All Forum Posts by: Vitaliy Merkulov

Originally posted by :

@Vitaliy Merkulov, I never heard of that site, but I'll definitely check it out. Are the landlords who dish the dirt on bad tenants guaranteed anonymity? If you're caught making it difficult for a tenant to secure housing, I'd be concerned about getting sued. Much of the time, it's hard enough to get anything other than documented facts from previous landlords because they don't want to be sued by their past tenants. 

 RenterInc is a new tool that landlords/pm can use to hold their tenants accountable for their tenancy. Landlord can submit a review about their current tenant on this website and send a link to their review on the website. If the tenant is being a good tenant, this will encourage them to being good, if they are not doing well, this will encourage them to fix their problems because their review could be found by the future landlord. 

The reviews are not just thoughts of the landlord about the person, or their character. The reviews are based on documented facts like, were there complaints about the tenant? how many times did they pay rent late? etc. The reviews are all FCRA and Fair Housing Approved so there is no fear for landlords to post something about tenant and be sued (unless the landlord lies on the review) With that said, the landlord's name is available on the review to make sure that landlords are sharing the truth about their tenants.

Give it a try

Yvette May it works well because you can tell your renter that her performance is being reviewed on RenterInc and will be searchable by future landlords. That should encourage her to behave well as a tenant. It might take you couple days to get approved, but after that, it's all worth it.

Originally posted by @Kyle J.:

Originally posted by @Vitaliy Merkulov:

@Kyle J. where can I confirm PM license/contact info online?

You can check their license status here: http://www2.dre.ca.gov/PublicASP/pplinfo.asp

I would also Google the phone number that the applicant provided to make sure it comes back to the PM.  You should be able to verify that the number comes back to the agent/company and may even see other listings that they have. 

 @Kyle looks like the public license information website doesn't give the contact info :(

@Kyle J. where can I confirm PM license/contact info online?

I want to know if anyone knows a way to find out who manages a rental property.

I want to verify that my applicant gave me the right contact information of their previous landlord/property manager and not his friend posing for a landlord. I know I can call the county and find out who the owner is, but a lot of times the owner is not the contact person, but the property manager is, how do I verify the property manager of an address?

I know you can call the previous landlord on application and ask very specific questions about the tenant to see if they are real landlord or not, but those are not good enough because there are a lot of fake landlord services out there that know how to be fake landlords (google "fake landlord reference") So I need a better way to verify this.

Is there a tool where I can search this online? or any other way experienced property managers go about this? or am I the only one who is too conservative on tenant screening?

Thanks for any help or direction.

So landlords can show their own property but I can't show my friend's property to potential tenants without a broker's license?

A lot of my landlord friends want my help in finding and screening applicants for them, but they want to manage their own properties. Am I aloud to help them find tenants without a brokers license in California?

I do think credit report is a must, but it's not enough to know who the applicant really is.

I used the TransUnion service to pull the applicant's credit at first, but that only give me the credit score and not the full credit report that you would get if you pulled the applicant's report yourself.

@Sarnen Steinbarth does your "soft" pull give you a credit report or just a score?

Then I signed up with the service that allowed me to see the full credit report not just the score. But even after that, I was not able to see anything on the tenant's credit report to make me be cautious about approving them.

That's why I think landlord references are the best way to REALLY know who the applicant is.

@Jem J., Self managing is an option for some property owners. However be careful about bad tenants targeting self-managers a lot because they tend to be less informed about how important tenant screening is. Most property management companies know to use all the tools that they have to make sure they know who they could be renting to. 

Originally posted by @Josh Rodgers:

...

If you feel its lowering your risks by having 3 of the 4 in good standing, you may want to just ask them about why and if they can provide the landlord reference of the eviction so you can call them.  

...

Josh, I think if that 4th person has an eviction, they will not want anyone to speak to the landlord who evicted them. That's why you should run your standard tenant screening with credit check, employment check, and in addition to that check if that person has any reviews about their tenancy at renterinc.com.

Think about this, if the 3 of the good ones move out, and the bad one stays, you might have to evict the bad one and you don't want to do that.