Patent Publication Number: US-2010121747-A1

Title: Method of processing apartment tenant status information

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S) 
     This application is a divisional of, and claims the benefit of, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/680,955, filed Mar. 1, 2007, the entirety of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to financial systems and, more specifically, to a system of correlating data from a plurality of rental management organizations. 
     2. Description of the Prior Art 
     Apartment owners lose billions of dollars each year from skips, NSFs, bad debt and evictions. Also, because they are renting rather that buying real estate, many tenants are not building a credit history even though they may have a strong rent payment history. 
     Management organizations collect, organize and report data relating to individuals engaging in credit-based transactions. For example, credit bureaus receive information for various lenders and the like regarding the credit histories of individuals and certain business entities. 
     A credit history or credit report is a record of an individual&#39;s or company&#39;s history of borrowing and repaying. It typically includes information about late payments and bankruptcy. When a customer fills out an application for credit from a bank, store or credit card company, the information is forwarded to a credit bureau, along with constant updates on the status of the customer&#39;s credit accounts, address changes or any relevant information. 
     Credit history information is used by lenders, such as banks and credit card companies, to determine an individual&#39;s credit worthiness and, thus, to make lending decisions. Such decisions could include whether to extend credit to an individual and on what terms. 
     In the apartment rental industry, landlords are typically concerned about the likelihood of prospective tenants making rental payments in a timely fashion. Late payments by a tenant can impose a substantial financial burden on a landlord and the cost of instituting an eviction and renting a recently-vacated apartment can be quite expensive. 
     Currently, there are several apartment rental credit reporting organizations. However, they are either internal to specific apartment rental companies or are subscriber-based systems. The internal systems cannot take advantage of the data accumulated by competing companies and the subscriber-based systems require apartment company subscribers to format their reporting data into a specific data format. It is difficult for companies with internal systems to convert to the subscriber-bases systems since they would have to convert all of their data from their internal data formats to the format used by the subscriber-based system. 
     Therefore, there is a need for an apartment rental reporting system that allows apartment rental organizations to maintain data in their internal format, while sharing information with other organizations. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The disadvantages of the prior art are overcome by the present invention which, in one aspect, is a method of processing tenant information, in which a first set of tenant history data, in a first format, is pushed from a first apartment rental management organization database to a central server. A second set of tenant history data, in a second format different from the first format, is pushed from a second apartment rental management organization database to the central server. Selected elements from the first set of tenant history data and the second set of tenant history data are assembled into a central database in a standard format. The central database is stored on the central server. Tenant history data is provided from the central database to a selected apartment rental management (or resident screening) organization. 
     In another aspect, the invention is a method of assembling tenant history data from a plurality of rental management organizations, in which a set of tenant history data for each of the rental management organizations is received periodically. At least one first set of tenant history data is in a first format and at least one second set of tenant history data is in a second format, different from the first format. The first set is extracted with a first extraction program that selects relevant data from the first set. The second set is extracted with a second extraction program that selects relevant data from the second set. The selected data from the first set is bundled with information regarding the first format, thereby creating bundled first set data. The selected data from the second set is bundled with information regarding the second format, thereby creating bundled second set data. The bundled first set data and the bundled second set data are sent to a secure server. The selected data from the bundled first set data and the bundled second set data are mapped into a central database. A request from a requesting rental management organization for a selected subset of data regarding a selected tenant is responded to by extracting tenant-specific data regarding the tenant from the central database and bundling the tenant-specific data along with format data corresponding to a format desired by the requesting rental-organization into a bundled data package. The bundled data package is transmitted to the rental management organization. 
     These and other aspects of the invention will become apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiments taken in conjunction with the following drawings. As would be obvious to one skilled in the art, many variations and modifications of the invention may be effected without departing from the spirit and scope of the novel concepts of the disclosure. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of the relationship between computers used in one embodiment. 
         FIG. 2  is a schematic diagram showing manipulation of data from various organizations. 
         FIG. 3  is a block diagram showing a data import scheme. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     A preferred embodiment of the invention is now described in detail. Referring to the drawings, like numbers indicate like parts throughout the views. As used in the description herein and throughout the claims, the following terms take the meanings explicitly associated herein, unless the context clearly dictates otherwise: the meaning of “a,” “an,” and “the” includes plural reference, the meaning of “in” includes “in” and “on.” Also, as used herein, “global computer network” includes the Internet. 
     Also, as used herein, “rental management organization” includes rental organization, screening organization or scoring organization. 
     As shown in  FIG. 1 , one embodiment is a system  100  in which a plurality of different apartment rental management organizations communicate with a central server  120  via a global computer network  102  (such as the Internet) to facilitate exchange of apartment rental credit information. On a periodic (such as nightly) basis, each of the apartment rental management organizations push tenant payment data to the central server  120 , which sends the data to a secure server  124  that is not connected to the global computer network. The rental management organizations typically do not use a single standard data format. Therefore, the information is converted from the data format used by each of the rental management organizations to a standard format prior to being stored in the central server  120 . 
