All Forum Posts by: Sarnen Steinbarth

@Carol Kohn  Thanks for clarifying!

 Some landlords do.  But it's more common in the US for tenants to pay for the application fee / screening.

@Account Closed

Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

TransUnion is the largest tenant screening provider in the US, used by almost all large property management companies and software providers, including TurboTenant, Buildium, CA Association of REALTORS, and even BiggerPockets.

Saying that their reports are watered down is simply not true.

Perhaps you are referring to a different service, that takes TransUnion data, and then purposefully redacts or waters it down?

@Carol Kohn

Thanks for the feedback. 

Real quick on this comment:

Would be especially helpful if custom questions are added. 

You can add custom question to the application from the settings area.

The gift card was sent out firs this this AM, if for some reason you don't see it please message me privately.

Thanks for using TurboTenant.

@Charles Frankenhoff

If you were not already aware, you can add your own custom questions on the online rental application.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

@Carol Kohn

Hi Carol,

Thanks for reaching out.

On Tuesday 2/28/17 Amazon Web Services - one of the largest online hosting providers of cloud applications and images, had a massive outage that affected thousands of sites, including TurboTenant.  (Other sites affected were reportedly, Netflix, Airbnb, Time, US Securities and Exchange Commission and many others).  Our customer support team was flooded with inquiries relating to the outage, and we updated our homepage and social media channels relating to this outage, while closely monitoring it for hours.

Here is a national article with more information:  http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-t...

The estimated total financial impact of this Amazon outage across the internet is upwards of $150 million dollars:  http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/03/...

Aside from a down time of approx 5 hours, 40 minutes, no images on TurboTenant were permanently affected, and all images have been restored on our users TurboTenant listing pages.

We are still working with 3rd party listing sites to ensure that they are again able to correctly pull image information from our Amazon cloud hosted servers.

Again, all images on your TurboTenant property listing website should be fully functional.

If you'd like more information free to reach out to me directly  with any additional questions related to this massive internet-wide outage and the steps we are taking with our 3rd party sites to correct it.

As a side note, and to commemorate this Amazon issue, I'd be happy to send you an Amazon Gift Card for the hassle, simply reach out to me directly :-).

Sarnen
Founder / CEO
TurboTenant

@Brett Fine

Are there particular features you're looking for?  How about # of units you have / manage?

I think you'll find that a lot of the solutions tailor better towards certain size portfolios and features.

Feel free to reply on here or reach out direct for some recommendations.

There are certainly pro's and con's to a soft-hit vs. hard-hit method of tenant screening.  @Jason Hartley is referring to the advantages of a hard-hit method.  

While, yes, there is less involvement from the tenant (not having to do identity verification), you will need to make sure you have the proper authorizations from the tenant, and perhaps most troubling (especially to the best tenants) is the hard-hit method will have an affect and can lower the tenants credit score.  This can be a huge turn-off to tenants, especially if they are considering applying to multiple properties.

Additionally the online tenant identity verification, while it may seem like an obstacle, is actually a great way to ensure that the applicant with whom you are interacting with is really who they say they are.  We've found that for most applicants answering 3 identity questions takes about 30 seconds (and, contrary to what was stated above, no additional account or login is needed on the applicants part) - if they do not have a credit file, then, regardless of the method you use, you will not receive their score and they will need to contact the credit bureau to establish a consumer file.

Some other advantages of tying the screening to an online application:

• No need to have to re-type their information to get their report
• Do not have to try to read sloppy handwriting
• Tenant can pay fees upfront; no fees to landlord

@Account Closed

I'd recommend using a service that gives you:

• Credit Report (with score)
• National Background check (for criminal records)
• Eviction report (to know if there are civil eviction records associated with the prospective tenant).

There are a variety of online services that will allow you do do this - you can either pay for the service directly, or have the applicant pay as part of their rental application (probably the most common).

Happy to answer any additional questions you may have.

@Charles Frankenhoff

Please see answers below:

A couple of questions - do you give the same level of detail as transunion? I've been unhappy with Cozy previously because the data is too "washed" and the process too automated. For rentals I'd rather look at payment patterns of accounts myself.

Yes - The formatting is slightly different, but the data should be identical to data you'd receive from TransUnion.  You can see full payment history (on-time, 30-day late, 60-day, 90-day, etc.)  We provide a convenient summary, but also the full report (which can be 10-20 pages). 

How soon will you take ACH type payments?

Our ACH payments are actually currently functional on a Beta invite-only basis.   Our payments take only 2 business days to settle.

Screening - I'm here because I feel Cozy ripped off my tenants during the screening process. I also find their application very rigid, and it doesn't contain enough information. Is application customizable?

Currently the application has limited field customization options, but most of our users have been very happy with the fields / data collected.  Tenants can upload as many additional documents or information to the application.  This allows flexibility for a variety of needs of our landlords.

Finally, can all data be saved/archived in an accessible form to my own computer?

Currently all information is available by logging in, and there are no fees to the landlord.  While most users simply keep the data online,  applications and screening reports are printable (some landlords will physically print these for paper records).  We plan to add the ability to export data to Excel / Quickbooks soon!