All Forum Posts by: Sarnen Steinbarth

 Sounds great!

@Jeff B. mentioned above).  You are referring to CreditRetriever.

There are and pro's and con's to both, but for our typical user of 1-100 units SmartMove is the more logical option:

• It does not require that a landlord have a physical onsite inspection at their place of business (so landlords can begin screening immediately upon signup)
• Since the consumer essentially pulls their own report it is a "soft inquiry"
  • This method of inquiry does not lower or affect the tenants credit score in any way, where a "hard hit" does.  If a tenant is applying to a lot of units this could be a deterrent and I've had tenants ask me what type of inquiry it is. 
• The tenant does not have to publicly share their SSN with the landlord - something tenants are becoming more and more sensitive to.  
• You still get a full credit report, with the score
• It can be completed 100% online, no need for paper applications or re-typing tenant information 

Both services pull from essentially the same data, as they are both back by TransUnion.  They both provide credit reports, criminal reports and (optionally) eviction reports.

For us, I'd say the most important reason is the top one - the fact that our landlords can immediately screen a tenant, and not have to jump through the regulatory hoops of an on-site inspection.

I've personally screened over 1000 tenants and have used both TransUnion products listed above.

Hope this helps.

@Trevor Tilton

Let's assume you put a big red "Pay Rent" button on your website.  When a tenant clicks it they'll have to enter a lot of information, like who they are, their payment information, etc.

Do you want to be setting up systems on your website to collect all this?

How about the ability for user accounts?  SSL certificates to handle sensitive information?  Integration with your own payment processor?

For a handful of (mainly security) reasons I am sure you won't actually want them to be entering this data into your website.  

So whatever online rent payment process you will use, the tenant will likely need to have an account with a 3rd party that specializes in payments.  Whether that be PayPal or a rental-focused payment website.

You could still put the link to pay on your website.  But I doubt, you'd want to actually attempt to set up a fully integrated payment solution on your own domain.  Especially since you mentioned that you are not too tech savvy.

As @Account Closed mentioned PayPal has some limited integration options.  But I think it would probably be easier for you and the tenant to use a payment processor that focuses on rent payments and just link it to your website.  Most every property management company that takes rent online does it this way as well.

@Ketan Patel

I'd imagine the reason your screening is taking a while is the background service is trying to see if your Joe Tenant is the same person as another Joe Tenant (of the same name) with a record.  

Because TransUnion has the full credit information of an applicant, in addition to the criminal data, they can apply advanced logic to eliminate false-positive results for 2 people of the same name.  Thus, the secondary name-matching issues are factored in instantly and further name investigating becomes unnecessary.

Once the tenant approves the sharing of the report it will be provided to the landlord instantly, so the tenant can't review it, then decide not to share.  Once they agree to share - the landlord has the full credit and criminal report within a few seconds.

Rent payments will be released very soon and we are currently accepting users.  Feel free to reach out to me directly via private message for further details and to be among the first to try it.

@Ketan Patel

I agree, a 5-day wait would be a huge pain.  I'd think you'd lose out on good tenants and vacancy holding costs.

We partner with TransUnion the major credit bureau, which is also one of the largest (if not the largest) rental screening organization in the US (maybe world?).   They have over 200 million criminal records that get searched.

Best part is, like the credit report, it is instant upon tenant approval.

Yes!

I'd vote to take it down.

@Account Closed

Yes they are legit.

@Jeff S.

A lot of our users use Xero for the accounting portion.  With the combination of what we offer for free and the accounting aspects of Xero - you can have some amazing features for under $10 per month.

Sorry to hear about the troubles @Mil Sanghvi

We have some great options for you.  I just sent you a message!