For years, tenant screening meant either doing it yourself (time-consuming, easy to miss things) or paying a property manager (expensive, slow). AI has changed the equation. Here's an honest comparison.
What Traditional Screening Looks Like
Most private landlords do some version of this:
- Ask for a copy of the tenant's ID and payslips
- Eyeball the documents for obvious issues
- Call a reference (which is almost always positive)
- Make a gut call
This takes 1–3 hours per applicant and misses most document fraud.
What Property Managers Check
A full PM screening typically includes a credit check (via Centrix or Equifax), ID verification, and a reference call. Cost: $100–$200 per applicant. Turnaround: 1–3 days.
This is thorough but expensive if you're comparing multiple applicants or have a tight timeline.
What AI Screening Checks
AI tools like RentVetted use vision models to:
- Extract name, DOB, and address from photo ID
- Verify the ID looks authentic (not edited)
- Extract gross and net income figures from payslips
- Check name consistency across all documents
- Calculate affordability (rent as % of income)
- Flag inconsistencies a human would likely miss
Cost: $49. Turnaround: under 2 minutes.
Where AI Wins
- Speed — results in minutes, not days
- Consistency — checks every document against the same criteria every time
- Fraud detection — catches edited PDFs and income inconsistencies humans miss
- Cost — $49 vs $100–200 for PM screening
Where Traditional Screening Wins
- Credit history — AI can't access credit bureau data (yet)
- Tenancy tribunal records — database checks need bureau access
- References — a phone call to a previous landlord still has value
Our Recommendation
Use AI screening as your first filter — fast, cheap, catches document fraud. For high-value properties or borderline cases, follow up with a full PM screen. For most private landlords screening one or two applicants, AI gets you 80% of the value at 25% of the cost.