarily or under military PCS orders. In Hampton Roads, a short tenancy or a flat reference often reflects a military departure rather than a performance issue. That context changes everything, and a prior landlord in this market will almost always answer that specific question clearly.
