For the second time in a row, I have had a potential tenant ask me whether my screening process involves a hard credit inquiry rather than a soft one. Last time, I checked with my screening service, which gives me a score of 1 to 100 for the applicant, taking into account credit as well as criminal and eviction records. The screening service rep said it's a hard inquiry and has to be that under government regulations for a situation in which the person is applying for something. I didn't get a precise understanding of those regulations.

In that case, I thought the prospect's concern was legitimate, because he was buying a house and planned to apply for a home loan. Rather than have the screening service pull credit, I let the potential tenant show me his scores online, and things worked out fine.

In this new case, I can't easily have the potential tenant show me something online, because I am out of town. I'd have to get him to show me his scores online via Skype or something.

Do you have any suggestions for getting a tenant's credit score without a hard inquiry? I could ask the tenant to send me a report from annualcreditreport.com or something, but of course it seems questionable to accept something with which the applicant could have tampered.

@Bob H. I keep my credit and background check separate. I want to know more about someone's credit then simply their score. I have my tenants run their own credit report and print it to .pdf- then email it to me. This allows me to consider more than just a score (which can fluctuate between agencies) and it is not a hard credit inquiry.

Most of my tenants keep track of their score in some format whether it's through their bank, credit karma, etc. I tell all of my tenants to just provide what they can from whatever agency they use to track it. 9 out of 10 times this is no problem and they're fully aware that this is part of the process. For the ones that do have a problem, I don't rent to them and typically it's because they had a hiccup with their credit and pay for everything in cash. I personally don't want to work with anyone who demonstrates that they aren't willing to do the work to make a problem better.

I have no record of how they are with bills. @Account Closed I want to know that if I'm going to allow someone to be in possession of my asset that they will pay their bills. Keep in mind too that I'm in California where most laws favor the tenants severely. If I can screen this out to protect myself, I will. I've also, turned people down because they told me that they haven't paid taxes in 2 years. I'm in an expensive market with a solid applicant pool. I can afford to be picky. 

@Patrick M. and  @Kristina Heimstaedt , how do you know the applicant has not altered the information before providing it to you?

@John Anderson I don't get a credit score from the service; credit is one of the components of the tenant-screening score that I do get. If what you say about hard and soft inquiries is true, can you provide the name of a tenant-screening service that does not make a hard inquiry?

@Bob H. there is just so much you can guard against- but if I worked off of just scores I would be more worried about them changing that- that would be simple.

I am very welcoming of inquiries by tenants as to their credit. I tell them that their credit is only a factor I will consider. If someone went through a bad divorce or medical emergency and it devastated their credit I don't want them to be reduced to a number.

@Bob H. it's true that someone could totally be lying to me across the board. However, 95% of my tenants are under 35 and aren't professional tenants. I think I'm lucky because of the location and tenant pool filters out those possible pitfalls. We also often look at their social media pages. We typically see consistency and it's not a problem.

Originally posted by @Bob H. :

@Patrick M. and  @Kristina Heimstaedt , how do you know the applicant has not altered the information before providing it to you?

@Account Closed I don't get a credit score from the service; credit is one of the components of the tenant-screening score that I do get. If what you say about hard and soft inquiries is true, can you provide the name of a tenant-screening service that does not make a hard inquiry?

 Trick question.

I'll throw it back at you:

Grab any non-consumer-facing credit report. Can you show me where the word "hard" or "soft" appears anywhere next to the list of credit inquiries? 

It doesn't. :P

Hence creditors can advertise "no hard inquiry will appear on your credit" without getting in trouble. It's true. The word "hard" is not to be found on the list of credit inquiries, so that is a true and factual statement, even though it is misleading.

What consumers expect when they say "soft pull" is only possible when the creditor/landlord/etc does not require your name, your dob, your ssn, or your consent. If you have a Wells Fargo Visa card, they get a copy of your credit report every month, and can double click to open it (or not) as they see fit, without your consent, knowledge, or providing of any additional information. So if you call your existing creditor and ask "WTF, how did you know I am thinking of getting a car loan?" and they say "it wasn't a hard pull," that's true enough, they just double clicked to open something they get on a monthly basis as "subscribers" to your credit (you consented to this in the small print) -- your entire current credit report. It's also how if your FICO jumps up from 660 to 740, your lender might get a ping to call you to offer a refinance. That phone call's timing isn't a coincidence, we get little automated pings (that lack details, for compliance reasons I'm unclear on) telling us about your FICO jump.

Other than that, the concept of the "soft pull" is BS that I think was originally made up by cell phone salespersons. 

TLDR: If someone is asking for your ssn or consent, it's a credit inquiry. 

My 10 step Screening process is sort of like this:

1) Ask all Applicants to Go online, get your credit score from any source you may have such as a Credit Score, etc.

