I am a long-time landlord. I have used many tenant verification services before, but never been satisfied with the result. Most services just offer credit score / report. While it is a reasonable practice, it does not directly assess a tenant’s ability to pay rent. Since a tenant’s ability to pay is directly related with someone’s job and income, why don’ t I just verify employment and income of the tenant?
Well, it turns out that tenant employment and income verification is difficult. The three credit bureaus (TransUnion, Experian, Equifax) do not collect info on job and salary history. As a result, I cannot just do a simple data pull on the info. At one time, I decided to conduct employment and income verification myself, and quickly I realized it was not sustainable.
For example, one tenant provided me a fake employer phone number. I called the number and got a quick confirmation. However, then I got suspicious. I did a quick Google search and found that the given number was not associated with the said employer. Similarly, I also had to deal with fake bank statement and pay stub. The ting is that it was so easy to get fake template online. Without expertise required to spot such forgery, I am at risk of passing a fraudster.
Fortunately, I recently came across a new tenant screening service called Tenantify. It handles employment and income verification for me. I have tried it myself multiple times and cannot be happier. I think I should recommend it to other landlords and residential property managers.
Tenantify verifies tenant employment and income at scale. It independently verifies an employer phone number through third parties before making employment verification calls. It also electronically pulls a copy of bank statement directly from the tenant bank (with tenant approval, of course). Very few fraudsters can pass the rigorous procedures.
And it is quick too. All my verifications were completed within one business day. I am impressed, especially given that the process involves multiple points of human interaction – employment verification call, manual scanning of bank statement for work-related income, etc.
If you are a landlord or property manager, I strongly recommend you give Tenantify a try. Tenantify’s website is at https://tenantify.com.