     The apartment rental management organizations could communicate with the central server in one of several ways. For example, in one embodiment, one apartment rental organization  110  includes a self-hosted application, in which a plurality of apartment complexes each have a computer  112  (or other network browsing device) that communicates apartment rental credit information to a rental organization-maintained server  114 , which is in communication with the global computer network  102 . (The individual computers  112  could be hard-wired to communicate directly with the server  114  or, as in the case of computer  112   a , they could communicate with the server via the global computer network  102 .) In another embodiment, with another apartment rental organization  116  each apartment complex has a computer  112  that communicates directly with the central server  120  via the global computer network  102 . In another embodiment, yet another apartment rental organization  118  provides information from its computers  112  to a server  119  managed by an application service provider (ASP). The ASP provides credit reporting software services to one or more apartment rental organizations and maintains the data of each on a separate part of the server  119 . The ASP server communicates the apartment rental credit information for the apartment rental organization  118  to the central server  120  via the global computer network  102 . 
     One method of standardizing data is shown in  FIG. 2 , in which a first rental organization  210  and a second rental organization  212  each maintain data on the rental payment history of their respective tenants. The rental organization  210  and  212  also maintains their data in different formats and in databases with a different structure. On a periodic basis on the client side  222  an extraction program selects all relevant data from the rental organization&#39;s source database and prepares the data for a destination database. The extraction program also extracts the format of the selected source data from the source database. The result of the data extract extraction is metadata  224 , which is bundled together with the format information compressed, encrypted and sent, using a secure hypertext transfer protocol to a secure server (item  120  in  FIG. 1 ). 
     An extraction program is written only once for a given source database type (examples of currently-used database types used in the rental industry include: Yardi®, MRI®, AMSI®, Rent Roll®). This extraction program selects the relevant data from the source database to generate the metadata. 
     On the bureau side  226 , which is physically separated from the client side  222 , all data is immediately removed from the secured server (item  120  in  FIG. 1 ) to a server (item  124  in  FIG. 1 ) not connected to the global computer network (item  102  in  FIG. 1 ). The extracted data received by the bureau is unencrypted and uncompressed into data and format files of a bureau standard, using a standard language (such as YAML). 
     A database type driven map, prepared once for each database type, is used by the import process to parse the extracted data and translate the source database field names and related data into the destination database table and field structure. The map also contains exception handling logic to allow for variability in data use for databases of the same type. Errors are handled for data that is outside predefined limits at this import stage with an exception handling mechanism. 
     Once the import is complete, the extracted data is part of the target database  230  and is available for production use. Thus, the data is extracted from variously structured databases that contain similar and related information. Relevant information is identified and the data elements are entered into one unified data repository  230 . 
     One method of extracting data is shown in  FIG. 3 , in which the rental organization databases  310  are maintained on the client side. A data push program  320  at each participating rental organization periodically pushes the metadata  330  from the rental organization databases  310 . The metadata  330 , along with the relevant formatting information, is transmitted to the bureau side to a data import engine  340  that combines the metadata into a comprehensive and unified rental information database  350 . 
     The information may then be transmitted back to the apartment rental organizations on an as-needed basis. For example, when a prospective tenant applies for a lease with an apartment rental organization, that organization sends identifying information to the bureau, or bureaus, and retrieves a rental payment history report from the bureau. An inquiry from an apartment company starts with an operator keying applicant data into a screening service application. The screening service passes the inquiry to the bureau. The bureau answers the query back to the screening service. A leasing consultant uses that result to accept or decline the applicant. The rental payment report is delivered in the format and structure that the rental organization uses. This system has the advantage of providing different rental organizations with payment history data that is acquired from several other apartment rental organizations and to participate in reporting payment histories of tenants. 
     In one embodiment, the system provides apartment owners and managers with real time, accurate and free rental payment histories of tenant applicants to be used as an additional predictive source for screening. Periodically (such as every 24 hours), the system collects rental payment information from owners and managers in its member network without any impact to operations centrally or at the property. This data is immediately integrated and made available to members through the system&#39;s secure, proprietary database  350 . Also, this data is accessible directly or integrated through current tenant screening solutions. The system collects updated information from the many apartments in a member network. The system allows member rental organizations to provide and access rental information without imposing any formatting requirements. The data is automatically updated and kept current. Thus, accurate information about potential renters is immediately available to members through their existing potential tenant screening systems. 
     The system collects and reports rental histories by automatically extracting rental information from a multi-family development&#39;s existing software—without interfering with the current system and invisible to the owner or manager. The process works invisibly within an apartment complex or management company&#39;s software operations and is fully compatible with common industry applications. Non-members, once verified, can access the secure database  350  for a fee. The database of rental information is always available on the global computer network. Searching the data is quick and uncomplicated. Results are reported in an easy-to-understand format so that the information can be immediately used in making tenant decisions. 
     The above described embodiments, while including the preferred embodiment and the best mode of the invention known to the inventor at the time of filing, are given as illustrative examples only. It will be readily appreciated that many deviations may be made from the specific embodiments disclosed in this specification without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the scope of the invention is to be determined by the claims below rather than being limited to the specifically described embodiments above.