Knowing about multifamily trends helps property management find ways to gain a competitive advantage and nurture their communities. Applying these multifamily trends not only gives you a better understanding of the residential communities but also prepares you for any changes that you can adapt to and stand out from competitors.
Understanding these 11 trends and incorporating them where they make good business sense can help your multifamily property come out on top.
1. Adapt to Changing Economy
Thanks to inflation, the cost of managing a multifamily residential community has also gone up. Everything costs more including labor, utilities, goods, and services. This is the time to review all your vendor contracts. You may uncover opportunities to renegotiate the contracts or search for a new vendor whose terms better fit your requirement.
The median rate for renting has climbed across the nation. This is happening in spite of more available new housing to meet rental demand. It’s important for property managers to understand their local market. Do a review of your current rent rates to determine if they’re in line with the location for similar units.
2. Automation, Centralization, and Consolidation of Technology
As you investigate renegotiating vendor contracts or changing vendors, consider the possibility of consolidating them. Consolidation means moving all your residential technology needs to one provider. You may be able to combine the resources of three vendors into one. This reduces complexity, simplifies management, and leads to cost savings.
It’s not always possible to get one vendor who can do it all. But it is possible to integrate the major components of property management. For example, security is an essential function of the multifamily residential experience.
For example, you can have one vendor manage integrated security consisting of video cameras, monitoring, and access control systems. Integration is the combination of multiple systems into a centralized one where they all talk to each other. Centralization boosts efficiency and lowers costs.
Are renters able to pay their rent online? If not, this is an area that can provide multiple savings. You’d also be giving residents what they want and that is the ability to pay rent online. Zillow’s survey has found that more than half of renters pay online. Almost 70% want this capability.
This can speed up the payment process and offload some of the employees’ workload. You can avoid the slow and tedious process of dealing with paper and tracking payments.
Keyless entry with an access control system is an example of how technology can take a lot of tasks off the staff’s plate. Residents can manage their own entry as well as their guests or services. They can issue a special passcode to their cleaning service and temporary passcodes to visitors that only work during the time they’re on the property.
3. Data Insights
The multifamily residential industry collects more data than ever. It’s good and bad depending on how the data is used. It can be overwhelming and challenging to make sense of all the data. On the flip side, if the data is consolidated into reports, then management will have a valuable tool for decision-making.
Multifamily management can collect data in many ways. One of those is through their technology stack. They can conduct resident surveys and monitor social media. It’s important to understand multifamily trends vary across North America. What works for one region, province, or state does not necessarily apply to another.
The advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning will only speed the growth of data-driven insights. If you want your multifamily property to keep up, then you will need to capitalize on data analytics and predictive modeling.
4. Growth of Hybrid and Remote Working
Although some companies have switched from remote working setup to a hybrid one, many continue to work from home, including your residents. A blog post from Grace Hill shares the results of the Grace Hill/NMHC 2022 Renter Preferences Survey Report. With more than 200,000 renters participating in the survey, almost half continue to work remotely at least part of the time. This is more than double from 19% in 2019 before the pandemic.
The signs are clear that multifamily properties need to include amenities to attract remote workers. It’s worth noting that full-time remote workers can live wherever they want. This is an opportunity to attract residents looking for a place that will support their remote working lifestyle. They will want a high-quality network connection and coworking spaces, which brings up the next point.
5. Coworking Spaces
Even if someone goes into an office full-time, they most likely want a coworking space in their multifamily residential community. Many workers stay connected 24/7 and some may work with colleagues around the world. They may need to have a meeting outside working hours. A coworking space would offer them a place to go for these meetings. These spaces help them separate their home and work environments.
Coworking spaces can be flexible in that the floor plans can be changed. It could have smaller rooms for one-on-one video calls. It would also have larger spaces to give people a place to host meetings. Remember, any opportunity to bring outsiders into a community is an opportunity to reach a potential resident or someone who would know a potential resident.
6. Outsourcing
Outsourcing is when a company contracts another business to perform a task or service. This is a multifamily trend as it’s a way to cut costs, risks, and liabilities. It allows you to scale operations as you could have skilled workers focused on the things they do best while your employees can focus on their mission-critical responsibilities.
You may not need full-time employees to do some jobs. Instead of hiring a part-time employee with benefits, outsourcing can avoid the costs associated with providing benefits.
7. New Job Roles
It costs more to find a new resident than to retain one. Therefore, resident retention is a critical aspect of property management success. Some property management companies have created a new role solely focused on keeping residents happy. They take care of their needs and concerns. These roles focus on residential experiences and customer support.
They connect with the residents on a personal level. The person in this role needs to ensure there is a centralized customer support team that can resolve issues and complaints efficiently and with a friendly attitude. When residents’ problems are solved quickly and with a smile, they’re more likely to stick around longer.
8. Complementary Services
You can squeeze more revenue from a multifamily community by adding complementary services to work with current ones. Maybe you offer cleaning services to residents who pay a monthly fee. Consider adding an after-hours cleaning service at a reduced cost.
Most residents may want cleaning services during the daytime when they’re not around. Thus, there’s more competition. Many may not want the cleaning crew to come after hours. There will be a few who may work night shifts, or they want to pay less for cleaning by opting for off-peak hours. There are many services you can offer during off-peak times for a lower cost.
Does your property have dog-walking services? You can complement that with dog grooming. Residents may want a fitness center so they work out without leaving the building. An add-on service could be towels. Residents would pay for a towel service where they can pick up a towel in the fitness center and throw it into the laundry bin when they’re done.
Don’t provide a complementary service simply because it sounds cool. Some apartment amenities fare better than others. Surveying residents and having the resident experience manager can determine what residents want.
9. Social-Worthy Physical Amenities
Social media is a multifamily trend that won’t go away anytime soon. People love to take selfies and photos. The more photos they post of themselves on your property, the more it gets your property’s name out there. Give them a helping hand by creating social-worthy places around the building.
Think about it. When residents post happy pictures of their homes on social media, it’s free promotion for the building. Get creative in designing spaces that will have others oohing and aahing over. This could be a patio with furniture and fire pits. Enhance spaces by adding water features, wallpaper, and accessories. Consider changing up a space once a month or dressing it up for the holidays.
As a bonus, these social spaces provide residents with the opportunity to get to know each other. The more friends they have in the building, the more likely they will be to renew their leases.
10. EV Charging Stations
Electric vehicles (EV) are growing. The EV market is big enough that EV charging stations are now a must-have amenity. Residents want to be able to live where they can charge their EVs overnight. They won’t live someplace without EV charging stations.
11. Pickleball Court
Pickleball is the hottest sport, and it looks like it’s here to stay. What makes the sport appealing to many people is that people of all ages can play as well as players who use wheelchairs or have a prosthetic. It will give residents a way to meet and get to know each other.
Gain a Competitive Advantage with Multifamily Trends
Don’t invest in these multifamily trends just for the sake of it. Ask yourself questions. Will this fit your multifamily property strategy? Do residents want this? Does it jive with your marketing strategy?
Besides, you can’t do all of these. Pick one or two higher priority trends to investigate. Then, go from there. You may need to do a small-scale test before completely rolling it out.
Interested in learning more about multifamily residential security technology? Check out Complete Guide to Securing Your Multifamily Residential Building. To learn more, contact us.
Texas Private Security License Number: B14187
California Alarm Operator License Number: ACO7876
Florida Alarm System Contractor I License Number: EF20001598
Tennessee Alarm Contracting Company License Number: 2294
Virginia Private Security Services Business License Number: 11-19499
Alabama Electronic Security License # 002116
Canada TSBC License: LEL0200704
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