Vendor security reviews · SaaS & technology
Vendor Security Review & Questionnaire Support for Proptech & Real Estate Software
This service helps a proptech company clear the vendor security review an institutional landlord, franchisor or bank-owned brokerage runs before signing, and helps you in turn document and vouch for the credit-bureau, e-signature and hosting vendors your own product depends on. The trigger is usually a SIG or CAIQ spreadsheet landing mid-deal, or a due-diligence call your sales team cannot answer alone. We prepare the evidence and the answers together.
Reviewed by the Privacy Horizon team · Last reviewed
What you're protecting
What an institutional buyer's review actually probes
REIT, franchisor and bank-owned brokerage procurement teams ask specific questions shaped by what your product touches, not a generic vendor checklist.
Screening and applicant data handling
How consent for credit checks is captured, how long application files and ID images are retained, and whether the flow matches published rental-application guidance.
PAD and banking data protection
Encryption, access controls and processor relationships around pre-authorized debit information, since this is often the single line item that gets the closest scrutiny.
Sub-processor transparency
A complete, current list of who your credit bureau, e-signature provider, cloud host and any analytics vendor are, since buyers increasingly ask for this by name.
Access-control and smart-building integration security
How fob, smart-lock or video-intercom integrations are secured, relevant whenever the buyer manages physical buildings alongside the software relationship.
Certification and assurance evidence
Whether a SOC 2 report, penetration-test summary or completed SIG or CAIQ response already exists, or needs to be produced for this specific deal.
Regulatory map
Why institutional buyers in this industry review vendors so closely
The pressure comes from the buyer's own regulatory exposure and from a screening-industry track record that has made them cautious.
PIPEDA accountability follows the data to you
A landlord or brokerage remains accountable for personal information even after handing it to your platform, so their review exists to confirm comparable protection is actually in place on your side.
SIG and CAIQ as the review's structure
Institutional procurement teams frequently default to Shared Assessments' SIG or the Cloud Security Alliance's CAIQ rather than writing a custom form, which means a company that has answered one well can reuse much of that work.
TRESA-driven scrutiny of Ontario brokerage integrations
Brokerages adjusting to TRESA's designated-representation and offer rules since December 2023 are re-examining the transaction and CRM vendors touching those workflows.
A screening firm's investigation raising the bar industry-wide
With a tenant-screening company under joint federal-provincial investigation over consent and accuracy since 2024, institutional buyers now probe screening vendors with more specific questions than before.
What goes wrong
What happens when a proptech vendor is unprepared
A review that stalls does not just delay a deal; it can eliminate the vendor from consideration entirely.
Inconsistent answers across the sales cycle
When product, sales and support each answer a buyer's follow-up questions differently, the mismatch itself becomes a red flag independent of the underlying facts.
No documented sub-processor list
A buyer asking who touches their tenants' credit and banking data expects a specific, current answer, and scrambling to assemble one mid-review signals the company has never tracked it.
Missing evidence for a claimed control
Stating that data is encrypted or access is logged means little without an artifact to show, and buyers increasingly ask for evidence rather than assertions.
A stalled deal becoming a lost renewal
Institutional buyers that struggle through onboarding due to a slow review often revisit the relationship at renewal, turning a one-time diligence gap into a retention risk.
Our vendor security reviews for proptech & real estate software
What this engagement produces for a proptech vendor
Preparation and documentation that speeds up every future review, not just the one currently on the table.
Questionnaire response library
A maintained set of accurate answers to common SIG and CAIQ questions, adaptable to a custom form when a specific REIT or franchisor requires one.
Sub-processor documentation
A current inventory naming every consumer-reporting agency, e-signature tool, cloud host and payment processor in your stack, with the detail institutional buyers typically request about each.
Evidence package assembly
Organized artifacts, encryption documentation, access-control records, incident-response plans and any existing test reports, ready to hand over rather than assembled under deadline pressure.
Gap remediation guidance
A clear list of what a review is likely to flag before it happens, so fixable gaps get closed ahead of the buyer's questions rather than during them.
Sales and product team briefing
A short session aligning whoever fields buyer questions on consistent, accurate answers about data handling, retention and vendor relationships.
How the engagement runs
How we prepare a proptech company for a vendor review
The work is scoped to move fast, since institutional deals often carry a hard deadline once the questionnaire arrives.
Step 1
Inventory your own vendor stack
We document every credit-bureau, e-signature, hosting and payment sub-processor your product relies on, the detail a buyer will eventually ask for.
Step 2
Draft and align answers
Responses to the questionnaire are drafted against your actual practices, then reviewed with product, engineering and sales so everyone can repeat the same answer.
Step 3
Assemble supporting evidence
We gather or help produce the artifacts a reviewer expects, from encryption documentation to a current incident-response plan.
Step 4
Submit and handle follow-up
We support the response through the buyer's follow-up questions, keeping answers consistent as the review progresses toward a decision.
What it costs
What determines pricing for vendor-review support
Cost depends on whether this is a first-time SIG or CAIQ response built from scratch versus an update to an existing library, how many sub-processors need documenting, and how tight the buyer's deadline is. A company answering its first institutional questionnaire needs more foundational work than one refreshing materials for a repeat REIT relationship.
We scope a fixed fee once we see the questionnaire and your current documentation, and companies facing repeated institutional deals often prefer to fold this support into a standing Virtual Privacy Office arrangement instead.
Proptech & Real Estate Software: Vendor security reviews questions, answered
Expect questions on encryption at rest and in transit, access-control and authentication practices, incident-response readiness, retention periods for applicant and screening data, and a full list of sub-processors touching tenant information. Many institutional buyers also ask directly whether a SOC 2 report exists or when your last penetration test ran.
It depends on the buyer and the deal size. Some institutional landlords accept a well-documented SIG or CAIQ response alongside evidence like a recent penetration test, while larger REITs and franchisor networks increasingly expect a SOC 2 report as a baseline. We can help assess which path fits your specific pipeline rather than pursuing both by default.
The same rigor a REIT applies to you applies to them: documented security practices, clarity on where data is stored and processed, and confirmation of how they would notify you of an incident affecting your applicants. Since these vendors sit upstream of your own PIPEDA accountability, their answers become part of what you represent to your own institutional buyers.
Building a first SIG or CAIQ response and assembling supporting evidence typically takes several weeks when starting from limited existing documentation, though this compresses significantly once a reusable library exists. Companies facing a hard deal deadline should start as soon as the questionnaire arrives rather than waiting for a complete internal audit first.
Answer for your side of the relationship: which board data feeds your product consumes under licence, how that access is authenticated, and what your product does with the data once received. You are not expected to vouch for a board's own infrastructure, only for how your integration handles what it receives.
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Answers & guides
- How does a startup pass an enterprise vendor security review?
- How do we prepare for a customer security questionnaire?
- How do you assess the privacy and security risk of an AI vendor?
- How a Startup Passes Its First Enterprise Vendor Security Review
- Building a Third-Party Vendor Risk Assessment Program That Scales
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