and at the end guys stick around for the pro tip cuz I'm dropping a pro tip that is going to save your life trust me no Ser sa their life that's a little intense well you have your life and then you have your pocket life that's true okay and identity fraud um is more rampant than it's ever been it's easier to do it than it's ever been um just because of all the Photoshop and even like AI that we have now people can impersonate other people's voices um it's crazy right I would say really of all the things that we look at on applications this is probably the the thing that I still see the most um um what's the word for prevalent it's the most prevalent that people are still trying to prevent mess with it they're still trying to lie about it essentially trying to get around it um I would layer this as well guys and this is more into relational cuz sometimes I've seen this happen over and over again landlord want to trust their gut like no they they they wanted they said that you know they move from this state to this state like they come up with multiple excuses landlords don't believe the story trust the process remove your emotions from the process yeah uh listen I'm I'm an instinct person as well I like to trust my gut I leave from my gut however one of the things we've learned from running 20,000 applications is let them fill out the application and remove yourself from any communication while you go through this process identify those yellow flags um so that you can address them okay that's extremely important hey guys this is uh episode three of the navigate Property Management show Welcome we're excited you're here landlords land landladies yeah Realtors Brokers and everything in between right honestly there's a lot of information that we're jamming um a lot of free education which is extremely important right Judy it is so um I want to Dive Right In okay to the topic for today which is running uh an application or the application process yes okay before we jump in that I want to highlight some numbers here um just so that uh we we want to make this painless for landlords and we want people to learn from our mistakes and also learn from our wins yeah absolutely so over the years we have done um a lot of property management um we've done a lot of um leasing we've done a lot of turnovers um we started to count up some of the numbers and um it surprised us how many of these different items um we've done over the years but Ernesto tell us how many turnovers have you done so in your career in in my carea 5,000 over 5,000 turnovers just to have a good round number yeah over 5 ,000 uh turnovers in my career which is absolutely insane so 5,000 turnovers right we've managed over 2500 properties it's a lot of houses over 2 200 properties single family homes and small multif family homes you've typically you're over a lot of the leasing stuff yeah over 7,000 leases 7,000 leases which means how many applications and for the record I I still look at most of our applications before we we finally pull the trigger yes so I've looked at this many applications over 20,000 applications that's a lot of applications right either directly ran through you or or the individuals who are under you you have trained and multiplied the process right I do want to highlight one property uh that we managed in Dallas Texas okay as just a quick recap a young lady who stole her mother's identity her mother who was in the mental uh in a mental institution unfortunately yes obviously these individuals will remain nameless um so do you know which property I'm talking about I do so take us through the process of of when you first ran that application yeah so and I'm going to sit back like a fan and just listen so okay so so I oftentimes think about applications and application processes and seeing all the information kind of like similar to um you know what do they say about people who who can identify uh fraudulent money right they don't study the fake stuff they just study the real thing so much that they know when they see something that's fake right there's inconsistencies there's something off here it doesn't seem quite right there um and really the application process is a lot the same okay so when we start the process of an application and we start talking to somebody if there's inconsistency doesn't something doesn't seem right everything doesn't line up um you can start to get an idea pretty quickly this young lady she had a down because it was her mother who she had cared for for years and years she did and they also had very similar names remember and and they looked a lot alike and they were not that different in age yes so this was one of those things that um the young woman who actually lived in the house used all of her mother's information signed the lease lived in the house and uh Ernesto tell us finally um when we found out I'll never forget this moment when we found out that the person living there was not the person who had signed the lease yeah so it happened while I was sitting in court waiting to hear yeah from the justice of peace the judge uh during the eviction hearing this young lady walks to the courtroom um and she says hey are you with navigate and I said yeah I'm with navigate um and she's like okay hey you know I'm trying to figure out how to pay and I said well that's wonderful yeah I mean we're here what are you what are you trying to do um and as she t as she's talking with me I decide let me just pull up her information and I pull up the ID I pull up the driver's license and it it's not the person who I'm talking to that's what he said he he's like texting the team on the background and he was like I don't think this is her guys please verify what I'm looking at and unfortunately we found out so not only did she lie to us she she also this was the second time we were uh in the hearing yeah because the the judge had postponed it and um she had lied under oath oh that's right and the second time was when she finally was like well my mom couldn't be here yeah she's sick I'm I'm I'm here on her behalf um so it was sad thankfully we we were rewarded judgment um and we were able to gain back possession of the property mhm um yeah so the way we found out it was her daughter was was Ernesto texted us in the background and said I don't I don't think that the person that's on this lease is the person sitting here in court so finally at that point when you were in court for the second time she admitted that she wasn't the person on the lease yes very gracious justice of peace crazy um who who said hey that's not good you shouldn't do that still let her off the hook um which which is understandable listen individuals um struggle there are seasons where individuals struggle financially and we'll talk about those things in another um segment but for today there are three things that we