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Summary
Payscore (formerly "The Closing Docs") helped Citi-Urban Management by delivering a robust solution for automating income verification. Using Payscore allows Citi-Urban Management to focus on higher value work without worrying about the nuances in their rental application workflow. In this case, Payscore supports the income verification component for over 100 monthly rental applications completely autonomously.
Results
- Reduced the amount of back-and-forth communication time between the management team and the applicant from over two weeks to a matter of minutes.
- Simplified the underwriting process by delivering insightful, refined data, reducing the time from rental application to approval by 28%.
- Eliminated all instances of applicants who have potential grievances against management due to frustrations with the application process.
The Problem
Citi-Urban Management is a Manhattan property management firm with over 1,000 units under management. In this very dynamic market, waiting days playing telephone tag to verify an applicant’s income is unacceptable. Their team needs to match the right applicant to each unit and move them in without delay.
Historically, the process of screening applicants was done manually and relied on applicants and staff working together to accurately collect and interpret the applicant’s income. This required sharing documentation like paystubs, tax returns, bank statements, etc. As a result, the team was spending inordinate amounts of time collecting and sorting the information submitted and with no meaningful way to determine its validity. Nothing in this cycle improves efficiency. What’s worse, their customers, the tenants, were stuck in this cycle of inefficiency, delaying occupancy and the collection of rent.
"Serving the fastest paced, most demanding real estate market in the world is much more difficult when using tools designed to meet someone else’s needs."Spencer Lewin, CIO of Citi-Urban Management
The realty firm had long-ago adopted Yardi to digitize their accounting practices commensurate with operating investment real estate. Along the way, they implemented a property management software package, On-Site, with a goal of leveraging next-generation software benefits that were unavailable with their legacy accounting tool.
Tenants would submit a variety of income documentation online in unique and inconsistent formats and the team would be left to decipher what was received.
Outcome
What if property managers were able to spend their time on high-touch, high-value correspondence with residents instead of laboring over deciphering income documents? The results lead to higher-quality tenants, and more consistent distributions to their investor clients.
Payscore pushed Citi-Urban Management forward by automating income verification that feeds the applicant data directly into On-Site and provides objective third party income verification, validated by the banks of every applicant.
As a result, Citi-Urban Management’s team transformed a process that took over two weeks into an automated process requiring a few minutes. Previously, the underwriting process would require careful analysis, complex calculations, and cross-examination of photocopied documents. Now, the income verification process is simple, organized, and demystified.
"Payscore's ability to understand the rental application process, the pain-points experienced by both end users and management, and deliver a solution that truly satisfies the needs of both has been most impressive."Spencer Lewin, CIO of Citi-Urban Management
Payscore provides a significant upgrade with respect to illustrating whether an applicant has the capacity to pay rent over the long haul. How?
By relying on net income instead of gross income, the income verification report from Payscore illustrates the liquidity of the applicant, accounts for deductions such as health care, retirement plans, alimony or other variables not reflected in gross income. Looking at the applicant’s disposable income available to cover rent, the property manager now gets a true, bank-verified indication of whether someone can predictably support an ongoing rent obligation. Predictability, consistency, and one less avenue for fraud. These are characteristics an investor wants in a resident occupying their asset.
Leveraging technology to enhance daily activities is a fantastic way to improve team morale as well. It allows for upgrading the skills and abilities of frontline people in ways that maximize relationships with clients. One prominent way to help prospects enjoy a streamlined application and screening process is to normalize how they submit information and to minimize which information they are required to share.
Citi-Urban Management’s executive team sees Payscore as a trusted partner capable of anticipating organizational needs and delivering solutions that far exceed expectations.
Better tech makes it easier for property managers to have higher confidence in their decisions regarding applicants. Better tech makes it easier for applicants to know where they stand in the process and can put them on more solid footing by eliminating guesswork for those conducting tenant screenings. Better tech makes it easier for those managing accounting requirements for investment properties to know the tenants in place are quality, with a demonstrated capacity to pay rent on a long-term basis. Payscore offers the tech solutions you need to run a forward-thinking property management business.
Want to learn how Payscore can help your property management business? Contact us for a demo.
