(June 5, 2002) — RealPage, Inc., a leading provider of property management products and services to the multifamily industry, today announced that its web-based applicant screening product, OneSite© Screening, allows property owners and managers to run terrorist searches for all screening inquiries at no additional cost.
OneSite Screening provides a database of thousands of terrorist and most wanted fugitive names, aliases and dates of birth, which are searched from several federal agency databases, including the FBI, the Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Customs Service, the Secret Service and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In most cases, if there is a match against one of these databases, a picture of the terrorist or fugitive is provided on the screen or in the report to help provide positive identification. A positive identification obviously elicits a major red flag in the automated scoring process, just as an applicant with a history of violent felony convictions does.
“Apartment security has always been taken very seriously by property managers, and this recent terrorist advisory only adds to the tasks faced by property managers to keep potentially violent residents out of their apartment communities,” said David Carner, vice president of market development and applicant screening for RealPage. “Twenty years ago, RealPage was the first resident screening company to provide online criminal records to apartment managers. Today, we maintain the industry’s largest online criminal database, which covers more than 60 percent of the U.S. population and is available instantaneously. This information is integrated into OneSite’s flexible and comprehensive automated scoring process.”
RealPage’s efforts to assist the multifamily industry in more thorough screening of prospective renters comes in response to the recent FBI Threat Advisory that warned of terrorists renting apartments for the purpose of storing explosives.
Additionally, the efforts of the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC), the National Apartment Association (NAA) and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) have alerted property owners to the new potential risks.
In a recent white paper to its members, the NMHC recommended increased screening for residents, employees and contractors. Among other recommendations, it advised that properties review existing employee verification procedures, including background checks;
that contractors screen employees for prior criminal history; and that resident applications should require original documents to prove identity—all within the guidelines of the fair housing laws.
While the FBI stressed that the threat advisory was issued out of caution and not due to specific threats against the multifamily industry, it did suggest that property managers build and foster direct relationships with their local Joint Terrorism Task Force agents so they can report any suspicious behavior of residents, prospects or contractors.
“Protecting against terrorism is a highly charged and emotional issue right now. The NMHC, NAA and NAHB have done tremendous jobs in building the awareness of these threats and offering practices and policies to be followed,” said Carner. “We felt it was important to offer this terrorist search as a standard service to our customers.Our goal is to provide property managers with real-time, accurate data from the federal agencies to help in their screening processes.”
OneSite Screening was the first product to be released from RealPage’s OneSite product line. It is a powerful web-based decision tool that provides property management companies with a centralized, standardized way to analyze and approve leasing applications at all sites. It simplifies and automates the screening process, returning data quickly, reducing extra work and helping to improve the bottom line. RealPage received
the TruSecure certification for OneSite Screening; TruSecure is the worldwide leader in security assurance services for web-connected companies.
More than 20,000 apartment communities across the United States use RealPage’s products and services, which handle the entire management process for both affordable and conventional properties, including leasing, applicant screening, market intelligence,
accounting, budgeting, property management, facilities management, marketing and compliance reporting.
RealPage is headquartered in Carrollton, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, with offices in Williston, Vermont. It is the combination of four industry leaders: Rent Roll, Inc., the largest developer of multifamily property management software; RealPage Communications, Inc., the premier designer of custom web sites for the real estate industry; M/PF Research, Inc., the leader in apartment market research; and ChannelTECH,Inc., a leading provider of facility management applications for handheld wireless computing devices.