100% Real Leasing Professional Nightmares
We are lucky to work alongside and learn from many Funnel team members who were, once upon a time before Funnel, leasing professionals at property management companies. We asked them to share their leasing horror stories and the daily seemingly small frustrations that lead to full-blown leasing nightmares.
Here are three scream-worthy 😱stories they shared that made the day-to-day onsite challenging (and how Funnel turns these leasing pains into long-forgotten daydreams).
#1. Errors with applicant entered income
One story that came up a few times was some variation of errors with applicant-entered income.
First things first, we aren’t throwing shade at renters, because many technology platforms are a little (or sometimes A LOT) clunky to navigate. So while there may be some user error, shouldn’t the tech behind online leasing applications make it so clear that user error isn’t a concern? We think so. Renters are entering a ton of personal information, and just trying to find a new place to live. Not stressful at all, right? (sarcasm alert!).
Regardless of the cause, for leasing teams the nightmare begins when an applicant enters the wrong income information, for example, they entered their income as monthly when the system requirement was annual.
And then, due to either legacy antiquation or overly niche tech limitations, there is no way for the applicant to go back and update their income. Meaning, that the applicant might not be approved and needs to re-apply with accurate information. Or worse for the leasing team, they might need to re-apply with a paper application and the leasing team will need to do the process manually.
The Funnel of Love (how we solved this)
Our online leasing solution has the industry’s first FinTech integration and powerful screening tools. Tech talk translation: with the Funnel online leasing solution renters are able to link their bank account from within our online leasing application, and the algorithms do the rest of the income verification. There is less room for there to be errors in applicant entered data, because of the smart screening and integrations in our online leasing solution.
#2. A very manual screaming screening process
Life is messy. Yes, for you, for us, and for your renters too. An example that one of our past leasing professionals shared with us is the story of two college roommates. We’ll call them Roommate One and Roommate Two. Roommate One and Roommate Two walk into a leasing office… They apply together for an apartment and are denied. Then, Roommate One’s mom agreed to cosign, but due to tech limitations, she then had to complete a paper application that the leasing team manually input into their leasing software. With mom as a guarantor, the roommates were approved.
Fast forward a bit. Roommate One and Roommate Two decided they didn’t want to live together and wanted to live separately prior to their move-in date. This meant the onsite team needed to manually delete Roommate Two from the application, and then have Roommate Two fill out another new paper application to live in their own place. Roommate Two didn’t qualify without the guarantor on the application and was denied again #awkward. Roommate One and their mom then needed to be rescreened AGAIN. All of this manual back and forth required a lot from everyone involved, the leasing team, the roommates, and the guarantor.
The Funnel of Love (how we solved this)
First, scroll back up and read all about our FinTech integration, if Roommates One and Two had applied with Funnel’s Online Leasing solution right away we would have known that their income didn’t qualify them and within the Funnel platform, we could have recommended that they needed a guarantor or a co-signer. They wouldn’t have needed to apply a second time with a guarantor, a leasing professional could have simply suggested that they add one before processing their application further, meaning with Funnel this could have been a SINGLE application (and no paper ones). When Roommate Two decided to split, the leasing professional could have easily removed the roommate within Funnel and continued the leasing process with Roommate One and their co-signer mom. Think how many headaches that would have been solved for the leasing team and the applicants.
#3. Fraud detection
We heard from several team members that as leasing professionals (who let’s remind everyone are expected to provide flawless customer service) are also supposed to be able to identify document and ID fraud across a wide range of documents.
Want to add more pressure to it? (Some property management companies did.) The onus of the fraud detection and the burden of getting this right was on the onsite team to figure it out.
The Funnel of Love (how we solved this)
Through our best-in-class screening integrations, applicants’ identity is digitally verified. This process is automated meaning it saves your team time, and frees them to focus on providing excellent customer service to prospective renters and current residents. For your teams, it’ll feel like a weight has been lifted, and their role will be more aligned with the things they do well and enjoy. Read: happier engaged teams.
Leasing apartments shouldn’t be a nightmare
Louder for the ones in the back?
The decision to deny or approve applications shouldn’t keep your leasing teams up at night!
Learn more about our approach to online leasing by scheduling a demo at NAA, visiting the “Apartment of Terror” and “Funnel of Love” at booth# 2231…or if you’re reading this in 2025 (aka beyond June 2022), schedule a demo here.