Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa October 2014 | Page 31

STRATEGIES Investor Resources PayProp’s new tenant assessment report PayProp, SA’s largest processor of rental payments for the residential letting industry announced the launch of the PayProp Tenant Assessment Report. CEO Louw Liebenberg says that the report offers a far more comprehensive assessment of a potential tenant than a standard credit check. “It is increasingly clear that credit checks alone are not adequate to fully understand the extent of nonpayment risk that a new tenant presents. It’s important that estate agencies and landlords seek more forwardlooking indicators of affordability, to better anticipate if a tenant will be able to pay in future or not,” says Liebenberg. The PayProp Tenant Assessment Report lists all prior credit behaviour information as well as provides an all-encompassing look at a tenant’s current level of debt relative to income and the rental value applied to form a comprehensive view of a tenant’s level of non-payment risk. Liebenberg adds that a Tenant Assessment Report can only be conducted with the consent of the tenant. “Securing total piece of mind when it comes to rental transactions is vital to ensure a harmonious relationship with a new tenant.” Furthermore, PayProp keeps a detailed audit trail of exactly which system user requested a report – with each report request time and date stamped so that an exact trace of every request exists. Revolutionary RentReport from TPN Tenant Profile Network (TPN) has released a userfriendly RentReport tool, collating real-time suburbspecific demographics and data - and giving it a rental component, a first for South Africa. Based on all of TPN’s current information databases - including TPN’s RentBook, RentBay and credit bureau data, suburb demographics from Stats SA, population census and General Household Surveys - RentReport collates crucial suburb resident www.reimag.co.za demographics, distinguishes between property types and details rental percentages of those property categories as well as rental prices in that area. Says Michelle Dickens, MD of TPN: “For example, the most important demographic from a buy-to-let perspective is how many properties within an area are rental properties. This can indicate the kinds of volume of tenants looking to rent in that area. Details of the income of each household enables buy-to-let investors to derive the affordability of rental prices in that area based on 30% of income.” The report also indicates the good standing level of tenants, allowing users to analyse this performance against the national, provincial and other local averages.” The RentReport tool is available to all registered TPN members through the TPN website. Experian and TPN collate credit and rental data A partnership between Experian and TPN, the largest rental bureau in South Africa specialising in vetting tenants for rental properties, will ensure that tenants who pay their monthly rent on time will see their positive payment behaviour being made accessible to participating credit providers, to enable them to qualify for appropriate new leases or other financial products. This unique partnership offers a secure and compliant way to include a tenant’s payment history in their respective reports, strengthening their credit history and helping them qualify for more and lower-cost credit deals. This enhanced view of an individual’s repayment history will also improve the ability of lenders to treat customers fairly with more accurate lending decisions based on a deeper understand