LeasingDesk Expands Criminal Screening Database

LeasingDesk Expands Criminal Screening Database
Published: December 18, 2007

By Teresa O'Dea Hein, Managing Editor

Carrollton, Texas — RealPage Inc., a Carrollton, Texas-based provider of point of lease systems to the multifamily industry, has significantly expanded the criminal database in its LeasingDesk Screening product to now include Pennsylvania statewide criminal court access as well as criminal court data from 224 counties across the country.

The expansion enables multifamily property managers to instantly screen prospective residents for criminal data in 47 states, and retrieve criminal information from 388 criminal court jurisdictions. In addition, LeasingDesk Screening customers also have access to comprehensive sex offender and terrorist databases.

“Our goal has always been to offer the industry and our customers the most comprehensive criminal database,” says David Carner, senior vice president of RealPage. “Now with instant access to accurate and reliable criminal information from 47 states, we provide extensive breadth and depth of criminal data searches with even greater speed and accuracy.”

Once a prospective resident’s information is entered into the system, LeasingDesk Screening automatically retrieves data gathered from multiple criminal databases based on addresses and name variations uncovered from multiple sources, usually in less than 30 seconds. This information is combined with credit, eviction, fraud, check writing history and the company’s proprietary rental payment database into a single scored report.

Four states are not available for instant screening searches -- Wyoming, Massachusetts, Hawaii and South Dakota (except for Sex Offender Registries). However, each of these states can be screened through RealPage's Out of Network (non-instant search) whereby the user can request a county search, which puts the screen in pending mode while a researcher
conducts a manual court search. The results are then posted back to LeasingDesk, which completes the screen. Results are usually posted in one to three days, with some counties taking longer.

These jurisdictions have restrictions from giving criminal data in bulk to anyone. Until they lift this restriction, no background screening company can offer instant searches for these states.

LeasingDesk Screening, formerly OneSite Screening, is part of the point of lease systems introduced by RealPage earlier this year.

RealPage provides products and services to more than 20,000 apartment communities across the United States with its five on-demand product lines.