Screening enhancement works to systematically drive occupancy
(August 24, 2010)—LeasingDesk(www.leasingdesk.com), a leading provider of risk mitigation systems for the multifamily industry and a wholly-owned subsidiary of RealPage, Inc. (www.realpage.com), today launched Credit Optimizer, a new enhancement designed to improve leasing operations by systematically adjusting resident screening thresholds to maximize a community’s occupancy and profitability. Credit Optimizer’s screening flexibility helps property owners and managers improve occupancy levels by automatically adjusting a community’s lower credit thresholds, allowing applicants to qualify for a lease while minimizing a community’s overall financial exposure from higher credit risks, fair housing violations, or asset devaluation.
“In an effort to overcome low occupancy levels and improve the property’s bottom line, owners often arbitrarily lower their screening thresholds,” said David Carner, president of LeasingDesk. “The resulting problem is increased exposure from bad debt, and over the long term, asset devaluation. Credit Optimizer combats these problems by scientifically adjusting screening thresholds to allow more applicants to qualify, and transfers additional credit risk to the applicant through increased deposit and/or rent.”
The Associated Press recently reported that American consumers’ credit scores have fallen dramatically, making them poor credit risks for lenders. Therefore, sustained occupancy will have to rely on an ability to accept some applicants who have moderate credit issues, while mitigating cost of risk for owners.
Credit Optimizer helps to ensure that a community maintains a healthy balance of residents with acceptable credit versus unfavorable credit by controlling the percentage of approved applicants who fall within groups of good, moderate, poor, and very poor credit. The system statistically determines the dollar value of risk associated with each credit level and then adjusts the rent price and/or required deposit to offset the increased risk.
Credit Optimizer delivers value because it not only combats occupancy challenges resulting from ever changing local economies, but it does so in a scientific and measured way to minimize the financial risks associated with bad debt. It also lessens exposure to fair housing violations by removing the ability for leasing agents to arbitrarily change the acceptance thresholds.
By controlling the percentage of residents within each credit threshold to maintain the overall credit worthiness of a community’s total occupancy, Credit Optimizer further protects owners from the potential downfalls of randomly lowering screening thresholds. Once resident levels begin to stabilize, the system automatically re-adjusts the lower thresholds to ensure the credit standing of all future applicants is again in the acceptable range.
Credit Optimizer is available as part of the newest release of LeasingDesk Screening. The updated platform also includes a new look to its user interface and an enhanced scoring model.
LeasingDesk resident screening and renter’s insurance programs are specifically designed for the multifamily industry. For more information on LeasingDesk, visit www.leasingdesk.com, call (888)484-7132 or send an e-mail to sales@leasingdesk.com. To schedule an interview with a LeasingDesk executive, please contact Karen Dodge at karen.dodge@realpage.com or call 972.820.3718.
About RealPage
Located in Carrollton, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, RealPage provides on-demand (also referred to as “Software-as-a-Service” or “SaaS”) products and services to apartment communities and single family rentals across the United States. Its six on-demand product lines include OneSite® property management systems that automate the leasing, renting, management, and accounting of conventional, affordable, tax credit, student living, and military housing properties; CrossFire® sales and marketing systems that boost occupancy and build retention; YieldStar® asset optimization systems that increase asset valuation and investment return; Velocity™ billing & utility management services that increase collections and reduce delinquencies; LeasingDesk® risk mitigation systems that reduce a community’s exposure to risk and liability; and OpsTechnology™ spend management systems that help owners manage and reduce operating expenses. Supporting this family of SaaS products is a suite of shared cloud services including electronic payments, document management, decision support and learning. Through its Propertyware subsidiary, RealPage also provides software and services to single-family rentals and low density, centrally-managed multifamily housing. RealPage offers Platform-as-a-Service through its RealExchange platform which provides a comprehensive toolkit of integration services for third-party application providers. Finally, RealPage now offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service to multifamily owners and operators to reduce IT costs and improve integration performance and reliability. For more information, call 1-87-REALPAGE or visit www.realpage.com.