CASE STUDY: Custom guarantor service features that one large New York owner-operator asked PandaGuarantee to build, and what changed in their leasing workflow. This NY property portfolio owner asked to remain anonymous for this case-study.
A leasing manager at this portfolio does two things inside PandaGuarantee. She invites a conditionally approved applicant. Occasionally she corrects a bond after the rent or the apartment number changes. That's the entire job.
Getting the workflow down to two actions took about 6 months of the owner telling us what improvements were needed. Most of what follows started as a a problem they didn’t know they had until they realized that PandaGuarantee could create bespoke solutions for landlord partners.
The portfolio
A family-owned New York owner-operator with more than 10,000 multifamily apartments. Leasing policy is set centrally at the corporate level, and property-level teams execute it.
They screen for annual income around 40 times the monthly rent and a credit score of 620 or better, with room for judgment on individual files.
They have worked with several institutional guarantor companies over the years, and they still give conditionally approved renters more than one option. PandaGuarantee started as one name on that list. According to Tom DeRose, PandaGuarantee now receives more than half of their guarantor volume when presented alongside the other providers they accept (including TheGuarantors, Insurent, CoSign).
The real problem was never coverage; it’s admin time
Applicants who clear the screen get a standard approval. Applicants who miss it usually get a conditional approval instead of a denial, which they can satisfy with an acceptable personal guarantor or a policy from an approved institutional guarantor.
That second track catches students, international renters, thin credit files, and people whose income is real but hard to document.
The pool is bigger than most owners assume. The 40x rule is another way of saying rent should be no more than 30% of income, and the Rent Guidelines Board's 2026 Income and Affordability Study found that 51.6% of NYC renter households are already paying at or above that line. Roughly half the city fails a strict 40x screen on paper.
At 10,000 units, the question stops being whether a guarantor will cover those applicants. Every provider will. The question is what each transaction costs your leasing team in emails, verifications, and corrections.
Multiply a fifteen-minute back-and-forth across a few thousand conditional approvals a year and you have a staffing problem.
Invitations, because lease verification was the bottleneck
Under the standard model, a renter applies to the guarantor directly and types in their own apartment details. The guarantor then has to confirm the building, unit number, rent, and lease dates with the landlord’s lease agreement before issuing anything.
That's a handoff, and handoffs stall on Friday evenings and during busy leasing seasons.
The owner flagged it, so we built landlord-initiated invitations. The leasing manager enters the lease details when she sends the invite. The information starts with the landlord, so nobody has to confirm it back to the landlord later.
"Inviting tenants was something we built specifically on their request," Tom DeRose said. The old process created "extra back and forth with confirming the lease details."
As DeRose put it: "When they send an invite to a tenant, that's pretty much all they need to do. They don't have to think about it."
One transaction, it saves a few minutes. Across a portfolio, it removes a step that used to repeat on every single file.
Deals change after the tenant pays
Renters switch units. Rent gets renegotiated. Somebody types 4B instead of 4D and nobody catches it until the guaranty is already issued and paid for.
None of that should mean restarting the application.
Authorized leasing staff can adjust an issued bond from the landlord dashboard when the lease details change. That, plus invitations, covers nearly everything a property-level user touches.
The student whose father earns a million dollars
This portfolio takes a lot of student applicants, including international students whose income is hard to verify. Many have parents with serious income who live in another state, outside the geography where the owner accepts personal guarantors.
So the student needs an institutional guaranty. And if we underwrite only the student, we're pricing a 22-year-old with no credit file and no W-2, while ignoring the person actually funding the lease.
The owner raised it. We built for it.
A personal guarantor can now be included in the applicant's financial profile. PandaGuarantee still guarantees the lease the same way, but the family's financial support gets factored into how we price the risk. For the renter, that often means a meaningfully lower premium.
DeRose's framing on the call was that we're just pricing the risk with information that was sitting there unused.
The feature came from this owner. It's available to every landlord on the platform now.
Corporate visibility without giving everyone the keys
This company runs centralized policy, which made rollout faster than it would be at a management company where each regional office writes its own rules. We onboarded through corporate rather than negotiating with a dozen offices.
Centralized policy still doesn't mean a leasing agent in Queens should see a Brooklyn building's transactions.
Admin and primary accounts hold portfolio-wide visibility. Sub-users get restricted to the buildings they're authorized for. Corporate keeps oversight, and property staff see their own work. Setup for both is documented in the Landlord Help Center.
