Published on September 11th, 2024
By Brittany Benz

From managing increasingly unpredictable expenses — like rising insurance premiums and stubbornly high interest rates — to implementing new legislative changes, the property management industry is facing significant headwinds. As a result, real estate management businesses are finding themselves in a tough spot: finding ways to keep productivity high, even when team bandwidth is low and margins are tight.

However, simply asking team members to navigate new and complex challenges on top of their existing workloads isn’t a sustainable strategy. Not only does that approach increase the risk of employee burnout, but it also makes it more likely that things will fall through the cracks.

AppFolio’s own Stacy Holden, Industry Principal and Senior Director, and Kyle Triplett, VP of Product, joined the Multifamily Collective podcast to share their recommended approach: Reimagining the future of property management work entirely with artificial intelligence (AI).

Keep reading to explore highlights from their podcast conversation. Plus, discover just a few of the top ways AI solutions benefit property management teams and businesses.

Streamline Communication with Time-Saving AI Automation

Responding quickly to prospect questions and sending timely resident communications isn’t just part of a property management team member’s day — it’s essential. With 76% of renters expecting to hear back within 24 hours of contacting a property owner or manager, effective communication is critical for creating an outstanding resident experience.

However, as Stacy discussed on the podcast, many of the questions property management team members and leasing agents respond to on a day-to-day basis can be repetitive, redundant, and time-consuming. By leveraging generative AI solutions and automating responses to common questions, teams can finally say goodbye to an endless email inbox:

“So if you think about the busywork, let’s say for example, answering an email that has the same question about the pet policy every single time. Or reminding everybody that the pool’s going to be closed for maintenance this Saturday. These are things where generative AI can help. So, instead of having your leasing agent or your property manager answering those questions time and time again, generative AI can automate that message and response.”

By automating responses to high-volume or common questions with AI solutions, prospects and residents can get the answers they need, in an instant — no matter the time of day or night. 

In addition, generative AI solutions can be trained to respond in exactly the same way your team members would. So not only are prospects and residents getting an instant response, they’re also getting it with the same personal touch a property management team would provide.

Empower Employees in Brand-New Ways

The 2023 AppFolio Hiring and Retention Report revealed a huge opportunity to improve the employee experience: using technology to streamline as many as 15 hours — or 38% of a 40-hour work week — of a team member’s time per week.

By allowing team members to optimize their time with AI solutions, they’re also empowered to do more — and do it all more efficiently, accurately, and easily than ever before. When employees are empowered and have greater autonomy and control over how they spend their time, they take greater satisfaction and ownership in their work. 

Stacy knows just how effective AI solutions can be in empowering property management team members because she sees it firsthand with AppFolio customers. Here’s what she had to say on the podcast about one customer who is using AI to help level up and grow their younger team members:

“The way they’ve introduced AI throughout the business has given them a way to empower their younger leaders. And what I mean by that is just appointing someone as their AI expert, and it was a younger leader in the business, and it’s now their job to bring to the leadership team the learnings that they are getting out of AI. And so they’ve been able to do a lot of leaning in, and a lot of tiny experiments, by not having the boss make all the decisions. They totally empowered this whole different cohort of individuals, and it’s really brought a ton of energy and fun in the business.”

However, simply adding AI solutions won’t automatically empower employees. Instead, as Kyle explains, it’s about putting the right frameworks in place, too:

“Give people super tools where they need it, but also make sure that there’s a guide for people to begin using.”

To do so, Kyle recommends two must-have components for empowering teams with AI solutions:

• AI education and training: Like any other software platform, make sure teams are properly trained on your AI solution so they can get the most out of it.
• AI policy implementation: Because AI holds enormous potential and power for teams, make sure everyone is on the same page about AI do’s and don’ts for business. This includes creating a policy that clearly outlines which AI solutions your business is using, policies for their usage, and guidelines for the safe handling of data.

Bring Passion Back to Property Management

Burnout has been a major topic of conversation in property management over the last several years. But what if, instead of just alleviating burnout, you could also help teams find joy and satisfaction in what they do? 

At the end of the day, property management is about people. And while it may seem counterintuitive to use technology to help bring the “people” aspect of property management back into focus for teams, that’s exactly what AI solutions can do. As Kyle explained on the podcast:

“This is a sticks and bricks business at the end of the day, and the opportunity for employees to spend more time at properties, more time on human connections is incredible. It’s the idea of really leveling up the type of things that people are doing.”

However, Kyle and Stacy also emphasize that AI solutions need to be integrated directly into—not on top of—a property management business’s tech stack. Using disconnected AI platforms means teams have to work outside of existing systems, which can actually create more barriers to getting work done.

Instead, Stacy recommends looking for thoughtfully designed AI solutions — especially when it comes to generative AI — so teams can focus and spend more time on the tasks they enjoy:

“I truly believe this is the type of technology that’s going to bring passion back into the workplace, I really do. It’s that thoughtfully designed system that’s going to allow our employees to focus on what we hired them to do in the first place. Did we hire people because they’re great at responding to emails between 8:00 and 9:00 AM? That wasn’t in the job description. But what does pretty much everybody do first thing in the morning? So imagine the ability to have GenAI come in, respond to the obvious, organize the exceptions, and prioritize them based on how you run your business. That’s how the employee experience is going to change because now, they’re going to focus on what you hired them to do in the first place.”

Next Steps: Explore More Ways to Reimagine the Future of Work

Staffing has always been a challenge for the property management industry, but AI solutions offer new opportunities to engage team members, streamline time-consuming tasks, and achieve next-level productivity — all without increasing the risk of burnout.

With our guide to becoming AI-ready, take the next step in reimagining the future of property management work and see how AI solutions can benefit both employees and businesses.