RISMEDIA, February 6, 2009-LeasingDesk, a leading provider of risk mitigation systems for the multifamily industry, and a wholly owned subsidiary of RealPage, Inc., announces advanced criminal record search logic in its resident screening offering. This enhancement increases the accuracy of the returned data, reducing the possibility of false positive matches, and effectively improves an owner’s ability to identify quality residents.
Today’s weakened economic landscape reinforces the importance of comprehensive resident screening techniques and data to ensure multifamily owners can identify the most qualified prospective residents. False positive criminal matches, often caused by ambiguous identification data found in electronic records, can hinder an owner’s ability to effectively evaluate a prospective resident. These flawed results may lead to the rejection of a prospect who, in reality, is a quality resident with a strong rental payment history.
“The proliferation of electronic criminal information with incomplete identifier information has increasingly led to false positive screening results in the multifamily industry,” said David Carner, senior vice president of LeasingDesk. “Our newly integrated criminal enhancement uses more comprehensive search logic to effectively decrease false positives and increase profitability by identifying the best prospects based on the most accurate information available.”
According to the company, LeasingDesk improved its search functionality by including exhaustive analysis to combat the unregulated information in electronic criminal records. Geographic search areas are expanded with follow-me logic that examines criminal records in 47 states, including local and county records as well as sex offender registries. New techniques such as advanced phonetic and name variation recognition and gender matching were employed to present a more factual snapshot of a prospective resident.
The new screening model further mitigates risk by eliminating the need for “human review” services, typically offered by other screening organizations. During this process, a company employee reviews each criminal record uncovered during the screening process and tries to remove the obvious false positives matches. This type of service is slow, expensive and subjective; opening the property owner up to liability issues by accepting a resident with an unacceptable criminal history or refusing a resident based on incorrect information. By integrating enhanced methods into its screening model, LeasingDesk reduces an owner’s fair housing or premises liability risk.
LeasingDesk’s Resident Screening customers may also opt to include a Criminal Classification feature that automatically organizes criminal offenses into several different categories such as violent crimes, drug-related crimes or non-violent crimes. By simply selecting which criminal categories are unacceptable, offenses are automatically sorted and scored.
Along with criminal data analysis, LeasingDesk also reviews credit information from the three leading credit bureaus, a national eviction database and rental history via a proprietary database of millions of rental payment records. With access to the most comprehensive information available and with a customizable scientific scoring engine, LeasingDesk Resident Screening returns the most robust, single scored report in seconds.
LeasingDesk offerings are specifically designed for the multifamily industry. The suite of products and services automates everything from the lease application through execution of a signed lease. The product line includes online leasing, resident screening, electronic leasing forms and renter’s insurance.
For more information, call (888) 484.7132, or e-mail sales@leasingdesk.com.
