How a little-known tool is sweeping the real estate industry by giving instant access to vast amounts of homebuyer data
How a little-known tool is sweeping the real estate industry by giving instant access to vast amounts of homebuyer data
When Florida real estate professional Susan Hicks discovered the app Forewarn over a year ago, she was shocked to learn that for a service costing about $20 a month she could instantaneously retrieve detailed data on prospective clients with only their phone number.
*preventing more people from buying homes
Oh look, the next iteration of discrimination tactics.
(de-jure segregation →racist deed restrictions → redlining →real estate agent steering →this)
there is no emails proving any classism or racism, shit lord!
this is totally fair
social scorebackground check
Looks like you can't even opt out without specific legal reasoning based on their opt out policy
The first rule about Forewarn is you don't talk about Forewarn.
Forewarn is primarily marketed to and used by the real estate industry, and it has been penetrating that market at a rapid clip. Although some real estate agents say the financial information it returns saves time when finding clients most likely to have the budget for the houses they’re looking at, most agents and associations tout it primarily as a safety tool because it also supplies criminal records.
In addition to those records, the product — owned by the data broker red violet — also supplies a given individual’s address history; phone, vehicle and property records; bankruptcies; and liens and judgements, including foreclosure histories.
Although such data could generally be gleaned from public records, Forewarn delivers it at the press of a button — a function real estate agents say allows them to gather publicly available information without having to visit courthouses and municipal offices, a process which would normally take days.
Its just a people-searching tool similar to Spokeo or Intelius or one of hundreds of others. Nothing new.
Some might be shocked to see what kind of info you could find. Other more knowledgeable people know this is a thing that has existed for a long long time.
Yes, and almost all billion-dollar tech companies are simply taking something that already existed, slapping a new UI on it, and marketing it to a specific group of people.
at this point everybody should get this tool to screen everybody in their lives!
I tried to sign up for an account but didn't have any luck. I'm just wondering what this company charges to sell my personal info...
Glad I didn't use a realtor in my home purchase, but honestly half my neighbors probably looked me up with a tool like this.