You’ve been asking for periodic highlights from HERO PM by email, and we’re delivering!
In this issue of HERO News, we focus on rental applications and screening.
We answer a question that saves you money, and welcome new integrated partners.
Enjoy!
– The HERO PM Team
P.S. Don’t want the news? Just reply and we’ll remove you. You’ll still get your regular account notifications.
Did you know?
When receiving rental applications through HERO Harmony, you have control over how the applicant pays. You can choose any of the integrated payment providers, like Stripe or PayPal, refer the applicant to your non-integrated payment page, or arrange for offline payment.
Community Mailbag
When I receive an application, is it automatically screened?
Great question! Harmony gives you options before you run a screening report on an applicant. This saves you a lot of money, and even more headaches.
First is your option to “preclude” an applicant from screening. If the applicant is not eligible to rent the unit regardless of their credit, criminal, eviction, or other screening results, there’s no point in pulling (and paying for) a screening report. You’ll want to use Harmony’s App Score to help with this. If the applicant does not meet your qualifications to rent, but they submitted an application anyhow, simply preclude them and send your Harmony CRM notification.
Once you’ve chosen to run a screening report, you may have multiple options, depending on your configuration. For example, you might use Harmony’s Unit Application Qualification Level to run a more rigorous set of background checks for a more exclusive community, or when the HOA or location of the home requires it. Or, if your configuration does not include all co-applicants on a merged report, the primary applicant may have a credit check run, while additional applicants only have criminal. Always be aware of, and comply with, your local laws.
Can I self-screen applications? We do some of our own checks without a CRA.
Absolutely! In Harmony, you define the categories to be screened. For each one, it can be tied into the results returned from a CRA, or you can do your own checks and manually enter information, grades, and scores. When you’re all done, you select the overall screening result, and automatically send the CRM notification as required.
Welcome, Partners
For more information on how any integrated partner offerings work in Harmony, or how to sign up with an integrated partner account, log in to your Harmony Dashboard or reply to this email.
Featured Harmony U Article: Applicants, Apply!
Whether you have one rental unit or one million, you need to get quality, qualified tenants. It’s one thing all landlords and property managers need, over and over again. Harmony solves the problem of marketing your unit through its myriad vacancy management and marketing solutions. It also solves the problem of communicating with prospects, scheduling showings, and all the other pieces of getting ready to fill vacant units.
Once you have the interested prospect, getting the next step right is often the difference between peace and chaos. This gap between curious prospect and contented occupant is the application and screening piece. In the old days, we used to hand over a sheet of paper to fill in their vitals, call the place where they used to live, and see what their mother had to say about them. If we got a good vibe from this, we approved the tenant and they signed a lease. That simply doesn’t work anymore. There’s data security, fair housing, consumer protections – and a host of other things that must be part of our application and screening processes. They’re in place to protect tenants, and if we do things right, they protect us, too.
