On a quest to retrieve gold guarded by a dragon, Tolkien’s dwarves were envisioning a large, fierce individual to help them. Instead, they were presented with a small hobbit. After voicing several complaints they were told, “There is a lot more in him than you guess.”
Landlords are not so different from these dwarves in their attitude toward credit scores. They want to find their golden resident and think that the credit score is their large, fierce answer to finding them. Credit scores are informative when it comes to payment history and are good for places like car dealerships, but for landlords, experience would prove that the answer is not simply in the credit score. Like the hobbit for the dwarves, the answer comes through the accumulation of smaller means.
At Smart Housing, when landlords are screening applicants, at the end of the tenant screening report we offer Smart Score. The Smart Score may seem like a simple number, but there is more to it than meets the eye. It is a combination of different metrics that are useful in finding a good resident. One of these metrics is the debt to income ratio. Another of these factors is evictions. And yes the FICO score does have value in the process so we do include a tenant credit check as well.
With Smart Score you are on your way in your quest to finding your golden resident!
