Are Any Landlords Aware of A Better Way To ...

[Shawn Davis]

Hello All - I am wondering if any Landlords are aware of a more economical way for potential tenants to make application to several rental units, owned or managed by different entities, without having to pay multiple application fees?

I am an owner/landlord of several properties in a market which has been experiencing between 1-2% vacancies for a few years now.  My application fee ($40.00) is typical of the area, and in my case at least, is used entirely to cover the cost of running credit/criminal/eviction reports.  This amount is reasonable if a tenant only has to apply to one rental before being accepted, but it can become burdensome quickly to renters in our area who routinely apply to several units before being accepted.  As a landlord I simply want thorough and up to date screening information (credit/criminal/eviction).   I can envision a service which offers those screenings reports for a a one time fee and assigns the tenant an access code which can be used by several different landlords over a set period of time (say 90 days), or for a certain number of updated inquiries.  Of course, the tenant would still have to fill out the individual landlord's application and give written permission for access to the reports.

1.   Does this service, or something similar already exist?

2.   Would you, as a landlord, have any objections to using it if it did.

3.   Do others see this need in their markets?

4.   Do you "make" money from your application fee above and beyond the cost of your hard screening reports?  For example, is part of your fee used to cover administrative cost of checking references?

Thanks!  

[Sam Leon]

@Marcia Maynard

I took a quick look, it is still in beta and not all details are ironed out yet but some quick impressions...

It shifts the cost of application from the renters to the property managers and owners.  For example, the renter pays a $35 application fee to the site, gets screened, and then the service issues a $35 credit voucher to be applied to the rent which essentially means the landlords who end up taking the applicant eats the cost.  On top of this, there is a $99 - $249 - $399 PER MONTH fee (depending on the property size) the landlords pay to advertise on the site.  Now the way I do it today I already pay the app fee - I credit the app fee to the first month's rent when the lease is signed.  I do this to discourage people from applying unless they are seriously interested if they failed screening or if they walk away then they lose app fee.  On the monthly fee I don't see paying it to advertise when there are free sites like Postlets and CL that reach far and wide.

The one advantage it claims to have is that each landlord's unique renter criteria is being stored on their database so that the applicants can be "pre-approved" before the showing.  This is useful.  I wonder how extensive that is.  Certainly it helps and I have posted in the past I wish Postlets and others can have custom built-in "questionaires" that landlords can extend in the ad to ask potential applicants such as "Is your gross monthly income at least X?", "Have you ever filed for bankruptcy?", "Have you ever defaulted on a lease?", "Do people generally think of you as a jerk?", "Have you ever peed outside the toilet since you were 5 years old?" etc...and I suppose this site will allow you to have additional screening criteria and it would be nice to see how extensive it is and whether it can be customized.  Now the renter would be screened against those criteria and be "PRE-APPROVED", I am curious what pre-approved means, does it mean the landlords are obligated to accept the applicant if the applicant passes the established screening criteria?  Can I still reject if I don't get a good vibe after meeting or am I looking at a potential law suit?

I didn't create an account to look deeper but I see this as another tool.  The additional monthly fee to advertise seems steep though.