Best Avail Alternatives 2024
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If you’re a landlord, agent, or property manager in Texas, you’ve probably heard of Avail. Operated by Realtor.com, the platform was built for individual landlords and includes everything you need from listing pages to maintenance requests. For the purpose of this review, we will be evaluating their tenant screening feature and exploring some of the most popular screening alternatives, what makes them unique, and how they work.
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Shortcomings of Screening with Avail
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Avail has multiple screening packages and allows you to choose which rental screening reports you want to request from a prospective renter. Only a Full Screening package will give you results from a Nationwide Criminal and Eviction search, and their income verification process simply involves an applicant uploading either a W-2, pay stub, or offer letter to verify income.
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Here are 5 Avail alternatives every landlord and real estate agent should know.
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1. Clara: Clara is a digital rental application and screening platform that provides a seamless experience for both renters and landlords. It collects, consolidates, and secures application information to help renters find their ideal homes and landlords find their ideal renters. For landlords like yourself, Clara provides access to a pool of highly qualified and verified renters, removes the risk of fraudulent applications, and helps you find their perfect renter. Clara features:
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• Digital Rental Application: Clara allows you to create and share an online application with potential renters.
• Identity and Income Verification: Clara partners with Plaid, an advanced security and encryption tool, to verify identification documents, phone numbers, name, date of birth, ID numbers, and more.
• Credit History: Clara provides a TransUnion credit report summary that includes a renter's credit score, total credit lines, collections, and more.
• Background Checks: Clara conducts an eviction search as well as an extensive criminal history search that searches through more than 200 million records.
• References: When a renter adds a reference to their profile, Clara will automatically email
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2. TransUnion SmartMove: SmartMove (TransUnion) is a tenant screening platform that gives landlords access to renter's credit, eviction, and criminal reports. TransUnion SmartMove features:
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• Resident Score: SmartMove provides a score built specifically to identify the likelihood of eviction better than a typical credit score.
• Credit History: SmartMove delivers credit reports direct from TransUnion.
• Criminal Background & Eviction Checks: SmartMove also shares a eviction related proceedings report and criminal records.
• Income Insights Report: SmartMove estimates total job and non-job related sources of income using a proprietary model that was verified against a variety of historical income data collected by independent third parties.
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3. RentPrep: A national tenant screening service located in Lancaster, NY, RentPrep provides landlords with a renter's credit, eviction, and criminal reports. RentPrep features:
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• Background Reports: All RentPrep Background Reports are hand-compiled tenant background checks by a team of FCRA Certified Screeners.
• Credit History: RentPrep calls their Credit Report a “Credit Decision Report“, powered by TransUnion. Landlords select a star rating (0 through 5) that will act as your criteria that the applicant must pass.
• Income Verification: RentPrep provides instant real-time access to the most accurate income data available to help you make informed decisions with confidence.
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4. TurboTenant: Your one-stop shop for finding and managing tenants. TurboTenant features:
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• Credit Score: Obtain a full credit report from TransUnion to evaluate if the applicant meets your criteria. This report includes information such as Lines of Credit, Credit Inquiries, and Debt in Collections.
• Criminal Record: They check over 300 million records to ensure the applicant has no criminal history.
• Past Evictions: Stay calm knowing TurboTenant checks over 27 million eviction records covering all 50 states and D.C.
• Income Verification: Utilize an Income Insights tool to cross-verify the income reported by applicants against data from TransUnion.
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5. AAOA: Easily screen tenants 24/7 with AAOA's tenant cooperation reports. AAOA features:
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• Credit Report:  Landlords can receive a full credit report and score in the form of a traditional FICO report, ResidentScore, VantageScore or NRS. The credit report results are instant and provided to you immediately, along with any other reports ordered.
• Criminal Background Check: Add-on to some screening packages.
• Past Evictions: For evictions, you must pay for the most advanced package ($49.95) in order to get a nationwide eviction history. The less expensive packages include only state-specific eviction history, and some do not include the eviction history at all.
• Income Estimator: Ability to add-on an Income Insights report (requires Basic Credit Report).
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Next Steps
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Now that you have a better understanding of the alternatives to Avail, you can make an informed decision about which tenant screening service best suits your needs. Remember, the right tenant can make your life as a landlord much easier, so take the time to thoroughly screen your applicants. Happy renting! 🏠
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