The wrong security vendor is more expensive than no vendor at all. A generalist firm that bids low and staffs your property with the same officer they assigned to a strip mall last week will produce incidents your property absorbs — not the vendor. The wrong vendor leaves your property paying for security and also paying for the consequences of bad security. Vetting matters.
Houston security firm. Only multifamily. Nothing else. The frame is the entire point of this article. The twenty-three questions below are written to surface whether the vendor across the table actually understands multifamily, or is selling you the same proposal they sold last week to a warehouse. The questions are not gotchas. They are operationally specific. A vendor that fields most of them comfortably is a real candidate. A vendor that deflects two-thirds of them is a generalist whose multifamily experience is mostly accidental.
We will walk through the twenty-three in five sections: licensing and insurance, staffing and continuity, multifamily-specific expertise, technology integration, and pricing transparency. After each question we will say what the answer should sound like — not the exact words, but the substance of a serious response.
Section 1 — Licensing and insurance (Q1–Q5)
1What is your Texas DPS Private Security Bureau license number, and may we verify it directly?
A serious vendor provides the license number unprompted and welcomes verification through the Texas DPS PSB online portal. Hesitation, delay, or a number that does not verify is disqualifying.
2What level of license do your officers hold — Level 2 non-commissioned, Level 3 commissioned, or Level 4 personal protection?
For routine multifamily courtesy patrol, Level 2 is the standard; Level 3 applies to armed officers; Level 4 is for personal protection details (rare on multifamily). A vendor that cannot describe their officer mix by level is signaling weak internal records.
3What are your general-liability and umbrella coverage limits, and may we be added as an additional insured?
Typical professional multifamily security carries $1M / $2M general liability minimum with an umbrella above it. Add-as-additional-insured should be standard at no additional charge. Any pushback here is a structural warning sign.
4What is your workers’ compensation coverage, and what is your loss-history experience modifier?
A vendor whose experience mod runs at or below 1.0 has historically operated safely; numbers above 1.2 suggest claim history that drives premium up — and a claim history typically signals weak training and supervision.
5Have you been named in any premises-liability or wrongful-death lawsuit involving a multifamily client in the last five years?
A direct, factual answer is required. Honest disclosure of a settled or dismissed claim is acceptable; defensive non-answers are not. Run the firm name through PACER and the Texas county court records before signing.
Section 2 — Staffing and continuity (Q6–Q10)
6What percentage of your officers have been with the firm for more than 24 months?
A specialist multifamily firm typically reports 40–60% tenure over two years. Numbers below 20% indicate a vendor staffing by churn — the officer at your property next month will not be the one this month.
7Do officers assigned to my property rotate weekly, or do you keep continuity across shifts?
For multifamily, continuity beats rotation. The right answer describes a small dedicated team assigned to your property with backup coverage for known absences, not a pool of officers cycling through.
8How are officers trained specifically for multifamily, beyond the state-required curriculum?
Expect specific multifamily training topics: resident de-escalation, Texas Penal Code 30.05 trespass workflow, fair-housing awareness, eviction-day protocol, package-room procedures. A vendor whose training answer is generic “customer service” is not multifamily-specialized.
9What is your supervision ratio — how many officers per field supervisor?
A serious vendor maintains roughly one supervisor for every 8–12 officers in the field, with documented on-property check-ins. A vendor with one supervisor managing 30 or more officers is running by spreadsheet, not by supervision.
10How do you handle absences and shift coverage? What is the gap policy?
The right answer specifies backup officers pre-cleared on the property, documented call-off procedure, and a guarantee that no scheduled shift goes uncovered. Generic “we have backups” is not enough — ask for the written policy.
Section 3 — Multifamily-specific expertise (Q11–Q15)
11What percentage of your current portfolio is multifamily, and what percentage is retail, office, or event security?
A true specialist runs 80% or more multifamily. Anything below 50% multifamily means the vendor’s operational rhythm is built around something else and your property is a side gig in their workflow.
12Can you provide three references from Houston-area multifamily properties of similar size and class to ours?
Multifamily-specific references, not retail or industrial. Call them. Ask the property manager how the vendor handles after-hours escalation and how they document incidents. The phone call is more diagnostic than the proposal.
13Walk me through how you would handle an eviction day on this property.
Expect a multi-step answer: coordination with the constable, pre-eviction property walk-through, armed standby positioning, documentation protocol, resident-communication script for nearby units. A vendor who treats eviction as “just another shift” has not done many evictions on multifamily.
14What is your trespass-warning workflow, and how do you maintain the trespass-warned list?
The right answer references written warnings, identification including description and photo, duration of warning, sharing with the local police district, and a centralized list accessible to all on-duty officers. See our post on Texas Penal Code 30.05 for what the workflow should cover.
15How do you handle fair-housing considerations in trespass enforcement?
A specialist vendor has clear training on consistent enforcement, documented behavior-based triggers, and avoidance of selective patterns. A vendor that does not know what fair housing is in this context is a liability multiplier, not a security investment.
Specialist signal
Questions 11–15 are the section where generalists fall away. A vendor that fields these comfortably either is a multifamily specialist or has done enough apartment work to operate like one. A vendor that deflects half of these is selling a product, not solving for your property.
Section 4 — Technology and reporting (Q16–Q19)
16What incident-reporting system do officers use, and what reports will my property receive?
