Product Updates: Week 29

Accompanied showings can now run as video tours. Flag a showing as a virtual tour and RentEngine swaps the in-person meeting instructions for a link to a live video call, so a prospect across the country can tour a unit without driving to it.

Fraud Guard picks up a batch of new protections this week too — three new flags, a tighter hold on flagged prospects, and a clear reason attached to every flag. On the applications side, prospects can apply without a US cell phone number and manage their own references.

Here's what's new in RentEngine.

Virtual tours

Run an accompanied showing as an embedded video tour

You can now schedule a virtual showing straight from the Command Center. The prospect gets a link to join the tour by video from home, and the showing agent joins the same link from the property by tapping Start Showing in the RentEngine app. The prospect walks the unit on camera with the agent guiding them, without either of them needing the prospect on site.

A virtual showing is still treated as an accompanied showing — it keeps the reminders, the confirmation step, and auto-cancel — because the agent is physically going to the property. That protects the agent's trip the same way it would for any in-person accompanied tour.

This came by popular request from a large property management team in Denver with a steady stream of out-of-state prospects. Relocation is the use case it is built for: the renter moving in from another state who wants to see the place before they commit to the move.

Fraud Guard

Flagged prospects can no longer book showings without PM approval

When a prospect trips a fraud flag while booking a tour — for example, by booking the same property twice — the tour that raised the flag is now held for property manager approval, along with any booking that follows. A flagged prospect cannot complete a showing until your team has reviewed them. This holds for Zillow Instant Tours too.

New Fraud Guard flags for out-of-state IDs, GPS failures, and distant ID reuse

Fraud Guard adds three new flags. Each is off by default, so you turn on what fits your portfolio:

• Out-of-state IDs can require manual approval before a prospect is cleared.

• A failed GPS check — whether spoofing or a location mismatch — can require property manager approval before a new showing is scheduled and before a code is released for an existing one. You set the number of failed attempts that triggers it (default 1).

• Distant ID reuse raises a flag when the same ID document turns up in a prescreening at a unit more than 50 miles away, across any property manager on RentEngine, within the last 30 days.

When any of these fires, the showing that tripped it is held rather than let through.

Edit your own settings in Settings > Showings > Prescreening.

Medium-confidence ID fraud now routes to review instead of an auto-reject

When ID verification lands in the medium-confidence range, RentEngine can now route the prospect to property manager review through Fraud Guard rather than rejecting them outright. High-confidence fraud is still auto-rejected, and low or no-confidence results are still accepted. The prospect's prescreen passes with no rejection email, and their showing is held as pending with "Potentially fraudulent activity" for your team to review.

This is opt-in per prescreening template. A sensitivity setting controls how aggressively IDs are screened: higher thresholds auto-reject clear fraud and hold the uncertain cases for review, lower thresholds interrupt fewer applicants but catch less. High is recommended for most portfolios.

See exactly why a prospect was flagged

Every fraud flag now carries its reason inside RentEngine. The prospect's activity log records an event the moment a flag is raised — which check tripped and on which unit — not only when it is cleared. The flag banner in the Command Center shows the same reason, so your team can see what happened without opening the alert email.

Rental applications

Prospects can add and edit their own references

Applicants can now manage references from their Existing Applications portal. They can add new employer references and edit the contact details — name, phone, and email — of any reference who has not yet started their part. References a prospect adds are marked on the property manager side as prospect-added, with the date. The same validation as everywhere else applies: an applicant cannot enter their own phone or email, or that of a co-applicant, as a reference.

Apply and check status without a US cell phone number

A prospect without a US mobile number can now start an application, submit it, and check its status. On the Start Application screen they choose "Continue without a phone number" and add an international number in a separate field, which displays correctly on the property manager side. One thing to pass on to these applicants: they need to use the same browser and device to check their status later, since signing out clears the token that keeps them linked to the application.

Control who can view an applicant's SSN

A new rental application template permission controls who can reveal an applicant's Social Security number. It is off by default. Only template admins, or users granted the permission, can unmask an SSN in an application, and the number is stripped from any report PDF downloaded by a user without it. SSNs are now stored as encrypted fields.

Take Action does more when you approve, reject, or archive

The Take Action menu on an application now does more with a single click:

• Approving an application can fire a custom text message, with the template set in your rental application templates.

• Archived, Awaiting Additional Info, Conditional Approval, and Rejected now show their note or reason directly on the application chip.

• The activity log links straight to the rejection email in the Email Log.

• Setting an application to Archived, Awaiting Additional Info, Conditional Approval, or Rejected writes the note you added into a Note on the prospect.

Showings

Missed showings now notify you and nudge the prospect to rebook

Two things can happen when a showing is marked missed. Your team can get a notification naming the prospect, the property, and the showing time, with a button that opens that prospect in the Command Center. The prospect can get a text 1 hour after the missed showing time asking if they would like help rescheduling, with a link to do it. Both are off for existing users — turn the notification on in your notification settings and the message on in the Messages tab.

Property edits

Update amenities across many units at once

Amenities are now part of Bulk Edit Units. Select your units, open the Amenities field under Utilities & Lease, and set the amenity list across all of them in one pass. As with other list fields in bulk edit, the values you set replace the existing amenities on each unit rather than adding to them.

Set a portfolio default for desired lease duration

You can now set a default desired lease duration in your portfolio settings, using the same options as the unit editing flow, including the Contact for Details option. The default applies to every new unit, whether it is added manually or synced in from your PMS.

RentEngine AI

RentEngine AI now audits its own answers to catch mistakes before they are reported

When you go to report an AI or SMS message, the AI first re-reads the answer it gave, traces it back to the records and inputs it used, and runs a verification pass against your own account data to judge whether it actually got the response wrong. You see where the message came from and the AI's own verdict — "this looks correct because…", "this appears incorrect because…", or "cannot determine" — before anything is filed.

The result is a self-aware AI that catches, and helps fix, its own mistakes. Real errors surface at the moment they matter and reach our team with the full source context and verdict attached, so they get corrected rather than lost in a pile of reports. The verdict stays advisory — you can still file even when the AI believes it got it right — so you keep the final call.

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