Nobody wants to train staff on another system
An enterprise product can get complicated enough that only two people at the company know how to use it. Then those two people leave.
Ben Jenkins, our CTO, built against that.
"Inviting a tenant, which is, let's be real, the majority of things that they will do, we've built a tutorial system to guide them through every single step, clearly explaining it, making it clear, then summarizing it before they commit to it."
His view on training requirements is blunt: "I would argue that there really isn't any training apart from their training, which they've already done to learn and use Yardi day-to-day."
For a portfolio with turnover in leasing roles, a system that explains itself is worth more than a good manual nobody reads.
We treat user mistakes as our bug
When a leasing manager or an applicant gets something wrong, the first question internally is what the interface did to cause it.
DeRose described the posture this way: "Anytime there's a mistake we see, it's always a problem of, like, this was not made clear to the user and therefore it's not really a mistake. It's more like the product was not designed correctly."
Repeated confusion in the same spot becomes a ticket. Your leasing team's feedback turns into product changes rather than another rule they have to remember.
Renewals when your residents came from four different guarantors
Any landlord who has accepted institutional guaranties for a few years is now managing residents across multiple providers. Renewal season means logging into several systems and treating long-term residents like brand new applicants because a competitor issued the original bond.
Landlords can upload eligible bonds originally written by other guarantor companies and bring those residents into PandaGuarantee's renewal workflow.
The resident renews as a renewal. They get access to renewal pricing and monthly payment options. The leasing team works in one place.
Price and paperwork both show up as conversion
A rent guaranty has to clear two parties. The landlord needs real protection and a process that doesn't eat labor hours. The renter has to actually be willing to buy it.
We asked DeRose why another large New York owner should look at PandaGuarantee. He led with cost.
"I'd say the biggest reason is we're more affordable. So, their tenants are more willing to move forward with coverage if it's being presented to them."
Then the operational side: "The second is significantly reduced admin burden for the leasing agents. Time to a policy being issued and back and forth just creates more friction in the leasing process that makes it less likely for someone to move forward."
Both land in the same place. A conditional approval is not a signed lease. Price the guaranty too high or drag the process out over a week, and a qualified applicant walks to a building that made it easier. The same math shows up at lease-up, where a few hundred units have to fill on a deadline.
The owner has been direct about the experience. DeRose noted that "amazing" shows up regularly in their written feedback. Jenkins recalled them saying PandaGuarantee has the best application process of the guarantors they use.
Security Deposit Replacement moved their conversion rate
The owner identified another leak. Conditionally approved renters were being asked for a large pile of cash at signing, and some of them couldn't produce it.
Since 2019, General Obligations Law 7-108 has capped deposits and advances at one month's rent, so an owner cannot ask a borderline applicant for extra security to close the gap. That pushed the whole question of upfront risk onto other deposit tools.
PandaGuarantee's Security Deposit Replacement can be added to the rent guaranty bond to cut the move-in number down.
Here's the owner's own feedback, read aloud on the call: "The results have been very impactful by substantially reducing the amount of money conditionally approved applicants must produce at sign and pay."
And: "Panda SDR has meaningfully improved our conversion rate and helped applicants who otherwise may not have been able to afford their upfront move-in costs."
Worth sitting with that for a second. A guarantor's value doesn't start at default. It starts at whether the applicant you conditionally approved ever signs.
Someone picks up the phone
Automation handles the routine transactions. It does not handle the weird ones.
A leasing manager has a question about an applicant's file. A bond needs an unusual adjustment. A tenant gets stuck halfway through the application at 7pm on a Thursday with a lease signing in the morning.
DeRose named support as a reason large owners choose us: "When there is a problem, the ability to confidently know that there's going to be someone who will pick up the phone, for both the tenants and our owners, and answer their questions and solve their problem is a big thing."
Response time isn't a customer service statistic here. It's how fast a conditionally approved applicant becomes a lease. The same standard applies once a tenant stops paying, which is how the claims process works.
What "bespoke" actually means
For a large multifamily owner, a bespoke guarantor partnership means the guarantor's technology and account structure bend around your leasing operation rather than the reverse.
