Hacker News Reader

Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

They were being cheap. I was a landlord at one point. It’s about $30 to use a tenant screening service and you charge that as an “application fee”.

View on HN

Ey, I won't complain about what a landlord requires if it don't cost me anything and they get the information they need to rent me a place. :)

With most screening services, the tenant takes a hit to their credit score in the form of a hard pull.

I just pulled my actual credit reports from all three bureaus and my landlord was satisfied.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnnualCreditReport.com

A credit pull for screening is considered different than one for credit. At most it’s like 3-5 points and the effects disappear fast.

But a tenant screening also looks for evictions (a civil case), criminal cases and whether you are on the sex offender list.

>A credit pull for screening is considered different than one for credit. At most it’s like 3-5 points and the effects disappear fast.

Still a hard pull.

>But a tenant screening also looks for evictions (a civil case), criminal cases and whether you are on the sex offender list.

True, though some are modular and can be run without the credit portion.

I had 5 screening pulls this year because of all the things involving an interstate move and changing jobs with different layers of background checks. In the process of getting financing for a house and I had to provide explanation and documentation that i wasn't hiding debt for each of them. It may not affect your various 'scores' but its still a pain in the ass.

Some landlords charge application fees for dozens of applicants but they only run the credit check/screening for the first few. Also the amount of personal information requested is ridiculous.

I'd much rather use one of those systems where you get your own report from a reputable company and share the report id. Instead of paying an overpriced application fee to a bunch of places.

See my previous reply. A real tenant screening is much more than a credit check.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com