Expect a written specification of real-time digital incident reports, weekly summary reports, monthly trend reports, and ad-hoc reports on request. Bonus signal: officer reports timestamped at the scene, not retyped from memory at end of shift.
17Do officers carry body-worn cameras? What is the retention and access policy?
For routine multifamily patrol, body-worn cameras are not universal but are common with serious vendors. The right answer addresses retention window, access rights for the property when an incident occurs, and chain-of-custody for footage if it becomes evidence.
18How do you integrate with our existing camera system, access control, and property-management software?
A specialist firm has integration experience with the major property-management platforms (Yardi, RealPage, AppFolio, Entrata) and the common access-control and camera systems on multifamily. Generic “we work with whatever you have” is a yellow flag.
19What is your dispatch model? When my property calls in an emergency at 2 a.m., what happens?
The right answer is a live dispatcher answering on the first ring, with the property’s location and post orders open on screen before the call connects. A vendor that routes to a phone tree or to a personal cell phone is operating below the standard.
Section 5 — Pricing transparency (Q20–Q23)
20What is your hourly billing rate, and what is included? What is itemized separately?
A clean proposal shows the all-in hourly rate plus a transparent list of any pass-through costs (mileage, equipment surcharge, special-event premium). Vendors who quote a low headline rate and then layer surcharges should be normalized to total cost per shift before comparison.
21What is your overtime policy, and how is overtime billed?
Texas law and most contracts treat OT at 1.5x after 40 hours per officer per week. The vendor’s policy should be clear about whether OT is auto-approved or requires property approval before the hours accrue.
22What is the contract term, and what are the termination and notice provisions?
A reasonable contract runs 12 months with 30 to 60 days termination notice. Longer terms with steep early-termination penalties are vendor-favorable and should be negotiated. The best vendors are confident enough in their service to offer shorter commitment windows.
23If we are not satisfied, what is the escalation path inside your firm, and who has authority to make it right?
A serious vendor names a specific person — operations director, owner, or named account manager — with authority and a guaranteed response window. “Call your account rep” is not an escalation path; it is the start of one.
How to use the answers
Score each question on a simple three-point scale: 2 points for a comfortable, specific answer; 1 point for a partial answer that addressed the question but lacked detail; 0 points for deflection, generic platitudes, or “we’ll get back to you.” Total possible score is 46. Vendors below 30 are not credible candidates. Vendors above 38 are serious candidates. The middle band deserves a second meeting to clarify the partial answers.
One important caveat: scoring captures the answers, not the property fit. Two vendors can both score 42 and produce very different outcomes on your specific property because of geographic coverage, current portfolio mix, or simple chemistry with your property manager. The scoring narrows the field. The site walk and reference calls close it.
Red flags that override the score
- Cannot produce a current TX DPS license verification on the spot. Disqualifying.
- Refuses to name multifamily references at properties of similar class. Generalist signal.
- Hourly rate noticeably below market. Cost is being cut somewhere — usually training, supervision, or insurance.
- Long-term contracts with steep cancellation penalties. Vendor confidence is low.
- No body-worn cameras and no plan to add them. Industry direction has moved on this; absence is a signal of underinvestment.
- Dispatch routes to a single cell phone, especially after hours. Operational risk multiplier.
- Cannot describe officer-mix by license level. Internal records are weak.
- Vague answers on fair-housing trespass workflow. Liability exposure for your property, not the vendor.
Negotiation note
The right time to negotiate scope, billing, and contract terms is after the vendor wants the business and before the contract is signed. A vendor that responds well to operational questions and reasonably to commercial questions is the vendor you want. A vendor that resists either category is signaling how they will behave once the contract is in place.
What to expect on the site visit
Every serious candidate should conduct a property walk before submitting a final proposal. The site visit is where the vendor proves operational depth. Watch for what they notice on the walk:
- Do they comment on lighting variance in the parking lot, or just nod along?
- Do they ask about your trespass-warned list, or ignore the question?
- Do they identify the cameras that are pointed at the wrong angle, or treat the existing system as fine?
- Do they ask about your incident log, or focus only on the proposal scope?
- Do they recommend specific officer-deployment patterns based on the property layout, or quote a generic shift?
A site walk is the vendor’s best chance to show specialization. If the walk is a courtesy tour and not an operational diagnostic, you are looking at a generalist who happens to be quoting multifamily.
The signature gap
The last gap to watch for is the difference between the people on the proposal call and the people on the contract execution. The owner or operations director shows up to win the business; the relationship is then handed to an account coordinator whose name was not on the proposal. Ask, in writing, who specifically will own your account once the contract is signed, and confirm that person attends at least one of the pre-signature meetings. Continuity of the relationship is a real operational variable.
Key takeaways
- Vetting separates specialists from generalists. The twenty-three questions above are written to surface the difference operationally, not rhetorically.
- License verification, insurance limits, and named multifamily references are the floor. A vendor that does not clear them is not a candidate.
- Multifamily-specific expertise — eviction protocol, trespass workflow, fair-housing awareness — is where generalist vendors visibly fall away.
- Pricing transparency matters. Compare normalized total cost per shift, not headline hourly rate.
- Site walks reveal operational depth more reliably than proposals do. Watch what the vendor notices, not what they pitch.
