Success in the multifamily home real estate industry hinges upon your ability to achieve optimum occupancy levels, reduce loss, make your operations more cost-effective. To achieve these goals, marketing and operations are two of the most critical areas where your business needs to excel – and it’s in these areas where tech-forward property businesses win a significant leg up on the competition.
Now, in 2021 and beyond, property businesses are facing new challenges to stay relevant and competitive due to COVID-19 challenges, higher rates of joblessness, and tenants with different needs due to working-from-home and social distancing. This is why many property businesses are deploying various forms of property technology to improve their marketing and operational success.
In this article, we look at how technology is helping property businesses skyrocket their success in marketing and operational efficiency in the years ahead.
2021 Trends Toward Digital Transformation in Real Estate
According to a recent Techcrunch article from December 2020, the vast majority of real estate businesses will be implementing prop-tech as a part of their business practices. The article reports that 81% of real estate organizations plan to use new digital technologies in traditional business processes.
As for how COVID-19 concerns are accelerating the move toward digital transformation in 2021 and beyond, the Deloitte 2021 Commercial Real Estate Outlook showed that 82% of corporate real estate firms agree — at least to some degree — that COVID-19 is revealing the certain drawbacks to their current digital capabilities. In this manner, COVID-19 has inspired their future plans for digital transformation.
So, how can property companies adopt new technology strategies to boost success in the areas of marketing and operational efficiency? Let’s take a look.
You Can Be Smarter With Your Marketing
Multifamily housing businesses often face the challenge of deciding between lowering rent prices or increasing marketing expenditures to fill unit vacancies. Choosing the right mix of these strategies is essential for optimum success. You don’t want to spend more money on marketing than it would cost to simply lower rent prices by 5%. So, should you cut back on marketing and reduce rent prices, or increase marketing spend while increasing rent prices?
According to Chris Berry, Senior Regional Manager at First Communities in Atlanta, Georgia, slashing the marketing budget and reducing rent prices might not be the best way to go. Here’s what Berry says on the topic:
“Marketing should not be the first thing that you cut. I think you get more bang for your buck if you spend more on marketing… I try to train the clients and asset managers, and I fight back. I tell them, ‘You cannot have this small of a marketing budget. Otherwise, I fear you will not be successful.’”
Fortunately, multifamily property businesses can leverage technology to get more bang for their marketing buck. For example, an integrated smart property management solution from PointCentral can help property managers obtain more precise and actionable metrics to help them direct marketing expenditures more strategically. PointCentral solutions give property owners a bird’s-eye view of key metrics – such as occupancy rates, when leases expire, historical data and other vital statistics. Armed with these insights, property owners can better predict when more vacancies for specific units are likely to occur. Then they can implement targeted, effective, and well-timed marketing strategies to fill those vacancies.
More Efficient Business Operations
Multifamily property businesses that can streamline their operational costs free up additional capital, which provides several opportunities. For example:
- Additional capital to spend on marketing
- Freedom to lower rent prices in a challenging economic condition
- Reduced labor expenses
- More efficient use of employee time
- Reduced waste of resources
- Increased business profits
An integrated smart property management solution that incorporates smart home technology is an excellent way to boost operational efficiency. Here are several ways this happens:
- Keyless locks: Keyless locks allow property managers to eliminate the high cost of retooling locks, meeting new residents to provide keys, and replacing lost keys. They can also grant remote and temporary access to cleaning and maintenance personnel.
- Smart HVAC systems: Smart HVAC systems allow property managers to run HVAC equipment more efficiently. These systems alert property managers when HVAC equipment needs repair as early as possible. This improves the lifespan of HVAC systems and reduces overall HVAC and heating and cooling costs.
- Workflow automation solutions: Smart property workflow automation solutions empower managers with many advantages. A multifamily smart property system can provide metrics on vacant units, pending repairs and other tasks and metrics essential to business operations.
Smart apartment solutions from PointCentral offer the above advantages to multifamily property owners and more. According to PointCentral president Sean Miller:
“PointCentral now interfaces with all of the largest property management software providers in the multifamily industry, making our smart apartment solution more attractive as we streamline creating digital key access for work orders, resident move-in/out, unattended showings, package delivery, and concierge services like dog walkers… The PointCentral smart property platform is truly in a class all its own and is the best investment for owners and operators looking for how to make their buildings become smart buildings.”
When multifamily property businesses can leverage smart technology to more efficiently maintain their properties, coordinate with staff, streamline workflows and better understand key business metrics, everybody wins. For one, renters in 2021 love smart home technology amenities because it’s more convenient and it helps them save on electricity, feel more secure and create a more enjoyable home environment for living and working.
Moreover, using a property automation solution like PointCentral to shift business operations from a centralized office to a decentralized model – without the cost of maintaining a physical leasing office – could be a tremendous money-saver.
PointCentral: Boost the Technology of Your Multifamily Property Business Now
With the clear advantages that technology is bringing to multifamily property businesses, we expect to see more businesses leveraging smart property automation and other tech solutions to boost their competitiveness during increasingly-competitive market conditions. Therefore, solutions like PointCentral will play an essential role in keeping multifamily businesses profitable in the years ahead.
At PointCental, we create advanced property management and smart home automation systems for multifamily and vacation rental property businesses. Whether you’re running a small-scale business or an enterprise-scale operation with thousands of units, PointCentral can help you leverage the latest rental property and smart home technology.
Sources:
https://perq.com/multifamily-property-include-digital-marketing-budget/
