Does this service exist?

Question

I know that tenant screening services exist, but is there anything out there that makes sure a tenant’s references are legitimate? I had an idea for a website/app business that landlords would sign up for and use to verify tenant references somehow. Perhaps it could be developed into some kind of landlord Facebook

Jon K. · Answer

Well, I can tell you Facebook for landlords exist and you just posted on it. The app you're describing however does not exist per se to my knowledge. I'm curious how you'd pull it off? You can verify that an employer exists and that someone is employed there easy enough (quick google & phone call). Rental references from current & past landlords is a bit more tricky. Outside of skip tracing to ensure you have a legit phone number for the right person, what would you do?

Cliff H. · Answer

@Sam Goldsmith understood and equally a platform that's not deemed to be libel, which is a real legal concern for any service aiming to be an impartial review site. Consider the many sites or platforms that have been spun up for victims of sexual assault, many of which are crushed by legal action by the accused, regardless of the heinous nature of the original acts. In our modern world where anyone can say anything, agreed that validating what is true, false, or, in fact, sponsored misinformation is the essential (and still largely unsolved) paradigm of our era.

Sam Goldsmith · Answer

@Cliff H. The point of the platform would be to verify that the person you are calling isn't the prospective tenant's friend or family member, and also to provide ratings from former landlords. Like how passengers and drivers both have ratings in uber and lyft IIRC.

The most important problem to solve is figuring out how to make some kind of incentive for landlords to input quality info into the site about their former tenants.

Cliff H. · Answer

@Sam Goldsmith once you start talking about a platform play in a space where data gets stale quickly or is easily gamed you’re talking about products that don’t often make sense. Perhaps a better question is, “how do you verify a tenants’ references are legitimate?” How do you know the person you are calling ain’t their best friend? Are you checking their ID? Going to their house? Checking state eviction records? Aware that most of the $19.95 national eviction searches are only hitting on cases that were actually legally executed (ie: the minority of cases filed)?

All these “soft” real world considerations are what make tenant screening a process that’s quite hard to automate. At best maybe you hire some outsourced help to do the work for you, but beyond verification of tenant employment/pay through a (now defunct) service called https://tenantify.com I’ve rarely found a better solution for screening than playing detective, asking questions only a former landlord would know, showing up to see how a tenant lives now, and all the other tips other folks here in the forums have long shared.

Screening’s hard and harder still knowing that the only guarantee in this industry is that if you play the game long enough you WILL encounter a professional fraudster that fools you and costs you lost rent.

Chaz Desousa · Answer

@Sam Goldsmith

I am not sure we can recreate the reaction of a previous landlord when asked about their tenant. Sometimes you have to pull it out of them how a tenant really was.

Sometimes it's hard to get landlords on the phone. Most give me a run around. Like send me an email or call my office...

Maybe something can be built to verify current and past employment using pay stubs.

This probably could be used for other industries as well.

I am always looking to build these types of applications. The problem is usualy gaining traction.

Sam Goldsmith · Answer

Ideally, there would be enough landlords on the site along with easy enough functionality that you could verify any landlord reference by contacting that landlord on the site. That’s getting ahead of myself a little though so it would need to provide value at startup somehow. Basically the idea is to easily verify landlord references. I’m not sure exactly how yet. I just had this random thought that prospective tenants could easily just give a phone number for their friend and arrange to have that friend(s) pose as a landlord. Perhaps there is a business opportunity in circumventing this.

Does this service exist?

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