Two technology companies in the rental industry are working together under an agreement forged to address the increasing risk of renter fraud, Inman has learned.
A June 18 press release from TurboTenant said that it is integrating Rent Butter’s, “tech-forward resident screening and verification platform” to empower its 775,00o-plus customers to vet applicants better and sniff out fraud attempts.
“Resident screening is one of the most important steps in protecting a rental investment,” TurboTenant CEO Seamus Nally said in the press release. “By partnering with Rent Butter, we’re providing our landlords with the best software available to manage their property and ensure access to the most accurate credit, criminal and eviction information available.”
The integration will embed what the companies are calling “near-instant” credit and background checks into the application process, removing it as a secondary, stand-alone action in the application ecosystem.
Such a flattening of the typical renter oversight process holds promise to save significant time for property managers, ensure data flows between steps with more accuracy and cut approval times for worthy applicants.
Rent Butter said in the release that traditional screening takes one to four days and estimates that as a result, landlords lose at least $65 per day in rent. Its software will allow TurboTenant users to see application reports and approval insights almost instantly.
“We believe in building safer, more inclusive communities by improving the accuracy and transparency of tenant screening,” Christopher Rankin, CEO of Rent Butter said in the release. “Working with TurboTenant allows us to bring this mission to scale and support hundreds of thousands of landlords with faster, fairer and more reliable screening technology.”
The company delves into consumer spending behavior, rent payment history, rent-to-income ratios and other financial activity to construct a more comprehensive model of an ideal tenant. Credit reports are largely static looks at a person at a single point in their consumer lifecycle.
A study conducted by Rent Butter looked at tenant approvals across 100,000 units and discovered six registered sex offenders, 85 felony convictions and 34 misdemeanors.
“In total, 14.5% of applicants in the dataset had serious criminal records that would not have been identified using more limited reporting methods,” Rent Butter said.
RentSpree, another software company serving the rental industry, has announced partnerships of its own to bolster antifraud efforts.
In August of last year, it connected with Finicity, a Mastercard company, to provide improved financial oversight of applicants, and in May, it evolved its existing partnership with TransUnion to better screen tenants for evictions and criminal records.
TurboTenant helps process more than $3 billion in rent each year, collects “millions of renter leads” and tackles more than 20,000 background checks every month, according to its website.
