Leasing is like a dating game…maybe a game of blind dates, more accurately, where you’re eager to find a match but you really don’t know the person you’re going to meet until they walk through the door.

What would you give to drive the right kind of traffic to your communities?   Fifteen percent of your marketing budget?  Twenty percent?  More?  Or would you look for a pay-as-you-go formula that only cost you money when a qualified applicant shows up at your leasing office to get acquainted?   

But wait, our industry is too decentralized with each and every property company and many a  regional manager setting their own acceptance terms.  This jungle of differences, albeit in compliance with Fair Housing, makes the possibility of a uniform utopia where applicants could be pre-qualified like a future dinner companion nearly impossible.

But wait again, your future residents are trying to move in that  direction now in much the same way dating candidates put themselves out there online for potential matches.  We see services that enable people to share their rental and employment history online as a means to give a future community a glimpse of their desirability.  And we see ILS aggregaters trying to make it easier and easier for applicants to find the handful of rental units they want to visit as their possible new abodes just as Yelp and Zagat’s have become the directory of where to take a date.

But wait once more, where in all this sea change does screening come into play?  Do we trust the resident (any more than a new dater) to post a profile that’s completely accurate?   Hell, wasn’t a tenured professor at a major university that prides itself on academic integrity just sent packing for falsifying his resume?  And how many dating profiles really include recent photos, correct height and weight or personal details you can take to the bank?

The challenge for the industry is to find a vehicle (or vehicles) that will protect against risk while helping future applicants to put themselves out for grabs like love interests on Match.com