Entrata Blog

How to technology helps multifamily businesses find the right balance between maximizing profits and delivering the best resident experience If someone were to ask you why do people invest in multifamily properties, you might get a lot of answers, but at the root of it is to make money because in the long run real estate will always be a good investment. However, beyond that, the multifamily industry is built on providing one of the most essential services to the residents we serve.

The resident doesn’t care how you decide to manage your operations as long as it works and doesn’t make their life any harder. The best way to tell if they’re working is if the resident doesn’t notice them at all and they’re able to go about their day without any additional impediments.

While the number of people renting by choice continues to grow, there are still some downsides. Primary among them is not being able to build economic value by paying rent. For those that want to move on to an owned property and have the opportunity to build economic value, the process can often be difficult especially if they have bad or thin credit history.

Every time an applicant submits an online application or a resident makes an online payment, you’re entrusted with valuable information. Each transaction relies on the kind of sensitive personal identifying information that makes our industry a target-rich environment for hackers. When you factor in considerations like the relative lack of regulation around multifamily technology, the wide range in tech sophistication among operators, and the mix of multiple tech providers with properties’ online and paper-based systems, you begin to see how much of a challenge data security can be for property managers.

One of the biggest problems owners and operators face each day and one that takes up a lot of time and mental energy of site staff is late or delinquent payments. However, when there’s an incentive for paying rent on time, like building credit, the likelihood of on time payments increases significantly and makes online, automated payments more attractive to residents. When staff don't have to chase down payments, they can focus on building a better resident experience, which in turn helps build better relationships between resident and the property because they aren’t constantly being hassled to pay rent.

Five essential questions you should be asking yourself When you’re purchasing software and technology to help manage your properties, most people get excited about the potential benefits that will be achieved once it’s implemented, but buying the software is the easy part. Realizing those benefits is where the real work begins. You want to achieve ROI as quickly as possible to justify the decision and ensure employees are utilizing it in a way that delivers the most value, and most importantly that it doesn’t turn into shelfware.

Now, perhaps more than ever, apartment owners and operators are seeking operational efficiencies. Multiple motivations are fueling the trend. To start with, because of the amount of turnover at the property level today, onsite teams often are either short-handed or inexperienced. Using technology to reduce and streamline an associate’s workload can give them a much-needed hand. And by taking to-dos...