Managers of multifamily rental properties are increasingly reporting suspicious activity in applications for units, with 85% of managers polled in a recent Snappt survey saying they think consumers are becoming more comfortable with committing fraud in applying. That's up significantly from pre-pandemic, when an estimated 66% of applications were falsified. 

Snappt scanned more than one million financial documents and found that one in eight have been fraudulently altered.  The company estimates 11 million fraudulent applications were submitted last year in the US alone.

In a Snappt report documenting the findings, Ellie Norton, Area Vice President for Pegasus Residential, said vetting applications has become "significantly more challenging" since the advent of COVID-19. Fraud was already on the rise prior to the pandemic but has "mushroomed" since, costing businesses an estimated 5.4 trillion globally. Reports of fraud, identity theft and other deceptive behavior ticked up by 67% between 2019 and 2021, according to the FTC.