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A few months ago I started working for a company that runs background searches on tenants applying for rental housing, whether it be through a private landlord or a property management company. In that time I've learned quite a bit about property management in general, so if anyone has questions about tenant screening and selection I can probably shed some light on the topic. To those of you trying to select a property management company, make sure you know what kind of tenant screening they're doing. And if you're renting privately, please consider enlisting a professional screening company to do the screening for you (see below). No matter how good of an internet detective you are, you can't search every single county's criminal records instantly like we can.  TheLizard posted:So the property management company I'm using got an application and sent me the signed lease a few days ago. I ran their names through Maryland's court case look up and there are a lot of hits for judgements and liens. However, I don't have their credit report so I can't see their past addresses. Hopefully it's different people (their names are not uncommon) but I guess we'll see. I move in 2 weeks. This sucks. Most property managers will use a third party company like the one I work for to check the applicant's credit and criminal history and, depending on how thorough they are, maybe even search past evictions, verify income, and call former landlords for rental history. However, some of the more old-school companies prefer to do all of the screening on their own, which can mean nothing but ordering a credit score and checking a few county websites for felonies. You'd be surprised how little that can tell you about a person's ability to pay the drat rent. You have every right to know what kind of tenant selection process your PM company is using. If they have a website they probably have a section with tenant information that lists basic criteria for approval. If not, call them. TouchyMcFeely posted:I saw a a discussion regarding section 8 and one of the posters uses a simple rating scale to determine if they will except a tenant or not. Something like, "bad referral from previous land lord -1 point. Bad referral from 2nd previous land lord -7 points. Working for same company for 2+ years +3 points." etc. If the tenant falls below a certain threshold then they don't get to rent the property. If your PM company is giving you results in a point scale, they probably use CoreLogic SafeRent for their screening. They developed some sort of point system that they swear by, but you need to take like a 3 day course to be able to read it. Plus, there are some things that just kind of need to be automatic fails, not just "-10 points" Owing a balance to another property comes to mind.  I got mod approval to offer my services to any private landlords interested in screening applicants for their rental properties. We have really affordable rates and easy-to-read and easy-to-understand reports that just make a ton of sense. If you're a private landlord or work for a property management company, send me a PM so we can talk about putting a tenant who doesn't suck in your rental property. We work with property management firms with 10,000 units, private landlords with one unit, and everyone in between.EDIT: Here's my direct e-mail for those without PM: info@residentresearch.com EDIT: changed my personal e-mail with the main company e-mail since I don't work there anymore. 
timp fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Apr 30, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2013 22:51
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fishhooked posted:Anyway you could provide us with an email for us poor souls without PM's? Sure! info@residentresearch.com. I'll add it to my first post as well. EDIT: I've left the company. Still a great service, I've just edited in the main e-mail address instead of my personal address. timp fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Apr 30, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2013 18:52
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particle409 posted:Anybody have a good site for lease templates? I can't seem to find any decent ones, and I have to write up a new lease for a tenant. When I have time, I'll talk about what I've recently purchased. http://www.residentresearch.com/landlord-forms/
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Sep 13, 2013 20:50
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socketwrencher posted:Do you require an inspection of the landlord's office or home office before reports can be ordered? Thanks. If you want to see the trade lines of a credit report, then we would need to schedule a site inspection. We hire a third party company to basically just check that you keep your files locked up. It's a requirement by Transunion. But if you don't want a site inspection you can still order reports, and you'll still get the credit score, full criminal background search including all counties of all 50 states, all sex offender lists and the national terrorist list, and an eviction record. We can also do employment and resident verifications.  EDIT: I always recommend private landlords just forego the site inspection. Without it, you still get to see the credit score, PLUS we'll read their trade lines for you and tell you about any bankruptcies, charge-offs, collections, and whether they owe money to another property, be it a management company, apartment complex, landlord, whatever. That saves you having to pay the $60.00 and you still get all the important info you really need to know about their credit history. Trade lines, frankly, are usually really boring. Just opt for the highlight reel.
timp fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Oct 16, 2013 |
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Sep 15, 2013 20:30
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socketwrencher posted:Great- thanks. I'm sure it varies but what's the general fee for a site inspection? It's a flat fee actually, and it's $60.00. There are a instances in which we can waive the fee, but they're very specific.
