Touring a Rental? A Face Scan May Be Required
With the rise of self-guided tours, many companies are requiring facial recognition to see a property By Malena Carollo
Moving is, at best, a small nightmare. There’s the hair-pulling task of packing up and schlepping to a new location—but before you even get to that you must overcome a shortage of places to live and figure out how to afford rents that have shot to nearly 30 percent above pre-pandemic levels. On top of those challenges, many landlords are now asking renters to submit to “live selfies”—wrap-around 3D facial recognition scans to verify their identity.
Many property owners first turned to face scans during the pandemic to take some risk out of allowing self-guided tours. Now, they’re sticking with it to help lower rental application fraud and save time, since employees don’t have to handle visits. Gone are time-consuming phone calls, emails, and guided walkthroughs; in are the face scans and related technologies like smart lockboxes and scheduling software.
And it may be where you’re looking to move. Major players in this space offer listings, particularly single-family homes, from Los Angeles to Atlanta, though most don’t include New York City.