2) Complete the Application so I have your SS#, Driver's License, Employment History and current Landlord with Rental History.

3) Get a letter of recommendation from your current Landlord.

4) I select the best applicant.

5) I will also pull a Background and Court Check on that selected Applicant, but not on the others. If current Applicant fails on any of the next steps, I will begin processing another applicant.

6) I will then ask the Applicant to pull their own credit, usually from MyFICO.com

- This won't be an inquiry as it's being pulled by the applicant themselves.

- If the Credit Score matches the one in 1) then that's corroborating the tenant's story.

- If the Credit Score does not match, then I need to do a HARD Pull and will inform the applicant that will be the case.

- By the time I get to this point, I don't believe any professional tenants would move forward.

7) Call up the current Landlord Reference, making sure they are in good standing as indicated in 3)

8) Ask the Applicant for 1 final set of information, 6 Months Bank Statements.

- This is to ensure that the Applicant did not give me a bogus Current Landlord reference and that I can match the rent he paid on his Bank Statements.

- If I can't match it, I ask for solid proof... something that must convince me this was not a set up by a professional tenant. If they can't, sorry, go on to next applicant.

- Basically, if you are a professional tenant, you wouldn't NOT has paid your rent anytime within the last 6 months. If I see any issues, the process stops and I start my back up applicants.

9) Schedule Lease signing.

- Applicant must show me their Credit Score on their Laptop or Cell Phone sent to me in 1). If I am doing an electronic signature (I use DocuSign for this), then I will ask them to go onto a Screen Sharing Software (I use gotomeeting.com) and ask them to log into their Accounts to verify their Credit Information.

10) At this point, Applicant has been fully verified and is now a happy tenant!

I can usually get all of this done electronically and within 1 or 2 days if it's during the week where I can make calls to verify Employment.

No need to even do it in person although I like to meet the tenant at least once!

One step in my screening process involves applicants that asks if they can provide me with a copy of their own credit score/report. My experience has shown that this is a major red flag that will usually end up leading to a applicant that will be rejected.

I would never accept a credit report provided by a applicant. Chances of fraud is astronomical.

@Bob H. I wouldn't alter your process to appease 1 or 2 applicants. A single inquiry doesn't hurt that much, and even if they are right on the borderline to qualify for a mortgage, unless you are running a short-term rental they'll have a year to get it back up anyhow. 

Seems like if they were entering into a year-long contract (my assumption in this case) for housing, the "squeeze" of having a single hard pull is very much worth the "juice" of a year's worth of housing.  These major applications regarding credit are usually tied to major purchases and shouldn't occur very often.  When there are A LOT of hard pulls in short time that is what triggers a red flag for subsequent creditors.

@Bob H. I use Cozy, which is a soft inquiry. Applicants technically run the report themselves, then share it with you, so you see the report after they allow you to see it. But you are viewing it online directly from the source.

https://cozy.co/for-landlords/credit-reports/

Transunion Smartmove is considered a pull by the tenant, so it is a soft inquiry.

Originally posted by @Thomas S. :

One step in my screening process involves applicants that asks if they can provide me with a copy of their own credit score/report. My experience has shown that this is a major red flag that will usually end up leading to a applicant that will be rejected.

I would never accept a credit report provided by a applicant. Chances of fraud is astronomical.

 YUP. Pull your own credit reports! Imagine someone applying for credit doing this anywhere else - and make no mistake, the tenant is applying for credit with you - either in the form of a one year lease in $X amount, where you allow them to pay it in 12 installments, or in an open-ended month-to-month arrangement where they will be possessing the property until they give notice or you give notice and manage to get them out of there. 

Imagine the tenant walking in to the furniture store with their own credit report, and saying "OK, I'll take that living room suite, here's my report". You can't imagine it because no one else would do it. Why anyone would trust a stranger's representation of themselves without independent verification is beyond me. 

OP: if he's applying for a mortgage and it shows up on his report, too bad. That's the cost of doing business. Stay on your brother's couch until you get a mortgage. Or explain the pull to the bank. 

It's really very kind of you to care about your potential tenant's ability to buy a house.  Unfortunately, I have found that kindness during the application process often results in a tenant who causes me grief.   I have learned over the years to treat every application the same and I am tough with all of them (applications, not applicants).

We pull credit reports on all 3 credit bureaus. Its a precaution for us to have it done by us and not have any third party tenant bring their information to us. We have had issues of fraud in this part when applicants bring reports to us. And yes looking at the report as a whole is important not just looking at the score. But the score is your baseline that you use for whose report you will waste time and look at and whose you will not.  

@Mike S. , thanks. That's what I was looking for. I see that Experian has a similar service, although I don't see any information about how much the prospective tenant has to pay. (The full report from Transunion is $5 more than what I have been charging tenants to cover my cost with the current service.)