Entrata Student: What’s New, What’s Next

Student housing never slows down—and this year’s Summit session “Entrata Student: What’s New, What’s Next” matched that pace. Industry Principal Product Manager Sara Lencheck opened the student track with a clear theme: less “someday,” more “it’s live.” What followed was a tour of tools that reduce busywork, speed pre-leasing, and give onsite teams cleaner signals while students get a smoother, more modern experience.

The presentation started where prospect conversations actually happen. ELI+ Leasing AI for Student now draws answers from student operators’ real settings and live availability, not canned scripts, so it can speak to immediate move-ins, pre-leasing, floor plans, roommate options, and the academic cycle with confidence. It’s a practical way to keep students engaged without piling on your inbox, and it’s built for how student operators really work.

Entrata Student also delivered a long-requested upgrade: a true Student Waitlist. Instead of spreadsheets and forms, operators can accept waitlist leads by lease term, floor plan, and even space option, working from a clean management view that shows demand versus available beds so you know exactly when to advance an applicant. Preferences, notes, and tags stay in the system—so your team does less chasing and more placing.

Renewals also got a rethink, too. A new Renewal Signal captures resident intent (yes, maybe, or no) so leasing teams can prioritize outreach based on real interest, and a rebuilt renewals dashboard pulls the data you used to click five layers deep to find right to the surface. The goal is simple: more signal, fewer guess-and-check campaigns.

Because momentum matters, custom incentives inside Homebody Rewards let you spin up look-and-lease nudges or resident-only perks with QR or promo codes, then keep redemption inside the Homebody app. It’s a straightforward way to move velocity without bolting on another tool.

Leasing logistics also got lighter. Homebody Guaranty is embedded directly into the Entrata application, turning a historically manual, paper-chasing process into a one-click option that’s tracked and reported in Entrata. For students who can’t self-qualify or secure a traditional guarantor, it shortens the path from “interested” to “approved” without extra back-and-forth.

Power users of the Bulk Unit Assignment (BUA) board will notice the quality-of-life upgrades: granular permissions, relet placements, smarter filtering (including “available-on” searches), and even a direct link from the resident record that preloads the right property, term, and floor plan. Small changes, big time savings, especially during peak placement.

Pricing saw a quiet but consequential improvement. With automatic pricing rebuilds in the application, when a property-level rate changes, Entrata can rebuild scheduled charges (before posting), cancel any outdated unsigned lease, and rewind the status so a resident doesn’t accidentally sign old numbers. Applicants see a clear notice; your activity log retains the trail. It’s the control teams have been asking for, setting the stage for auto-regenerated leases next.

Turn season, often managed in spreadsheets, now lives where it belongs: in Entrata. Facilities Pro introduces a Turn Dashboard to track progress by vendor, category, space option, and unit type, plus a new Make Ready Board you can work as cards or lists with inline edits. The net effect is fewer side systems, better visibility, and cleaner execution when every hour counts.

Looking down the road, the near-term release of Student Leasing BI Dashboard V2 brings better pre-leasing views, year-over-year comparisons, and a more intuitive take on velocity so you can plan forward, not just report backward. And the 2026 slate is built to compound the gains: deeper Facilities Pro capabilities, campaign tooling for tiered prospect and renewal strategies, Smart Assign in the BUA for truly automated placements, ELI+ Renewals AI: Student to handle renewal conversations with real context, a redesigned BUA with customizable views (including grid layouts for the Excel-minded), and a Student Roommate Matching experience inside Homebody that lets students form groups, chat, and create roommate agreements without losing operational oversight.

Bottom line: a lot of “nice-to-haves” just became standard practice. Many features are live today, with more moving to standard this year, and the roadmap aims squarely at replacing manual patches with connected workflows that scale. As Lencheck reminded the room, “The product moves faster when operators lean in, so audit your settings, train your teams, and keep the feedback coming.”  That loop is how good tools become Entrata Student game-changers.