RET Ventures Leads Funding Round for Tenant Screening Vendor Rent Butter
The company focuses on workforce and affordable housing markets.
Rent Butter, which claims an “advanced tenant screening solution designed specifically for workforce and affordable housing” announced that it had completed a $3 million seed funding round. RET Ventures, a venture fund focused on single- and multi-family real estate technology, led the round.
“Rent Butter was built to help owners and operators of workforce and affordable housing communities better assess risk when screening potential residents,” the company said. “Traditionally, owners vetting rental applicants have relied primarily on static data like credit scores and background checks, which provide only a partial picture of renters’ financial footing.”
Rent Butter has seen significant traction since its founding, with more than 100,000 residential units using the solution. The company has plans to expand its product offering and customer base into conventional Class A and B multifamily and single-family rentals in 2023.”
The company is focused on renters with credit scores below 700. It says that typically, owners, operators, and managers get criminal background, eviction background, and credit scores and trade lines. Rent Butter adds a 7-year credit behavior analysis, income and expense ratios, NSF and overdraft count, and pay stub fraud protection. They also claim that the average cost is $25 to $35 for a report and a three-second automatic response.
“By reviewing the entire financial history of a prospective resident and using predictive analytics, Rent Butter highlights key trends — such as whether their credit score is rising or getting worse — enabling property operators to make more accurate and equitable assessments of individuals’ ability to pay rent,” the company says. “The platform also validates important documents like applicant I.D.s, employment, and income in real-time to protect owners against fraud.”
It also says that in addition to changing risk management for owners, the additional information can help applicants whose credit history might have resulted in a refusal.