How can we pull applicants credit in-house.

Question

Can anyone tell me a good place to find the proper vendor to set us up with pulling credit ourselves?

Currently I use a third party service where the applicant goes online with their own PC after they get home. I have to wait for that night, or the next day or the next. Meanwhile other people are trying to lease the same spot, further complicating things. Its eating up a lot of time. None of those services are 100% user friendly as well (my older applicants hate it).  Many of our traditional type of tenants would rather fill in a paper form, get it done. Write a check that moment, then move forward in to a lease right then, right there with in the same hour. We just out grown our need and desire to use the third party credit reporting plat forms. I'll take all the help I can get.

Corby Goade · Answer

How many units are you managing? Processing all of those paper forms and taking a check from an (over?) eager potential tenant doesn't sound like much fun to me- especially if you are managing several units. The simplicity of handing the credit and background screenings off to a third party made such a huge difference in the infancy of our business.

We used to use Cozy for this- yes, it's still a third party and the potential tenants have to go online and fill out the application, but we get results almost instantly and don't have to process or review loads of paperwork. The first applicant that meets our criteria signs a lease and has 24 hours to get us the first month and deposit in some form of a money order, cashiers check, wire, etc.

Timmi Ryerson · Answer

I use Smart Property Systems to manage my properties and tenant screening is built in.  It takes about 10 mintues in most cases and up to 2 hours to get report returned.  Easy Peasey.

Kyle J. · Answer

@Charley C. I run my own credit reports on applicants. Always have. It’s the way to go, in my opinion, because you’re not dependent on a third party.

There’s a number of services out there that allow you to do this.

A couple I’ve used are YouCheckCredit and MrLandlord. Both have options for applicant involvement, but if you get your home or office inspected you can pull reports directly without any applicant involvement. (The inspection is a federal FCRA requirement so there’s no getting around it. However, it’s very quick/easy and you only have to do it one time as opposed to annually.)

You get essentially the same reports with these companies, so really it just comes down to who is more competitive on price. Based on what you described for your applicant pool, seems like this would be the way you’d want to go though.

Shera Gregory · Answer

I have used the approach mentioned by @Kyle J. via Mr Landlord. I like that I am getting the information directly from the applicant and entering it myself into the system vs having them do it themselves. One thing Mr. Landlord recommends strongly is checking their driver's license or other ID to confirm that they are actually the person whose information is on the application. Otherwise you could just be checking out your future tenant's cousin who has good credit and background.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

@Charley C. go to the top of your screen and click on the magnifying glass. Type in "Tenant screening" and you'll find lots of information. Test out a few and see which one works best for you.

Charley C. · Answer

@Timmi Ryerson thanks for the info. Its a little pricey for my scenario but seems amazing. I already got Quickbooks, and I get my forms from TAA (Texas) with a bluemoon forms. If managed the property remotely and depended on staff (Staff that looses documents horribly or saves them in undefinable places), I would not hesitate to get that type of software.

@Kyle J. that is the ticket. I reached to both.

Thank you all

Charley C. · Answer

@Corby Goade  I build new apartments in phases. Usually doing about 40 leases in about 20 days when I open them to the public

Many of my units are for student housing near a campus so we got parents there for the day, they don't want to have to go home 100s of miles away  with their baby's housing still up in the air. On the other side of the complex we got older retired people who hate going on line for anything. So I would say may be 10% of my applicants appreciate the online approach.

If I am going to pay people in my office to process an application, I don't want to give all the $$ to a 3rd party which at this point is turning I to a third wheel protracting the process.

I use my screening report. They were useful when I was smaller and didn't want to pay a monthly subscription fee, or pay for an inspection to be approved. I know what it takes, just need know what vendors work best for apartment complexes.

How can we pull applicants credit in-house.

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