Property Management – Choosing Tenant Screening Software – Part Two
Posted on December 1, 2008 - Filed Under Business | Leave a Comment
In part one we looked at software to help the owner/ manager make objective choices when looking to find the right tenant for a vacant unit. The rules based software discussed in part one is controlled by the landlord. The main idea is for each owner to decide what financial and payment history parameters define the kind of tenant suitable and to use the software to aid in the tenant screening process by automatically highlighting and eliminating the kind of profiles that do not pass those criteria.
There is another more recent software model for owners to use in the tenant screening process. The goal is the same - find the right tenant quickly and fill the vacancy fast. Objective criteria is the fastest and least painful way to make a good business decision. The second basic software model is generally used for larger property owners. Large apartment buildings or complexes or property management companies can have many applicants applying at the same time. Either approach is good, but the second approach is an attempt to make the decision process even more hands off, more scientific using the latest data mining techniques.
What you say? Well, think about all the information that the credit reporting agencies like Experian have on us and you marry that to the public records that hold court records, bankruptcies, Megans Law data bases, often maintained by the Police Depts. and even Terrorist lists now the law. Now thats a lot of information to gather. Now if you devise a way to ask the data to determine what profiles, using all these data bases are most likely to produce the perfect tenant profile, you get the idea behind the second computerized method to tenant screening. Thats right...use the data to predict behavior!
It uses statistical scoring models based on the actual behavior of hundreds of thousands of tenant behavior. This is an attempt to quantify human behavior and to reliably predict the future behavior of a potential tenant in the future. Tenants that are late pays or dont pay rent seem to have patterns of behavior that are similar and wont make the best tenants. The data base is collected on hundreds of thousands of tenants form national resident screening data bases that are compiled and data mined to come up with your answer in minutes.
The Data Sources
* National Tenant Data Bases
* Public records
* Court Records
* Criminal records
* U.S. Customs
* U.S. Secret Service
* U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
* Sex Offenders data bases
* OFAC terrorist data bases
* Bankruptcy courts
Using statical based modeling, its possible to get a decision while the prospective tenant is still in front of you. The time saved, not having to set criteria or even think about it, allows staff to do other management duties.
Thanks for Reading
Howard Bell for yourpropertymanagement.com
www.yourpropertypath.com
We believe that knowledge should be free and freely shared.
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