RealPage Steps Up Efforts to Help Multifamily Industry in the Screening
of Terrorists with OneSite® Screening
CARROLLTON, TEXAS, 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.