Online property management tools are moving the landlord-tenant relationship to the internet Gino Zahnd was searching for an apartment in San Francisco when he noticed his credit score had unexpectedly dropped. Given the rental market in the Bay Area is ultra-competitive, he knew this could end up costing him an apartment and prolong his apartment hunt.
But even more frustrating than the score drop itself was the reason why it dropped: It wasn?t anything he did. Instead, a landlord had accidentally run a hard credit report?which can signal to lenders that a borrower is trying to open new accounts?six times by repeatedly refreshing a web browser when the initial submission didn?t immediately load.
?It pissed me off enough to think: ?there?s gotta be a better way to start a relationship with a stranger than by handing them a packet of paper that has literally everything they need for identity theft,?? Zahnd said. ?In San Francisco, you might do that half a dozen times before you actually get a place. You start wondering what all these people are doing with all that information.? The experience ended up being the genesis of Cozy, one of a number of new online property management platforms for ?do it yourself? landlords that Zahnd launched in 2013. The new platforms offer renters and landlords alike the convenience of organizing everything online, plus security measures to keep sensitive personal information private.
?What we found was [DIY landlords] were using Excel, Cr...