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Sep 15, 2013 21:05
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kansas posted:I got a ticket for being in a park after 11pm taking the shortcut home after a 16 hour day on the office (really cop? I'm dressed in business casual hurrying my rear end home and you write me a $160 ticket). I am now in the state database available online if you search my name and birthdate. Will this sort of stuff show up in your reports? Yup. But don't worry, nobody cares. We have a default set of criteria in which we judge all aspects of the reports as "Pass", "Fail", or "Conditional", which means a higher or double deposit required. Our default criteria ignores any misdemeanors that are not sex, theft, violence, or drug related, and even those are typically Conditional. And even our clients with the strictest of criteria wouldn't fail you for a charge like that. Your example is a perfect case of a harmless misdemeanor, along with most traffic violations. Now felonies, on the other hand...
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Sep 16, 2013 16:27
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I wasn't really happy with one of my posts earlier in this thread because I made it seem like it costs $60 to sign up to see credit, so I've edited my original post with an addendum of sorts. Quoting the edit below:timp posted:EDIT: I always recommend private landlords just forego the site inspection. Without it, you still get to see the credit score, PLUS we'll read their trade lines for you and tell you about any bankruptcies, charge-offs, collections, and whether they owe money to another property, be it a management company, apartment complex, landlord, whatever. That saves you having to pay the $60.00 and you still get all the important info you really need to know about their credit history. Trade lines, frankly, are usually really boring. Just opt for the highlight reel. VVV EDIT: Thank you, sir! Happy to hear that you're liking it! VVV timp fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Oct 16, 2013 |
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Oct 16, 2013 22:23
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TouchyMcFeely posted:I'm bumping this old thread because I'm potentially facing a promotion/relocation and need to try and figure out what to do with my house. Sounds like you've got it covered, I'd say. I don't know if this helps (or if you'll even need it), but if you're able to prove to the PM company you plan on renting from once you move that you've enlisted a PM company to rent out the house you currently own, you can claim the income you'll get from their rent as part of your monthly income, which can help qualify you for properties with higher rent.
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Dec 6, 2013 15:28
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) which is less than 10% of my yearly gross income. The only other debt I have is a student loan which should be paid off within a month or two.
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Hey everybody! Earlier in the thread I posted info on a tenant screening company called Resident Research. I went back to those posts and edited out my personal e-mail address because, well, I don't work there anymore! The company is still there and still offering very thorough reports at an extremely reasonable price...the only difference now is that you won't have a goon taking care of you if you sign up, that's all. PM me if you have any specific questions, I can still put you in touch with someone who can take good care of you.
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Apr 30, 2014 03:24
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DNova posted:Love us and leave us, I see how it is. Out of curiosity, was there any talk about changing/relaxing the requirements for getting access to trade lines? I really don't want to pay $60 No, but I did get way better at explaining it!  - Without it you still get the credit score, number of bankruptcies, balances owed to other property managers and apartment complexes, percentage of delinquent accounts, and number of collections/charge offs - $60 may seem like a lot, and while it's true that some companies won't charge you for it, they will always charge you a monthly or yearly subscription, or enforce a minimum ordering amount per month, which a private landlord will almost never meet, and you'll quickly lose more than $60 paying those fees - RR pays its third party inspection company exactly $60 for each one, meaning they make 0 profit off of the inspections - You can even customize the info they give you. Last week we had a guy ask us to fail tenants if they owed a balance to a utility company, which we were happy to do. Without a site inspection, RR can still look at the trade lines and tell you all about it...they just can't let you see them. - Criminal and eviction searches are not affected by having or not having a site inspection, and those are really good (same with resident and employment verifications) - If RR gets caught allowing people to view trade lines without having paperwork on file proving a site inspection was performed they could be fined millions of dollars by Transunion. Then there's no more RR. Honestly...truly...if you're on the fence about getting one, call them and ask about your scorecard criteria (and put my replacement to the test  ) Chances are they can work something out with you and you really don't need it!
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Apr 30, 2014 14:02
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DNova posted:Hire a competent property management company. Why are you doing all this legwork AND paying for a manager? Empty quoting's probably not allowed in a thread like this so here are some words
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Aug 31, 2014 05:33
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Dragyn posted:What do you guys use for a rental application? I need something that includes whatever consent language about a background and credit check. http://www.residentresearch.com/Rental%20Application.pdf
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Sep 17, 2014 22:17
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