Simplifying Tenant Screening Process With Assetsoft

21.06.21 08:00 AM Comment(s) By Assetsoft

Tenant screening is an essential process for property managers. For those managing multiple properties, screening can be time-consuming and tedious. Individually verifying each application and conducting background checks isn’t the most efficient approach either.

You can simplify your tenant screening through Assetsoft by utilizing the best tenant screening software to suit your requirements.

Why is Tenant Screening Important in The First Place?

The main goal of tenant screening is to find high-quality, reliable tenants. By conducting the necessary background checks, you will:

Know your applicant's financial situation

Getting a full credit report of your applicant can help you understand their financial situation. An applicant might have a verified monthly income but still, have an outstanding debt. This can give you insights into how likely the applicant is to pay monthly rents on time.

Protect your property neighborhood

Through criminal background checks, you can know how safe your tenant is for the neighborhood. Even though some criminal charges are not uncommon, understanding your applicant’s entire criminal history is important. Even if the applicant behaves decently, there are chances of them having a worrisome criminal history.

By putting them through tenant screening, you are not only ensuring the safety of your property but also of other tenants as well.

Avoid future evictions

Eviction can be a costly and lengthy process. It can involve sending a notice to the tenant, filing a complaint, and seeing the process through. This can utilize a lot of your time and effort that you could invest in other important business processes. A simple check of past eviction history can help you reduce the risk of future evictions.

Get peace of mind

Tenant screening ensures that you get a reliable tenant. Every property manager wants tenants that pay rent on time, get along well with others, and cause no legal problems. Through tenant screening, you can be assured that the selected applicant meets all your requirements and that your property is in safe hands. It also helps you make decisions based on data and not on intuitions.

Why choose AI-based tenant screening?

Property managers put in much effort for tenant onboarding, right from placing ads for the right audience to questioning applicants. If you are lax with the screening process, you may end up losing time, money, and even reputation. Manual screening involves more effort and is sometimes error-prone. Going through multiple papers, reading individual applications, and filtering out details is too much of an effort.

While the traditional screening process involved a lot of work and multiple agencies, technology has made tenant onboarding much simpler and efficient.

Benefits of AI-based tenant screening

Reduced screening time

AI can screen applicants more efficiently. Whether it is criminal background checks or eviction history, it can simultaneously handle multiple screening processes. It can also completely control the process without needing human assistance.

More efficient

Manual screening involves running multiple checks separately and sometimes through different agencies. Through AI-based screening, you can integrate all the tests on a single platform. This is more efficient, error-free, and helps you maintain a centralized database for all applications.

Better tenants

According to the pre-decided criteria, AI can filter all the applications to find precisely what you are looking for. Whether you want good credit scores or a tenant with no pets, AI can screen it with no room for doubt.

Enhanced tenant experience

Just like you, tenants also hate filling up multiple applications and waiting for days. With an automated screening process, you give your tenants a quicker and more efficient way to fill up applications and confirm approval. This helps in tenant retention and growing your reputation.

Better savings and ROI

Using an efficient screening process helps retain better tenants. This means no late payments, no property damage, and no costly evictions. This can have a positive impact on your long-term return on investment. AI-based screening can also help you save better, average reduced costs of up to $39 per unit per year.

Safe and secure

Digital submission and storage of data are safer than paper. As screening applications contain important client details, such as the phone number and SSN, it is safer to store them on computers. Digital data storage also ensures that none of the details get lost or damaged. You can also access all your applications remotely through any connectible device.

How to screen the right way

Usually, a tenant screening software handles everything from receiving applications to sending approval emails. All you need to do is feed it a set of pre-decided criteria. It can be anything from setting restrictions on criminal backgrounds to allowing pets. You have to keep certain things in mind while selecting the criteria.

Consistent screening process

The goal of tenant screening is to get reliable tenants. So, every applicant should be given a fair chance and subjected to the same screening process. The US Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to discriminate between applications due to their religion, race, sex, origin, family status, or disability. Having a consistent screening process will make sure you are complying with the Act.

You should collect important details from the application: the applicant’s full name, contact information, references, and social security number. These details will help the AI run appropriate tests to filter suitable tenants.

Regulations and law

Make sure that your screening process and application abides by the national and regional laws. While setting up the process, acquaint yourself with the current and upcoming regulations. For example, some states do not allow discrimination of tenants for specific criminal charges. In some other states, property managers have to explain their selection criteria in writing.

These laws also keep changing. You will need to update your screening process according to the changes.

Run background checks

This is the most important part of the screening process. A background check can tell you all the required information about the tenant. This should include verifying income, running a credit score check, and checking criminal history. Late payments usually lead to evictions which can be a costly affair. Through these tests, you can determine how likely a tenant is to pay rent on time and how safe the tenant is for your property.

Some of our recommended tenant screening software

Yardi ScreenWorks pro

This software by Yardi aims to select low-risk tenants through a comprehensive screening process. It involves features such as report generation and automated recommendations to simplify your tenant onboarding process. You can also get insights into applicant traffic through the built-in analyzer. The software comes with access to a large database of rental payment information so you can verify payment history, all in a single platform.

MRI resident screening

MRI offers resident screening software which is configurable according to your requirements. The software generates its own Accuscore to filter tenants based on housing-specific criteria. Through this, you can get minimal risk tenants and maximize your financial performance.

How you can simplify tenant screening through Assetsoft

As we have established the importance of automated tenant screening, the next step is to find the right resources to implement it. At Assetsoft, we use multiple state-of-art platforms to help you set up all steps of the screening process.

Setting up screening criteria

This is the basic step of the tenant onboarding process. Each property manager has their own requirements to filter tenants. At Assetsoft, we curate the software to meet individual screening requirements while keeping in mind the federal laws. This will help you maintain a consistent, thorough applicant screening and also keep you safe from any violation.

Application

After deciding the criteria, you will need to set up an application to collect tenant data. The basic details every application should include are the full name, contact details, and SSN. It is best to collect applications from every member of the family. Other details to include are:

Employment details: This includes past and current employment. It is used for verifying monthly income and ensuring timely rent payments.

Past Residences: This includes references from previous landlords if they are coming from another rental.

Pet information: Depending on your pet policy, this will include the number and size of pets.

Emergency contact: A person you can reach out to in case your client has an emergency or goes missing.

Choose from the available tenant application templates, or create a new one through Assetsoft. You can choose to assign an AI bot to collect the details as well as ask smart questions to applicants.

Credit and background checks

Our tenant screening tools can run credit and background checks using the details collected through the application. Our checks are quick and efficient, saving a lot of your time and the tenant’s as well.

Approval and onboarding

Once all the verification is complete, the AI bot can handle the approval and onboarding process. It can send approval emails to potential tenants and collect any additional details to complete the onboarding process.

Assetsoft can help you streamline your property management processes, whether it is tenant screening or property accounting. You can automate your rent payments, maintenance and lease renewals through our RPA. What’s more? Your budgeting and forecasting is also covered by our various platforms, so you can make better financial decisions. For all your requirements, we build the necessary tools by integrating the best software like Yardi, MRI, UiPath, Procore and many more.