For those of you that do rentals, credit reports are a necessary part of the experience.
But, be very careful.
According to federal law, you cannot run credit for a client then give it to anyone…..even the client!
But of course, the listing agent is yelling at you that you need to run the credit because they are either cheap, lazy, ignorant or all of the above!
How do you solve the problem? Here are two ideas.
1. Get a written agreement with the listing agent that you will be paid your commission and then send them a form signed by your client authorizing the Listing Agent or the Landlord to run the credit.
Easy solution and you are completely out of the picture.
2. Have your client get their credit report for FREE at annualcreditreport.com. The government required the credit companies to provide this site so people can see what’s going and dispute anything for free.
They can download their credit as a pdf.
What annualcreditreport.com does not do is get you a free credit score.
Ah, but there is a solution for that! creditkarma.com will give you a FREE credit score!
Make that a pdf too and then add both to a secure site (like googledocs) and then send the Landord or listing agent the link for their viewing.
Hey, wait a second. You can do this before you even meet with a rental or a sale client so they can see how their credit is? Genius! That makes you Agent Genius!
Perfect! Problem solved!
stephanie crawford
December 16, 2009 at 4:01 am
This rocks. I was unaware of CreditKarma.com. I’m going to start using this with my buyers.
MIssy Caulk
December 16, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Yep, that is exactly what we do.
They either sign for the us or the listing agent to pull, or they do it themselves and bring it.