A Turning Point: How Apartment Operators Are Accelerating Leasing With Automation

As we enter the 2021 leasing season one year into the pandemic, multifamily is shifting into high gear with new strategies, new technologies, and a new understanding of the renter journey, especially as it relates to automation.

Historically, multifamily has been slow to embrace technological change, but the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of business-critical technologies such as virtual touring platforms, integrated building services, and remote leasing management to name a few. In a post-pandemic world, apartment operators need to be visionary — and automation is mission-critical for the new age of leasing. I suspect this “new” normal is here to stay...

Automation minimizes administrative processes in order to maximize efficient output in the leasing office and beyond. The hours spent handling paperwork and other manual tasks take onsite teams away from driving leads and increasing occupancy.

What Should Multifamily Automation Look Like Post-Pandemic? (Hint: Be Integrated, Not Just Automated)

Disruption gives momentum for change, and multifamily is on the cusp of a massive transformation. The apartment housing industry was already headed toward digital leasing before COVID-19 struck in March 2020, but the pandemic has rapidly propelled us toward full digitization and automation. There’s no going backwards. We have learned to adapt to this new world order on multiple fronts like (e.g., leasing, service requests, and payments, etc.).

Beyond this though, multifamily is learning to prioritize technology that is fully automated and vertically integrated into their respective technology stack. With integrated software solutions, property management companies gain greater stability, scalability, and efficiency in operations.

4 Ways Operators Are Moving to Automation

Consider the number of leasing tasks that are now primarily automated - including lead tracking and apartment tours, maintenance requests, and managing traditional security deposits. The outdated methods of performing these tasks, via “paper products,” have become obsolete in multifamily. 

Karen Hollinger, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at AvalonBay Communities, emphasizes the importance of automating leasing operations such as billing and self-guided tours to maximize efficiency and effectiveness during times of revolutionary change.

To better illustrate the impact of automation and the consequences of resisting it, below are four prominent examples of property management processes that have evolved into automated and integrated models. 

1. Lead Tracking, Apartment Tours & CRM

• Paper Product: Leasing offices used to rely on paper guest cards which were riddled with errors, constantly lost among the shuffle, and otherwise required manual work that took time away from customer facetime while leaving onsite teams to cobble together lead tracking. In addition, apartment tours that required both the prospective renter and leasing staff to be physically present produced many inefficiencies, thus slowing lead generation, lead nurturing and significantly hampering lead-to-lease conversion.
• Automated Product: Self-guided and virtual tour technology, digital leasing platforms, and integrated CRMs have removed the need for the paper guest card. Along with making apartment touring more convenient, self-guided and virtual tours on platforms like Bozzuto allow for safer and more secure leasing experiences while helping properties lease much faster. 

2. Maintenance Requests

• Paper Product: Massive white boards and sticky notes with resident requests were the name of the game which resulted in communication breakdowns and lost or incorrect work orders.
• Automated Product: Cutting-edge task management solutions are designed to automatically process maintenance requests, free up the onsite team’s time, and leverage predictive models to maximize productivity. The benefits of fully remote processing and automation of work orders makes maintenance requests less stressful for all parties.

3. Traditional Security Deposits

• Paper Product: Traditional deposits and alternatives like surety bonds often come with a costly infrastructure and a host of administrative hassles. Deposit alternatives are typically out-of-workflow, and as their name suggests, an "alternative" option for which a renter chooses to apply on a third party site, and for which that renter must often provide a FICO score. 
• Automated Product: Automated lease insurance software integrates in the lease checkout, billing, underwriting, and property management systems, without requiring any renter applications or approvals. “We never want our onsite teams to implement anything out-of-workflow — lease insurance offers a truly one-click leasing checkout,” says Marcie Williams, President at RKW Residential. By and large, it helps onsite teams manage their time more effectively — affordable move-ins and faster leasing checkouts, combined with more time spent on marketing efforts means more signed leases. 

4. Payment Processing

• Paper Product: Managing paper rent checks is a cumbersome process that comes with incidental and manpower costs, meaning accounting teams sacrifice time, convenience, security, and NOI.
• Automated Product: Rent payment technologies, like Zego, Flex, Till and Domuso, automate payment processing and integrate with property management systems, thus optimizing financial performance, reducing risk, and streamlining operations. Online payment solutions give renters payment options while allowing leasing staff to focus on increasing and closing leads.

Already a Big Impact: Automation Drives The Security Deposit Extinct

There’s been a tectonic shift away from security deposits — largely considered to be outdated and inefficient financial instruments — that has become more apparent during the pandemic. This has coincided with a rising tide of deposit legislation that requires apartment communities to offer alternatives to upfront deposits. This momentum away from traditional security deposits has also steered operators toward deposit solutions, such as surety bonds, that may come with their own set of operational and financial risks.

Fortunately, more operators are realizing that surety bonds and other deposit alternatives are not a sustainable and financially sound solution to replace security deposits. Rather, they understand that lease insurance is the only true deposit replacement solution that automates deposits out of leasing.

LeaseLock’s fully integrated and automated solution does just this, as it’s the only B2B insurtech platform in the enterprise online leasing checkout that automatically ejects security deposits from multifamily operating infrastructure. LeaseLock’s insurance technology is built directly into the online resident leasing to deliver a leasing experience that is seamless for residents, effortless for onsite teams, and automated for the back-office. 

LeaseLock just hit a major milestone, surpassing $1 billion in leases insured only a month after raising $52 million in Series B funding. Since the start of 2020, we’ve launched 4.6x more homes on platform, reaching 1.5 million apartment homes across 36 states. In our quest to engineer the leading insurtech platform for real estate, we are leading the rapid extinction of security deposits. 

Where Is Multifamily Headed? A Post-Pandemic Opportunity

The multifamily industry turned a corner in 2020, as the pandemic propelled change that was already in motion. Almost overnight, multifamily went from high-touch to virtually no touch, and has been challenged to entirely automate and deeply integrate software into their business operations. In 2021, automation and deep system integration are no longer just an option, but a necessity and a New World Mandate. 

Uncertainty continues to drive operators to future-proof their properties and set new standards for leasing operations. We’re on our way to wholesale change that, given the right tools, will yield powerful asset performance results for the entire industry.