Let me start by saying that I am a new landlord or at least a prospective landlord. I am attempting to rent out my home of 12 years now . To that end I have followed Brandon's recommendation to use smart move . I like the idea of doing all your research online for the convenience efficiency and the ability to keep records seamlessly . because I have never used an online background check service like smart move I assumed that the process online would be virtually identical to the paper process that typical tenant would go through when renting any property. That however is not the case. In this post I'm going to describe my experience in using smart move and try to call out where I see benefits and drawbacks to the service. BENEFITS1.Super easy to use
I had no problem setting up the first two applications with smart move. All I needed was the applicant's email address to send the application to and to pay the fee.2.Very fast turnaround
Compared to the typical paper process the turnaround time was very fast. I received a report in about 3 hours.
3.Easy to read reports
Once I receive the report I was able to quickly understand the information being provided. That said, I felt that the organization of the information could be better that in and of itself did not prevent me from being able to understand the information.
DRAWBACKS1.Poorly organizedWhen I say poorly organized I mean that the information seems to be more organized around what information transunion has and less around the type of information a landlord needs.
In developing smart move TransUnion seems to Simply Be taking a standard credit report and rebranding it in the image of smart move. The information being provided in smart move is the same information that can be obtained from any standard credit report.
Past addresses… Credit scores… account information, etc.
The criminal background check is public information. Anyone can make a public information request to find out a criminal background of a prospective tenant and its free.
The eviction history information would be more useful if it were tied to specific rental history.
2. Insufficient Information
Ex.Their previous addresses seem to be simply be a list of addresses with which TransUnion is familiar. The information that TransUnion provides should be organized around the intended audience which is landlords. Landlords want to see a few very specific pieces of information.
For example. Landlords want to see a applicants rental history for the last 3 years. In the report there should be all the addresses for the applicant by year. This should simply be the information that the prospective tenant provided to smart move and Transunion should be able to match that up with their records.
Ex.
Address1 from 2010 to 2012. VERIFIED
Address2 from 2013 to present VERIFIED
Each address should include the landlord contact information
Address1 Mr. Jones ABC Property mgmt
Nnn.nnn.nnnnn
I would suggest that previous rental history is absolutely the single most relevant piece of information on a rental application and smart move does not include that information. What are we paying for with that $35? Without that rental information I still need to go back to the prospective tenant and request two to three years of rental history so that I can do a proper background check.
TransUnion has started something very powerful. While they don't have everything perfected quite yet I do feel that this tool is going to be very helpful in the future. That said at this point I don't feel that smart move is worth the time and trouble to pay $35 to help provide a background check.
I'm disappointed in the tool that TransUnion has provided. I don't feel that this is a tool worthy of BiggerPockets recommendation and would even go so far as to suggest that it not be recommended at this time.