In this partnership, that has meant:
- Landlord-initiated invitations with lease details pre-filled
- Portfolio administration with building-level permissions
- Self-service bond adjustments after the lease changes
- Personal guarantor income considered in pricing
- Renewal workflows for bonds originally issued by competitors
- Guided in-product workflows that keep training near zero
- Security Deposit Replacement to reduce move-in cash
- A phone number that gets answered
None of that existed on day one. The owner found the friction and we built.
This isn't an enterprise-only product
A 10,000-unit owner needs things a 50-unit owner never will. That doesn't require two separate companies.
Smaller owners run PandaGuarantee as a largely self-service product. Larger portfolios layer on account hierarchies, configurable products, portfolio-specific workflows, and development work against their existing systems.
The underlying platform stays flexible enough to handle both, and pricing works the same way at either end.
What to ask any rent guarantor before you sign
Financial strength and coverage terms are table stakes, and we've covered how the main providers compare elsewhere. None of it tells you how the relationship will run operationally. Ask these instead.
How does a conditionally approved applicant get from your screening into their application, and how many manual steps does that create for your leasing agent?
Can corporate see the whole portfolio while individual employees only see their own buildings?
If the rent or the unit changes after the tenant pays, can your team fix it, or does the application start over?
Will the underwriting look at a parent or relative who's clearly funding the lease?
Can you bring residents holding another company's bond into their renewal workflow?
What does the tenant pay, and how many of your applicants drop out at that number?
When something breaks at 6pm, who answers?
Then ask the one that actually reveals the relationship: what happens when our portfolio needs something your platform doesn't do today?
If the answer is "change your process," you have your answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do large landlords integrate a rent guarantor into tenant screening?
Through conditional approval. Applicants who meet the landlord's income and credit standards get a standard approval. Applicants who fall short may still qualify by adding an acceptable personal guarantor or buying coverage from an approved institutional guarantor. The landlord keeps its screening standards intact and opens a second path for applicants with nonstandard finances. For the mechanics of the bond itself, see how lease guarantor insurance works for landlords.
Can a landlord offer tenants more than one guarantor company?
Yes. The New York owner-operator in this case study accepts several guarantor companies and lets conditionally approved applicants choose. According to PandaGuarantee CEO Tom DeRose, PandaGuarantee receives more than half their guarantor volume when offered alongside the other providers they accept. This is because PandaGuarantee is less expensive, faster and easier for tenants to use.
How does a rent guarantor reduce work for a leasing team?
An authorized leasing manager can invite a tenant with the property and lease information already entered, which removes the manual verification step later. Leasing staff can also adjust issued bonds through the landlord dashboard when lease details change.
Can a rent guaranty bond be changed if the apartment or rent changes?
Yes. PandaGuarantee has a bond adjustment workflow for cases where the apartment number or monthly rent changes after the tenant has paid and signed. Authorized landlord users handle it in the platform instead of restarting the application.
Can different properties have different PandaGuarantee users?
Yes. Administrative accounts carry portfolio-wide visibility, and sub-user accounts can be restricted to specific buildings. Centralized operators keep corporate oversight while property staff work only in their own buildings.
Can a personal guarantor lower the cost of an institutional rent guaranty?
In some applications, yes. PandaGuarantee can consider an applicant's personal guarantor as part of the financial profile used to price risk. The feature came from this portfolio owner, who kept seeing students with financially strong parents who lived out of state and therefore weren't acceptable as personal guarantors.
How does a landlord manage renewals when residents have guaranties from different companies?
Landlords can upload eligible existing bonds from other guarantor companies and bring those residents into PandaGuarantee's renewal workflow, which lets a portfolio consolidate renewals even when the original guaranties came from several providers.
Can Security Deposit Replacement improve lease conversion?
This owner reports that it did. After adding PandaGuarantee's Security Deposit Replacement to the rent guaranty bond, they said it substantially reduced the cash conditionally approved applicants needed at signing and "meaningfully improved our conversion rate."
Is PandaGuarantee only for large institutional landlords?
No. Smaller owners use a self-service process. Larger portfolios get account controls, custom workflows, product flexibility, and development support.
What should a large landlord look for in a rent guarantor?
Evaluate the operating relationship alongside the financial product. Applicant conversion, tenant pricing, fit with your conditional approval process, portfolio permissions, policy administration, renewal management, underwriting flexibility, support response, and whether the guarantor will build for a legitimate portfolio requirement. The best partnership protects the lease and gets more of your qualified applicants across the finish line.