want to highlight right from situations just like this the mother daughter identity crisis right so we want to make sure that we're doing these thing three these three things yeah to verify and protect right because what are some of the things um you suffer um during a an identity crisis type of situation or identity fraud yeah well if you haven't heard if you don't see it all the time um identity identity fraud identity theft identity fraud I'm going to create a new word identity thud idti so identity put in big letter fraud right here and identity fraud um is more rampant than it's ever been it's easier to do it than it's ever been um just because of all theot phot shop and even like AI that we have now people can impersonate other people's voices um it's crazy right um so as far as identity theft and fraud goes um we've really narrowed it down to to three things that we feel like if you if you can see these three things um when it comes to or consistency and these three things when it comes to looking at an application um you're probably going to be okay yeah right now going through these three things that there may be times that you have to verify and double verify to confirm that you're good to go on these three things so Ernesto give us number one the first one is property Deb right and and let's just before we even dive into the three things let's just obviously preface this by saying we're assuming you're using some sort of a software mhm you're not just saying hey do you have any property debt right let's so let's just assume use a legitimate software company we can make some recommendations and add them uh to the description but for now just make sure that you're looking at that property debt what's what's it what does it mean what what is property debt and what what does it look like what are you looking for how does that show up yeah so property debt is essentially um anytime you either haven't paid your rent there were damages when you left that you owed that you didn't pay um now that type of thing doesn't always show up on a credit report right um so one of the things that that we do um just to make sure at least most recently they didn't leave somebody um with damages or or money owed for the rent um is we require a landlord verification which we're going to talk about more later um but if we get anything back from the most recent landlord that says um you know they left it was kind of a mess they haven't paid me what they owed yet um that's an automatic disqualification um the other two things that we look at are the credit report um if there's any creditors that you can trace back to being a property management company or an individual right because some individual landlords will also report um property debt um that's a disqualification that's not a good look um and then of course anything on um a credit report that has to do with a property management company they will sometimes report as well um and then finally evictions um any kinds of evictions um any kinds of foreclosures um bankruptcies anything like that um we just we just pass over those um because the reality is and again remember guys we've done this a lot um it's it's a hard habit to break yes that's really really good and I appreciate you kind of ironing that out for us and obviously with the plethora of experience I'm sure you've seen it all we've shared one story of many the second Point uh is the landlord verification now we've seen a lot of different things happen during this time where you have landlords um who know it's their friends they're like hey yeah um they they create a fake uh Gmail account um they have a fake number a fake voicemail I mean they they they're jumping through some hoops they're thinking about this process right so tell us about what what we're looking for here I would say really of all the things that we look at on applications this is probably the the thing that I still see the most um um what's the word I'm looking for prevalent it's the most prevalent that people are still trying to prevent mess with it they're still trying to lie about it essentially trying to get around it um and so so there's two things that we look for when it comes to a landlord verification it either needs to be a professional email Judy nmc propertymanagement.com right and it goes directly to them it needs to be a phone number for a professional management company um that if you reverse search that phone number in Google you're going to see oh that lady is with navigate management company and that is the number for their company yes right um or if it is an individual landlord um they say hey this is the guy he's selling the house but he was my landlord um what we will do is go look at tax records and see who owns this house does Bob Smith own this house if he doesn't and that's the name of the person they put on the application we start to ask some additional questions um tax records are are open or if it's owned by an LLC you can also see who owns the LLC so that's how we verify that um and we must have a positive landlord verification in order to move on email and phone number someone we can actually get a hold of and this is the hardest part because a lot of private landlords are out there so you're reaching out to somebody who's is doesn't have a letterhead and doesn't have a business email so those are the type of indicators you want to be just kind of treat them as yellow flags yeah that can turn into a red flag yeah but again this these are just tips to help you kind of we through um the process right yeah I mean when it comes to looking at applications again the best thing if you haven't looked at over 20,000 applications throughout your lifetime just be curious right don't look at it as like you're assuming someone's lying like be good-hearted but be curious yes I I would layer this as well guys and this is more into relational cuz sometimes I've seen this happen over and over again landlords want to trust their gut like no now don't they they they wanted they said that you know they move from this state to this state like they come up with multiple excuses landlords don't believe the story trust the process remove your emotions from the process yeah uh listen I'm I'm an instinct person as well I like to trust my gut I lead for my gut however one of the things we've learned from running 20,000 applications is let them fill out the application and remove yourself from any communication while you go through this process identify those yellow flags um so that you can address them okay that's extremely important and at the end guys stick around for the pro tip cuz I'm dropping a pro tip that is going to save your life trust me no Ser your life that's a little intense well you have your life and then you have your pocket life that's true okay okay so you know let's just keep that in mind