How To Increase Revenue Per Unit While Streamlining Maintenance

According to a recent study, the expectation for revenue growth by surveyed Property Managers in 2020 is 11% lower than it was in 2019. This comes as no surprise as this has been one of the toughest years across many industries. We’ve been forced to slow down and recalibrate to new normals of digital dialects and creative revenue boosters. 

An innovative company funded by Y Combinator and Bain Capital Ventures has created a revenue boosting service for property managers that:

  • Adds $48/door in new annual revenues by offering tenants a personal assistant for their rental.
  • Frees up the time and effort that property managers normally spend on maintenance coordination. 
  • Increases resident retention and speeds up lease times with an average 4.7/5 star rating for the virtual concierge services. 

There’s been a lot of chat within the industry around not only having a strategy for increasing unit count, but for increasing revenue per unit by avenue of Resident Benefit Packages. This is a strategy that enterprise multifamily companies, like Greystar, have been using for years because it has proven that residents are willing to pay extra for higher levels of service. And, when residents get that higher level of service, the management company gets much longer leases and many more positive online reviews. 

Removing the Cost of Maintenance Coordination with a Resident Benefit Package

Latchel packages its maintenance coordination services into a resident benefit package, called the 24/7 Home Assistant. This gives residents a virtual concierge-like service. Imagine having a personal assistant for your rental at your beck and call. The Home Assistant is just 60 seconds away by phone call, text, or their mobile portal ready to help residents schedule cleaners, furniture assembly, junk removal, lockouts, and the everyday maintenance and repair issue.

Unlike typical call support services, the Home Assistant manages end to end coordination for maintenance and repairs that landlords and property managers are responsible for handling while giving managers full control to determine which team members or service providers should complete repairs. Meanwhile, residents work directly with their Home Assistants to manage the everyday things that they’re responsible for like cleaners or fixing move-out damages that they caused.

Latchel describes their fundamentals as:

  • A dedicated phone line available 24/7/365 for every resident need (maintenance, scheduling cleaning services, mounting tvs, building furniture, etc). 
  • Easy scheduling via SMS or Online Portal.
  • Expedited scheduling and dispatching of vendors or internal maintenance team members with 2-hour repair windows.
  • Move out repair assistance and $50 reimbursements for tenant caused damages. 
  • Video based troubleshooting for remote and contactless repairs. No downloads necessary. Residents get texted a link that opens a video chat (pictured below).

Similar to the many resident benefit packages already out there, residents pay a small monthly fee for these enhanced and added services. Residents do have the ability to opt-out if they choose, and the service will still be free of cost to the property manager. While there are many residents who may be unable to pay rent right now, there are still more residents who are not only able to pay rent, but who are willing to pay for these added benefits. Latchel has seen an 80% opt-in rate from those already utilizing this model.

Creating New Revenue & Operational Efficiency with Latchel. 

Property managers currently using this model see immediate profits of $4/unit/month. A few other benefits for the property managers include: 

  • Improvement in Online Reputation
    • Latchel maintains a 4.7/5 star rating for tenant satisfaction and those reviews are automatically pushed to the manager’s online profiles. 
  • Save Time & Money
    • You’ll have 80% more time to relocate to other parts of the business operations with transparent software to keep an eye on properties’ maintenance needs. 
    • With Latchel’s proactive video troubleshooting, they’re able to de-escalate and resolve 30% of maintenance requests without ever dispatching for a maintenance technician. 
      • This saves an average of $180/unit per year on routine maintenance, and potentially tens of thousands of dollars on emergency maintenance handled immediately. 

You can learn more about the 24/7 Home Assistant here

You can also schedule a free one-on-one consultation with Latchel’s CEO, Ethan Lieber, to discuss your current maintenance process and/or other areas in your business that have opportunity for higher efficiency and more substantial growth. Along with having gone through the Y-Combinator program (with alumni companies like AirBnb, Dropbox, and Stripe), Ethan is also the host of the Latchel Property Management Podcast, where we dive into topics and resources to help property managers grow and scale their business.