The Guide to Real Estate Background Checks

Virtually every person will interact with the real estate industry at some point in their lifetime. Whether renting an apartment, shopping for a house with an estate agent or purchasing property, you will explore the unique property industry and the professionals who make it run. 

This industry tends to be bound by the concept of trust-but-verify for many reasons, ranging from the high value of real estate to potential ethical issues. You can put your trust in a real estate agent, buyer or seller, but verifying that trust can prevent costly mistakes. No strategy is more central to the trust-but-verify philosophy of the property industry than conducting real estate background checks. 

Although backgroundchecks.com will not offer tenant background screenings or credit reports for that purpose, effective September 2024, the information in this blog remains valuable to those employing real estate agents. The complex laws surrounding tenant and credit checks result in the rapid expansion of regulatory burdens for tenant checks.

Vetting Real Estate Agents

Real estate background checks can vary in shape and form depending on the application. For instance, the term real estate background checks is often used to describe the vetting protocols employers or prospective clients use to ensure that real estate agents and other professionals working in the real estate industry are safe and trustworthy. Real estate agents have unique responsibilities that allow them to enter client’s homes, drive them from one showing to another, and share one-on-one meetings in empty houses.

Agents often have keys or access codes to the homes of clients or sellers. A great deal of trust is required to give a person you don’t know any of these privileges. Companies that employ real estate professionals and their clients must know these professionals won’t abuse their position. Hence, real estate background checks for real estate professionals tend to be thorough.

At backgroundchecks.com, we pride ourselves on offering a dynamic range of background check services that clients can use to create comprehensive vetting processes for their agencies. We work with numerous clients in the real estate industry and can provide background check solutions that are effective investors vetting agents, and agencies screening employees.

What is a Real Estate Background Check?

A real estate background check will typically consider various factors, including criminal history, sex offender registry listings, aliases, and address histories. Read on to learn more about the different background screenings that make up the latest real estate background check.

Criminal background checks

Criminal background checks hold considerable value for prospective property agents. These representatives spend a good deal of one-on-one time with buyers, have access to sellers’ homes, and often be a go-between for paperwork containing sensitive personal or financial information. For all these reasons, it’s vital for real estate agencies to make sure they hire trustworthy, safe people, and criminal background checks can be a significant part of that process.

At backgroundchecks.com, we offer criminal background checks at the county, state, and federal levels and a multi-jurisdictional search that spans 650 million records from across the nation.

Sex offender registry searches

Sex offender registry checks are another vital consideration for estate agencies. While most sex offenses will show up on a criminal background check, many of those crimes only require perpetrators to register as sex offenders for a specified number of years.

Meanwhile, a person on a sex offender list should stand out as a more significant liability to an employer than someone who committed a sex crime 40 years ago and is no longer required to register as a sex offender.

Employers in most sectors incorporate sex offender registry checks into their background screening policies. Real estate firms are no exception to this rule. These checks help protect families with children who’ll interact with the real estate professionals in your employ.

Alias and address history check

Alias and address history checks are valuable tools for adding additional information and context to criminal background checks. Criminal history searches are often conducted using a name-based search model, meaning a person can sometimes avoid detection by falsifying their name.

Similarly, background checks are often geographically based since most criminal records are filed at the county level. An agency that only runs criminal history searches in one county or state can risk overlooking convictions that a prospective real estate agent has from a different geographic area.

At backgroundchecks.com, we can incorporate aliases and address history checks into our criminal background checks. While a person can adopt an alias or relocate to a new area, their real name will still be linked to their Social Security Number, as will their address history. We can provide this information to our customers and use it to expand background checks to include other names, counties, or states.

Alias and address history checks are valuable for real estate professionals as they help employers better understand their potential hires.

License and certification verifications

License verification is imperative for real estate agents since they must be licensed to work.

Each state has different rules and processes for real estate agent licensing. In most cases, agents must complete an educational process and pass an examination to prove they are knowledgeable enough to qualify. Real estate employers should verify each agent's credentials to avoid competency problems or any liability that may result from unqualified, unprofessional performance.

Employment verifications

Estate agencies may verify employment history to check an agent’s past jobs in the field. Hiring an experienced and successful real estate agent is a boon for any agency. Verifying employment and sales volumes at past agencies and other on-the-job statistics can be essential to vetting.

Reference checks

Reference checks should be a part of real estate background checks. When vetting agents, you may want to hear about their client experience. These checks can help hiring managers learn more about a prospective hire’s character, work ethic, demeanor with clients, and more. This information can be as vital to a people-centric industry like real estate as any educational credentials or work history details.

Driving history checks

Some real estate agencies may conduct driving history checks on their agents simply because real estate agents drive their clients to showings. Ensuring an agent has a driver’s license in good standing with no history of reckless driving, operating a vehicle under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or other dangerous behavior is indispensable to keeping clients safe.