All Forum Posts by: Dana R.

Has anybody had any success with renewing or editing their Zillow listing so it gets bumped up back to the top for newest available rentals?

I tried doing it before, but it didn't work for me so I don't know if I was doing it wrong or if there's no way around it. 

Patrick- did it really bump your listing back to the top?

Or, do you mean that by renewing the listing and shuffling the pictures every few days, then people were still viewing it because they didn't realize it was the same property with a different picture?

Do you post your rental on Zillow right away or do you wait?

From my previous experience, the most activity for views and inqueries happen in the first few days after you post a listing for rent on Zillow. But, then the longer your rentals sits unleased, those views and inqueries drops.

This probably occurs, I'm assuming, because Zillow lists the rentals by newness. Its like the Google effect, where people look at the first few things google pull and most people never even look on the second page. So, it really helps if your rental is one of the newest rentals available on Zillow and it hurts if the listing is older as it gets pushed back to the 2nd page. With more and more apartments listing their rentals on Zillow, I expect this effect to be even pronounced and for your listing to get lost in the shuffle. 

My rental will be available next year on Jan 1. I'm trying to decide when I should post that listing, either now or after January. 

If I post it now, it'll be new and therefore get views and responses for the next week or two. 

But, after that, with Christmas and all that, I expect the responses to really quiet down for the rest of December until January.  By that point, my listing will be old and won't show up at the top of Zillow. 

Or, should I wait to post it on January on Zillow so its at the top when there's going to be more people looking for a rental in January than December. 

Hi Andrea,

I just saw your response, and I'm hoping its not too late to get an answer.

After calling TransUnion number and talking to one of your representatives, that was my understanding about the lack of negative treadlines. Otherwise, how could an applicant with several collections not have any negative treadlines in their history?

But, I'd love to hear the correct answer.

Also, I was reviewing that application and I noticed that the income was obviously inflated. Would an inflated, false income affect the Smartmove's recommendation whether or not to rent to a tenant?

In other words, if the applicant had red flags that might recommend a rejection, can the SmartMove Score be manipulated to giving an accept if the applicant put in a inflated income?

So, you should look at their gross income and not their net income? I thought that the net income would be the best way to see how much they really bring home.

But, it might make sense to focus on their gross income because a business will try to find different ways to minimize their taxable income by finding different deductions and expenses which would reduce their net income.

Also, for bank statements, what am I looking for? Is it just the direct deposit because that is basically the income what the person is bringing in? And, also see if the rent check leaving the bank statement matches the rent applicant claims he's paying?

Anything else I need to keep an eye out for in the bank statements?

If I'm comparing direct deposit amount, is the amount going to be more like the gross income or the net income on the tax return?

To verify income for applicant who owns his own business and therefore has no pay stub, why do you look at two years income tax filings?

Won't most businesses try to reduce their taxes by minimizing their income? So even if they can afford to rent it, it won't like they can afford to do if you look at their income tax filings.

How about looking at their bank statements and seeing how much gets deposited each month?

Or, are bank statements easier to fake than tax returns?

He brought in a print out of his checking account but I think I'd need more than just 1 month.

I called Smartmove, and the tradeline data is totally counter intuitive.

The 0 negative tradlines, 0 treadlines with any historical negatives, and 0 occurrences of any historical negatives is only referring to the treadline they currently have open and not any treadlines that have been closed.

So, if a applicant has really bad credit, all the applicant needs to do is close that treadline and open a new treadline to wipe it off. Of course, they'll get flagged for having opened a new account but that's better than showing a treadline with all your bad credit or late payments.

The more I think about it, a relatively new treadline can potentially be a red flag if an applicant is doing it to scrub clean a history of late payments. And, if the treadline is new like if its only a month old, of course it won't show any late payments for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.

You might be able to spot it if the applicant also has a collection, but a applicant could have a history of late payments without crossing into collections.

I'm going through credit reports, and there are some red flags with their public reports- namely that the tax applicant had tax liens in 2009, 2011, and 2013.

It concerns me that this happened to him multiple times. He runs a business so is this something that's not that unusual when you run a business?

The liens for 2009 and 2011 have been paid off.

But, the tax lien for 2013 has not been paid off. The amount for 2013 in the credit report is  about $23,000. Is that amount what they still owe right now or the amount for the initial tax lien?

The applicant has high income and good rental history.

But, I'm concerned with how this tax lien from 2013 will affect the applicant's ability to pay his rent.

What's the income he'd need to generate to satisfy your debt/income ratio if he is in debt for that lien?

How much of a rope does the government give you to pay off tax liens?

Is there a deadline by which you have to pay off this tax lien? I'm afraid that if he needs to pay it off by a certain period, then he'd shift his resources to pay that lien instead of his rent.

If you see a tax lien, is that an automatic denial regardless of applicant's income, references, etc..?

Actually, the applicant is fairly old; more 50ish than young.

At the same time, if I'm reading the Smartmove report correctly, he has had 0 negative treadlines, 0 treadlines with any historical negatives, and 0 occurrences of any historical negatives.

Yet, if he's never had any problems with these treadlines, then how did he get into collections whose status is 9B: Collection account

If you're in collections, wouldn't that also show up on a treadline?

I ran a credit report on a applicant, and it flagged the applicant for having too many recently opened accounts in proportion to total number of accounts. And, it also flagged that the length of time of bankcard accounts have been established is too short.

But, I don't understand why this would be a red flag. What's wrong with opening up a new account that the credit report is flagging it twice? When I read the score factors, this new open account is the first thing listed as if its the most important factor.

There's only 1 tradeline, ie credit account with a credit limit of $700, and that was opened a few months ago.

Several banks did inquiries into his credit a few months ago, before he opened that tradeline. Should it be red flag that several banks ran inquires on him?

Given this information, is there anything any reason why you wouldn't accept this applicant.  

That's terrible to hear. You must have turned down countless applicants if you thought this residential score was the same number as the credit fico score.

I also wish the residential scores were clearer on what they meant. My applicant scored in the mid 500s, which was deemed to be low accept but nothing about high risk.

The residential score is giving me a number that I don't trust because what's acceptable for one landlord might not be acceptable for another landlord. At least, with a credit score, I had experience what those scores meant and had some understanding what it meant.  

And, to further confuse things, when I looked at Smartmove, they claimed that the scores could only go up to 850? So, how could somebody score above that and be A Super Prime?