When a tenant unexpectedly moves out, finding a replacement before it affects your income can be stressful. You want to find someone quickly, but you don’t want to rashly rent to an irresponsible tenant. The cost of a bad tenant could be much higher than the cost of an empty apartment. Ideally, you want to find a good tenant in a short time period... but with the needed background checks this may seem next to impossible.

Fortunately, John Britti developed a product to help ease your pain. During his three years as the Vice President of Freddie Mac, Britti was one of the people responsible for determining who should get a mortgage. He toyed with some ideas to make this process more efficient, and by Spring of 1998, one of these ideas turned into SafeRent, an electronic tenant approval system to benefit Property Managers. This program provides Managers with a simple, accurate way to evaluate applicants without transmitting any credit information over the internet. The best part? Most results can be obtained in as little as thirty seconds!

So how does it work? Simply. Once you’ve set up the program to find the type of tenant you desire, here’s all you have left to do:

1. Type in your User ID and Password.
2. Type in the applicant‘s Social Security number.
3. Enter the applicant’s monthly income.
4. Enter in the monthly rent amount.
5. Enter in the applicant’s current zip code.

Total time spent? About one minute.

SafeRent does the rest. Using the information you’ve entered, SafeRent tracks down your applicant’s credit report and then compares it to a database of other renters.

This database was composed by PhD economists who analyzed thousands of renter‘s credit reports and compared how different people fulfilled their leasing obligations. Based on these reports, the economists came up with statistics.

"We are unique in the industry in offering a statistical credit-scoring model based on actual renter histories," said Linda Bush, president of SafeRent. "Through the use of statistics, we produce screening recommendations that are much more accurate than traditional rule-of-thumb methods.” Because SafeRent compares the applicant’s information to a database that is constantly monitored and updated, the results are incredibly accurate. Customers can use SafeRent to reduce bad debt by at least 16 to 20 percent.

Using a scoring system similar to consumer credit card and mortgage companies, SafeRent produces a 3 digit probability that this lease will be beneficial. “For example,“ Bush explains, “a SafeRent score of 900/1000 would be good.” In other words, “that means that 900 out of 1000 renters with similar backgrounds were responsible tenants.” The managers have already loaded in what the minimum score is that they will accept.

This score will not be shown to the client. All they will see is whether SafeRent says the Property Manager should “Accept“, “Accept with Extra Deposit“, or “Decline” the application. This avoids any confusion associated with credit reports. The answer is cut and dry.

The program will then provide you with a printed record for your files. If the answer is anything other than “accept“, SafeRent prints out an adverse action letter for the applicant (required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act) explaining what credit was used in that decision, what credit bureau was used and 1 to 4 conditions that gave them their score.

Total time SafeRent takes to do all of this? About thirty seconds.

While it benefits all landlords to perform an extensive background check on all applicants, the time required to really research a potential tenant can be costly. If, for example, you have an ideal applicant and you waste five days trying to check out all of their rental history/financial information, you could lose their interest. Your complex is probably not the only one they’re looking at. Perhaps they’re planning to move in to the first place that calls them. You don’t want this to happen to you! Why not have them answer a few questions through SafeRent, and give them approval on the same day that they apply?

Currently used by more than 30 percent of the nation's top property management companies, SafeRent Inc. is the leading Internet-based applicant screening service provider for multifamily housing management companies. On Monday, the company announced the addition of four senior-level executives. The new executives include Geoff Brooks, senior vice president of sales; Deborah Bayles, chief legal officer; Geoff Kulesa, vice president of marketing; and Ineke Van Ieperen, vice president of business and product development. These four hope to expand market reach and enhance property management services.

SafeRent also offers a Collection Service as well as Criminal Background Checking.