Preventing leasing fraud

It’s an unfortunate reality that scammers and fraudsters have found their way into the single-family rental space. Between 2019 and 2021, reports of fraud, identity theft and other deceptions spiked 67% , and in 2021, approximately 11,500 people reported losing over $350 million to rental and real estate scams—a 64% increase from the previous year. That’s why Invitation Homes takes a multi-tiered approach to preventing and mitigating fraud at every step of the leasing experience to protect residents and help stop fraud before it happens.

As a company, we’re constantly evaluating our touchpoints with prospective residents to better prevent leasing fraud. We know that determined criminals may always find a way to target prospective residents, but we’re doing our part to mitigate this risk to the best of our ability. And when there are victims of fraud associated with Invitation Homes, we work with the prospective resident to determine if our home is the right fit for them and, if not, give them reasonable time to find other accommodations.

Preventing fraud starts with making sure that prospective residents know what to watch out for. We clearly list signs of a rental scam on our website, and routinely remind prospective residents that we only accept applications and leasing funds through invitationhomes.com and that they should only look for approved Invitation Homes listings on our website or on reliable third-party listing services, like Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads and Realtor.com.

When fraud does occur, the most common scenario we encounter is a scammer claiming to own one of our homes that leads a prospective resident to believe they’re leasing from Invitation Homes. In the past, a scammer would utilize our self-show option to legitimately obtain a code to access the house, provide that code to a person they’re in touch with to tour the home, and then fraudulently collect payment from the prospective resident. To address this kind of fraud, we now require that anyone interested in touring one of our homes create a profile through our mobile app or website, and we validate their identity through a biometric scan that utilizes a selfie. This ensures that we can authenticate the identity of prospective residents at the start of our engagement and provides a photographic record, should there be an issue. We’ll use this profile to communicate with individuals throughout the leasing process while safeguarding their data.

As they go through the leasing processes, we’ve instituted informational pop ups that remind prospective residents to never share passwords, information, or verification codes. These pop ups also remind people that Invitation Homes never uses a third-party brokerage. These pop-up messages are also now included in a variety of our texts and email messages to prospective residents. We’ve also restricted the ability for individuals to receive codes for listings in different states, and each verification only lasts for a specific period of time. Lastly, if we strongly suspect fraud, we’re able to shut down someone’s profile in our system.

Another fraudulent leasing scheme we’ve seen is false advertisements for our homes at a significantly reduced price on sites like Facebook or Craigslist. If we encounter a prospective resident viewing one of our homes with an incorrect listing price, we direct them to a leasing agent or our official website. We always encourage any resident, current or prospective, to contact an Invitation Homes associate if there’s a question or issue with a home. This includes listings that seem “too good to be true.”

Another step we take in fighting off fraud is closely monitoring the status of our vacant homes. We’ve strengthened the system we use to track how many days a home has been vacant, and after seven days, we send a leasing agent to check in on the house. If someone has unfortunately occupied the home without a lease, we’re aware of the issue quickly and work with them to figure out an appropriate solution.

At the end of the day, our mission is to serve residents. Leasing fraud hurts prospective residents, and it hurts Invitation Homes associates who work hard day in and day out to make sure our residents have a safe place to call home. Preventing leasing fraud has become a significant part of our operations, and we will continue adding touchpoints throughout the leasing experience to further mitigate this risk.