Overview
RentEngine prescreening stops unqualified leads and scammers before they schedule a showing. You control prescreening through templates, which define requirements, questions, and rejection logic.
Fraud Guard adds identity and fraud protection for self-guided showings.
What prescreening does
Prescreening lets you:
Set minimum credit and income requirements
Ask custom questions
Automatically allow or reject prospects based on responses
Collect information without rejecting when needed
Prescreening happens before a prospect schedules a showing.
Create a prescreening template
Go to Settings → Prescreening Templates
Click + New template
Name the template
Check Set as default if you want this template applied to new vacancies automatically
You can create multiple templates and assign them to individual units.
Edit a template
Continue editing the new template, or click any template name to open it. The editor has four tabs. Changes save automatically.
Qualifications tab
Income & Credit Requirements
The financial bar a prospect must clear.
Minimum credit score — set with the slider or enter a number directly
Minimum income — choose a rent multiplier or a fixed dollar amount
How prospects report income & credit — choose predefined ranges or exact amounts
If you don't want the prescreening to ask for credit and income at all, check No minimum.
Note: Even if you don't set a minimum income and credit questions, we still recommend setting your minimums so RentEngine AI knows how to respond when prospects ask about rental requirements.
Prescreening Questions
You can ask questions that require a Yes/No, free text, or date response.
For Yes/No questions, set the rejection logic:
Yes — Rejects prospects who answer Yes
No — Rejects prospects who answer No
Do not reject (informational) — Collects the response without affecting eligibility
Use informational questions when you want visibility without blocking showings.
Housing voucher question
The first question is always about housing vouchers.
If a prospect has a voucher, choose whether to bypass income and/or credit requirements.
We don't recommend removing this question, as it creates confusion about whether the property accepts vouchers.
Later in the AI Voucher tab is controlled what RentEngine AI tells prospects about voucher acceptance — this is separate from rejection logic.
Preferred move-in date question
This fixed question asks prospects for their preferred move-in date.
Reject if move-in is more than X days out (Custom override) — reject if the requested date is more than X days from the unit's earliest move-in date
Follow the portfolio default — reject if the date exceeds the "Property can be held for … days" value in your Portfolio Defaults
Informational only — collect the date without rejecting based on it
Add or remove questions
Click New to add a question
Click the trash icon to remove a question
Drag the handle on the left to reorder questions
We don't recommend adding more than four questions.
Zillow Instant Tour
If you bypass income and credit questions, have no mandatory questions, and have ID verification disabled, RentEngine will notify you that Zillow Instant Tour is automatically enabled — meaning prospects can schedule directly through Zillow without completing prescreening.
AI Voucher tab
Housing Voucher Communications controls what RentEngine AI tells prospects when they ask whether housing vouchers are accepted for the properties that use this prescreening template. This is separate from whether vouchers are rejected at prescreening.
Follow the prescreening logic — the AI derives the answer from your housing-voucher screening question and its reject rule
Always say vouchers are accepted — the AI tells every prospect that housing vouchers are welcome, regardless of the screening rule
Always say vouchers are not accepted — the AI tells every prospect that housing vouchers aren't accepted, whatever the screening rule says. Confirm this complies with local source-of-income law.
Fraud Guard tab
Every prescreening template has its own Fraud Guard settings, grouped into collapsible sections.
There are two types of outcomes:
Rejects — the prospect fails prescreening and cannot book a showing
Holds for approval — the showing is created as Pending Approval until a PM reviews and clears the flag. Flags stay on the prospect until cleared
Accompanied showings are never held for Fraud Guard review— an agent is present, so an ID, GPS, or behavioral flag doesn't route them to PM approval. Photo-ID verification can still reject a prospect outright.
Self-guided Showing Safety Warning
Custom message shown to prospects before they start a self-guided showing to intercept if they found this property via a fraudulent listings. Your RentEngine's phone number is included in that message {{ re_leasing_phone_number }}.
Custom Message tab
Add a short message (up to 160 characters) that prospects see while completing the prescreening. This is optional and useful for setting expectations or providing context before they answer questions.
Assign a prescreening template to a unit
Open the Properties tab
Click Take action > Edit property
On the final page, select the prescreening template from the dropdown
Click Finish to save
The template applies immediately.
What prospects see
When scheduling a showing, prospects:
Answer prescreening questions
Complete any required Fraud Guard verification steps
Are approved or rejected automatically
Rejected prospects can't schedule a showing but can resubmit the prescreening. The system doesn't tell the prospect why they were rejected, to prevent resubmission with false information.
You can test the prescreening flow by clicking Schedule Showing on your listing page.