Identifying Problem Renters Before They Even Sign the Lease via MHNonline

Do you really know who’s living in your apartments? MHN interviewed Joseph Killinger, founder and CEO of real estate investment company Learning Links Centers LLC, who, with his partner George Pino, recently launched the Rent Rite Directory. Killinger explains how the free directory can help property managers know if a perspective resident has a problematic renting history or a criminal record. Additionally, Killinger explains how his system can benefit the community.

MHN: Give us a little background on the Rent Rite Directory service.

Killinger: We have an investment company, started in Los Angeles. We moved to the Dallas market a few years ago, and we were having some issues on a property. Now our company, called the Learning Links Centers, mostly focuses on B and C assets—lower- to moderate-income areas. A big part of that in Dallas is that people in these multifamily properties run these specials—$99 to move you in and then the next month you pay your full rent. A lot of people will move in on those $99 [deals] and on their fourth or fifth week when they’re getting ready to pay their full month’s rent, they’ll just take off in the middle of the night and go to a building right next door or a property right down the street. Typically, those are the people who are not doing a lot for the community; they’re typically the ones who are committing crimes. The Learning Links Centers is a socially responsible real estate investment company geared towards tutoring inner-city kids, so it’s kind of a hot spot for us. We thought, there’s got to be somebody tracking these people, so we started searching it, and there was nobody doing that.

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