A Software Offering Looks to Address Renter Fraud

A survey of apartment management professionals surveyed by RealPage had reported growing apartment rental fraud. More than half saw a variety of fake identity types and income fraud and only 17% had a portfolio-wide fraud prevention initiative in place. But 97% of respondents report that reducing renter fraud is a top priority.

One solution is a pair of services that RealPage and digital finance platform vendor Plaid are offering for the former’s OneSite and On-Site leasing and property management platforms. The idea is to help customers detect fraud early in the leasing process using verification across data, device, document and biometrics. Here are some of the features:

Anti-fraud engine that uses AI in the form of contextual analysis, scanning of expanded risk signals, increased verification methods and broader coverage across over 16,000 document types.

Identity verification of over 16,000 ID document types in over 200 countries and territories.

The ability to access consumer-permissioned data directly from tenants’ bank accounts, income documents, or payroll providers.

Fraud identification has come a long way over the years. At one time, the technology required large statistical processing systems that kept massive data sets. To create the actual screening, customers would use the packages to create their own custom fraud detection packages. That wasn’t easily used by any companies other than large ones that have the in-house expertise to develop what they needed. But that limited the types of companies able to make use of the capabilities.

Luckily, two things happened. One was that anti-fraud systems became more specialized and sophisticated. The other is that vendors created hosted software for companies in various industries. Those vendors could invest the time an expertise to integrate anti-fraud capabilities into their own products. That allowed a much broader set of smaller companies to go about their business while using anti-fraud capabilities.

Multifamily Spring:

Multifamily Spring is coming to New York City this April 18. This year’s program will bring together the industry’s most influential and knowledgeable real estate executives from the multifamily sector for 5 hours of face-to-face networking and over 5.5 hours of can’t miss sessions. Learn more or register here.