It’s almost that time of year again—multifamily budget season. And in 2024 with more technology options, suppliers, and vendors than ever before, the pressure is on to make the most out of next year’s apartment operating budget.
It’s no secret that the multifamily industry has traditionally been slow to adopt new technology. But with the recent boom in artificial intelligence, tools like ChatGPT and other AI-powered solutions have pushed the industry to become more reliant on AI, data, and automation to achieve the highest return on investment.
This sudden shift toward artificial intelligence has opened the door for multifamily solutions to pop up seemingly overnight.
With that in mind, it’s important to not only understand new property management technology and how it will help your team, but to also understand where proptech is trending to ensure you’re making the right budgeting decisions for 2025.
In this guide, we will examine multifamily industry trends to determine where priorities have shifted, look at proptech trends, how to analyze your current technology, and what to ask when researching new solutions.
First, let’s dive into the state of the industry…
Multifamily proptech budgeting trends for 2024-2025
Last year the multifamily industry saw a rise in ChatGPT-powered leasing tech and CRM adoption, while conversations continued about implementing centralization with hopes of developing new processes and staffing models in 2024.
According to the most recent 20 for 20 report, process improvement is the top priority for companies, followed by ‘other’, and centralization ranking third in priorities for 2025.
Centralization has typically been defined as transitioning onsite leasing teams to a centralized office hub to run the property group or region from one location. But recent industry surveys show that centralization is not a ‘one size fits all’ concept. In fact, last year Multifamily Insiders polled industry professionals and asked them to define centralization. The result? A total of 89 responses and 89 different definitions.
But this year most agree—it’s all about improving performance and optimizing processes to help teams work more efficiently.
Working smarter, not harder: the need for process improvement in multifamily
It’s no secret that the multifamily industry has historically struggled with high employee turnover. In 2022, the average property management turnover was 33% — 11% above the national average. There’s a myriad of reasons why employee satisfaction has plagued onsite teams for years, but one of the biggest factors is burnout.
We don’t say it enough: being a leasing agent is tough. It’s time to set up teams for success by implementing technology that will help them work smarter, not harder. Improving processes by implementing AI-enabled technology to streamline and automate workflows helps reduce employee burnout.
Not to mention how process improvements will help your bottom line…
In last year’s 20for20 report executives argued that: “Technology will have to pay for itself, or it won’t get implemented,” proving how urgently property teams need to find technology that will work for them.
With continued hiring difficulties and low rent growth, it’s no surprise that companies are looking to streamline internal processes to ensure property teams are operating smoothly and getting the most return out of their investments.
Proptech trends 2024
Keeping up with trending technology is key to remaining competitive in the multifamily space. It seems as though each week a new “groundbreaking” feature or solution hits the market, making it difficult to plan a proptech strategy as the industry continues to evolve.
By understanding proptech trends as a whole, you can see patterns emerging to better predict the upcoming advancements, and if your current technology is going to keep up with trending tech.
Let’s start by defining proptech…
What is proptech?
Proptech is a shorter way to say property technology. Proptech simplifies routines and workflows in the property management and real estate industries, built specifically to optimize buying, selling, leasing, marketing, and management.
Valley National Bank, which released a comprehensive report on the Present and Future of Proptech separates the property technology market in five distinct sectors:
- Property management software (PMS): PMS platforms to help organize lease management, maintenance, building operations, and analytics.
- Construction and project management: Most of these solutions help in creating 3D floor plans and other building visuals.
- Asset utilization: This technology adds value to your property, and can include smart locks, community wifi, and other smart-home technology solutions.
- Finance and investments: These platforms can help analyze investments, process payments, and manage other financials.
- Transaction solutions: Any technology used to promote your apartment community falls into transaction solutions. This includes marketing, website design, expense management, and budget software.
While multifamily solutions are wildly diverse and can fall within any of the five categories above, we will be focusing on the two that have the greatest impact on the day-to-day operations at the property level: Property management software, and transaction solutions.
What's trending in proptech?
Let’s be real. The last few years in multifamily have been weird. We’re still seeing the ripple effect of the pandemic, the eviction moratorium, and a volatile economy—but one thing we aren’t seeing is a decline in innovation.
Despite economic uncertainties, the multifamily industry continues to push for automation and tech that will help streamline their daily operations and improve the leasing experience for everyone involved—property management teams, prospects, and residents alike.
With that in mind, here are a few proptech trends that will continue guiding technology innovation through 2024.
Resident AI + communication
Improving resident satisfaction and retention has become a successful strategy in mitigating turnover costs, but it also helps lower marketing expenses, and build sustainable growth.
How can proptech improve the resident experience? Let’s start with resident AI:
- Resident chatbot: Making community information and updates available to residents 24/7 can help improve resident engagement and satisfaction all the while giving your onsite team a break from resident inquiries.
- Move-in automations: Create a memorable first impression with your new residents by ensuring they have all of the information they need for a smooth move-in process. By automating a series of custom welcome messages your property can help new residents feel valued, informed, and excited about their new home.
- Targeted & meaningful resident communication: Having the ability to segment messages to groups of like-minded residents can improve engagement and satisfaction as residents find friends among the community.
- Improved employee retention: As we explored earlier, improving processes is a great way to improve employee retention, and this stability among your onsite team members trickles down to positively impact the resident experience. By using resident automation tools and other streamlined processes, team members can focus on more meaningful interactions with residents, and making your community a great place to live.
Demand for data
The pandemic resulted in a massive increase in online activity, and as a result, online data has become incredibly useful for businesses to reach new customers and learn from their old ones.
By digitizing every aspect of property management, from prospect communications and resident surveys, to reviews and amenity usage, you can take advantage of a huge collection of data to make better, more informed decisions.
Conversational AI
So, what are you supposed to do with all of that data you’ve collected? Conversational AI. Multifamily AI leasing assistants like ResMate were built to analyze and review prospect and resident data to provide actionable insights for your team.
What’s even better? As more prospects interact with your chatbot, the algorithm is constantly updating its insights to ensure that your team has updated information in real time.
All-in-one platforms
We determined that the industry is hungry for change as onsite property teams grapple with increasing workload and high employee turnover. In addition to technology that can automate repetitive tasks, it’s also important to streamline and simplify any manual tasks left for your onsite team.
By implementing an all-in-one marketing and leasing platform you limit the number of point solutions your team needs to navigate every day, and many all-in-one platforms have simplified workflows to improve efficiency.
Looking to maximize your budget this season? Download this free checklist of 20 questions to ask your multifamily software provider.
