Mr. Landlord or NTN for tenant screening?

Question

I need to fire my current tenant screening company....

I've got my choices narrowed down to Mr.Landlord and NTN. Can anyone speak to the pros/cons of using either of those two companies?

My current company found no crimes on a recent applicant, and doesn't search for crimes with any previous names. An NTN report she sent from another landlord found 3 crimes and also did the criminal search using her maiden name.

Also, does anyone know why these companies offer county criminal searches when they offer nationwide searches for the same price? Why would you ever just search a county when you can search the whole nation for the same cost??

Kimberly H. · Answer

Thanks for the feedback, Rob :)

Rob K. · Answer

I'm not familiar with NTN, but have been using the Mr. Landlord service for a while now. I'm very happy with it. I just get the credit report and eviction check for $14.95. I can pull criminal records for my state online for free.

Kimberly H. · Answer

Thanks, Ben :)

Kimberly H. · Answer

Triple a credit, who's turnaround time is a half hour, and also mister landlord, who's turnaround time in 10 seconds, missed the crimes. NTN found 3.  Using online county docket searches I found a whole list of 15 lawsuits in 3 counties under both the person's married and maiden names where she was a named defendant myself, going back 20 yrs when she turned 18. These were either crimes, foreclosures, car repos, or credit card related judgments. And I only found them by accident; after I looked up her previous address in MLS, I found through the MLS Realist tax record that there were Lis Pendens of foreclosure filed and Judgment of Foreclosure ruled on it even though the house sale was not marked as a foreclosure sale in MLS, which led me to the county online docket search for more information on the foreclosure filings, and I her convicted of found ID theft in that county, which then prompted me to look her up in other neighboring counties. Interestingly enough she was found guilty of 100k+ ID theft for which she served 2 yrs probation, ordered to pay $2000 in fines and $20,000 back to credit card companies; this crime didn't come up on any of the criminal screenings. I figured she would be a good test case given her background to run screenings at multiple agencies to see what they could find.  And no, she never moved in. She was anxious to get me to approve her so she could move in right away, saying that she needed to sign her kids up for school asap and that she had another house she also applied for but liked mine better and would go with the first one that approved her. Fortunately I didn't rush the process.

Account Closed · Answer

Curious whom you use now that missed the crimes. Did you let this person move in based on that result? And are you now having issues with the tenant?

Kimberly H. · Answer

You have to get the pricing from your local NTN representative.

In my area (Chicago), NTN charges $41 for credit, eviction, and national criminal, Mr. Landlord charges $25.

However,I ran a criminal background check on the same person that NTN had discovered 3 criminal records on, Mr. Landlord found none. The company I was using previously found none as well. Perhaps you get what you pay for?

Adam K. · Answer

What is the price point for these two different services?  The NTN website was too confusing for me to even find a cost.