Little-Known Tool Is Giving Instant Access To Vast Amounts of Homebuyer Data

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: 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 instantly retrieve detailed data on prospective clients with only their phone number. 'For anybody who's had exposure to this, usually the first time they see it, it blows their mind,' Hicks told Recorded Future News, adding that she enthusiastically recommends the tool to the brokers she manages. 'It's incredible that there's that amount of information out there that you can just access with one click.' 'It can be real creepy and you have to swear that you're not going to use it in a wrong manner,' Hicks added, referring to Forewarn rules which say real estate agents can't share data from the app publicly or with third parties, or use the app to pull information on non-professional contacts.

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.

The power of Forewarn's technology has led to rapid adoption, but the company is still largely unknown outside the real estate industry. Several fair housing and civil rights advocates interviewed by Recorded Future News weren't aware of its existence. The individuals whose data it sells also have no idea their information is being shared with real estate agents, who potentially might choose not to work with them because of what they discover on the app. Forewarn did not respond to multiple requests for comment, however, statements made by one of its executives suggest that the company intentionally keeps a low profile. 'Do not tell the prospect that they are not permitted or unqualified to purchase or sell property because of information you obtained from Forewarn,' a company executive said at a recent training webinar with Illinois real estate agents. She emphasized that potential buyers 'do not get notified' when they are screened with the app, a question she said many real estate agents ask. Real estate agents who, for example, discover a client has a lien filed against them, should consider telling the prospect they 'obtained this information from a confidential service that bases their information on available public record information,' the executive added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.