the third one is verify income obviously what's the process look like for verify income and also what can you tell us about software tools out there yes that help us verify inome okay so this is another one um we have something in place I'll tell you about it in a second um that really helps us skip over um any sort of of fake pay stubs or again call my friend that's my employer type thing um however if you are an individual landlord and you don't have access to extra extra types of of checks um at least when you're verifying income ask for two different sorts of proof of income mhm that could be um a a tax return and their most recent pay stubs that could be their most recent pay stubs um as well as a a phone number to the HR department okay um now if you call the HR department and um the answer you get is Hello uh hi um this is Judy I was calling for income verification and then the voice on the other side of the line says oh of course who are you calling about Hey listen just to be clear it's 2023 customer service has dipped right so you may you may still get somebody who's like hello that's true anyway but you can you can ask your own questions too I'm sorry what company is this and if they don't immediately know what company they're working for that could be a problem so anyway um get get a couple of verifications of income not just one um you could also ask for for bank statements they are welcome to like line out their address or any personal information um but I would always get two yes yeah that's really good yeah it's so easy to to to fix uh anything these days with a PDF andat and all that stuff so so that would be my recommendation um if you don't have access to additional um additional companies or options for running um credit checks and also verification incomes yes um there there are some things that you can pay for as an individual again will link those so you can see them um but what we use is Experian um Experian has what's called um an income verification and job work check okay so this is actually very similar to um or basically the same thing um that A morgage lender will use to pre-approve someone for a mortgage loan um so we put this at the beginning of all of our applications um so we're not surprising anyone that we're going to ask you for your bank account information but we don't see it um and if someone is not willing to go through this process Unfortunately they can't apply with navigate anymore um we just have seen too much across the board um so essentially what happens they start the application process they still have to send us their pay stubs have to put their bank account information in mhm and then Experian tells us how much they make now what they've historically made what they're going to make in the future and also where those deposits come from the verify income extremely important for us and that experien thing is powerful thank you for sharing that yeah now as we kind of head over to the wrap-up of this video there's a major red flag guys that I do want to tell the landlords is this the pro tip this is not the pro tip this is a red flag okay okay I'm going to give you a red flag and I'm going to give you a pro tip as we wrap up this bonus round this video so um hit that like button subscribe cuz there's a lot of information coming here but here is the big big red flag if someone wants to split their security deposit over two to three months do not let it happen don't do it those are red flags guys do not put yourself in in that situation stay focused on the process stick to your process and it will help you Le this is this is really important this is what we this is how we coach our property managers right yes process and protocol first M judgment third so if you go through essentially if you if you go through your process and you work your protocol and you hit a wall then move into your judgment right that's that's how we're training our property managers their leaders and their managers and we need to be able to trust their judgment so protocol process judgment your judgment should be the last thing that comes into play and then here's our Pro tip Pro tip here it is I don't even know what this is maybe I'm going to learn something do not let your residents pay their first month's right and a security deposit with a credit card oh no credit card because part of this whole process of fraud is people who are running fraud through the credit card guys we we just learned this when did this happen to us for the first time maybe a year ago yeah year and a half this was awful a sorry yeah no goad great Pro great Pro tip well she wants to take my Pro tip that's fine go fun take my Pro tip I I was so amazed that someone would do this well here's what you need to learn next time okay when you're coming to record yeah you make sure you drop down your own Pro tip do not try to hijack my Pro tip listen all my tips are pro tips so just listen to the pro what was the the pro tip in the first one don't don't fall for the price tag oh yeah the price tag trap yeah that was my Pro tip yeah no so okay guys this person paid for months what four months five months of their rent with a credit card yes I would do no credit cards period which is um some software allows you to do that some don't so just um make sure I don't know what you're using but certifi funds is always the best option personal check don't do it right you want to try to eliminate all those um we didn't tell them what happened with the credit card though so they paid for months of the rent with the credit card then called the credit card company and claimed fraud and skipped well it could it could have been a stolen credit card at any point in time we don't even know we don't know if they actually called and and and oh yeah that's true right yeah we don't they they stole they could have stole the credit card and been using it and finally the person that they stole it from called it in as fraud so they fro obviously if you're using a credit card you have that that option where the credit card would dispute it freeze it and you're not getting any of those funds so just so that happened while they were while they were living in the house but we're saying from the get-go when they're applying don't let them use the credit card for security deposit in the first month's rent boom that's is our episode three of the navigate show like subscribe share comment uh submit questions we will have a Q&A segment because obviously there's so many questions but there are unique experiences that you guys may have gone through and we'd love to be able to unpack those for you during one of our episodes yeah okay so stick around because we'll we'll drop another video here that you can just click on here here I don't even know where it shows up but it's going to show up going to be all kinds of fun things yes