5 Ways AI is improving the Property Management Industry

As AI technology becomes more available and sophisticated, property management companies should be turning to AI to improve their processes and provide better service for their clients. AI can easily access large amounts of data and provide meaningful insights, enabling property managers to make smarter decisions, from predicting tenant behaviors and needs to automating routine maintenance tasks. Here are some of the ways that AI can help optimize property management:

1. Automated Tenant Screening:

AI can help automate the tenant screening process by quickly analyzing an applicant's credit, financial history, and past rental records. It can save time while ensuring proper vetting of tenants before signing a lease. If multiple tenants apply for one property, an algorithm can rank each application on a grading system based on criteria such as credit score, income, debt, etc. Overall, this can minimize a portfolio's delinquency rate and provide your clients with the best possible layer of security. Companies can use this as a sales argument and gain a competitive advantage; clients often seek guarantees that they will get paid on time. Companies adopting this technology earlier will secure a specific pool of loyal clients.

During my time as Property Manager, I used a tenant screening platform that made things much more efficient. We were able to review applications much faster, and it also simplified the process for the applicants. I developed a pretty cool system to rate and select applications based on different factors and a formula that did it all for us. Due to my experience, I want to see this in continuous development.

2. Predictive Maintenance:

AI can predict when specific components of buildings may need maintenance or repairs before major issues arise. Using data from past maintenance schedules, weather patterns, and usage records, AI can provide property managers with helpful insights into when they should plan for potential repairs or replacements. Property managers will save money and optimize operations by taking preventative measures instead of waiting until an issue arises.

Predictive maintenance uses data and IoT technologies to predict when maintenance will be necessary. While it's often used in manufacturing, transport, and the energy industry to monitor the health of machinery, it's also increasingly deployed in building maintenance too. This company, Infogrid, is already doing it for buildings.

I did not find any company applying this to single-family homes, and this is a bit more complicated, although still possible as the technology is further developed over time.

3. Maintenance Requests:

AI can streamline the triaging of maintenance requests. AI algorithms can detect patterns in previous requests, look up information online, and suggest ways to resolve them more quickly and efficiently. It will reduce response times for tenant requests, enabling property managers to address issues as soon as they arise.

In point #5 of this Blog Post, I mention a software platform whose one of its features is handling Maintenance Requests from tenants. Still, I am keeping this section just for software whose primary purpose or feature is handling maintenance requests with AI.

While writing this blog, I could not find any tool or piece of software that receives, triages, troubleshoots, and assigns Maintenance Requests. The most developed tool at the moment that I know of is Property Meld. But with the current course of AI development, it won't be long before some company develops this technology.
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4. Energy Management:

This one benefits Commercial Property Management the most. Commercial buildings account for a significant share of global energy consumption. Since commercial buildings are large, complex systems with varying behaviors and needs, so much energy is wasted.

AI algorithms can also optimize energy usage in buildings. By analyzing data from sensors, AI can identify areas that are using more energy than necessary and suggest ways to reduce costs by making changes, such as adjusting thermostat settings or installing new lighting systems. It can also be used to monitor energy usage patterns or detect changes in customer needs and preferences.

As the data on building energy becomes more easily accessible, engineers can have a wide variety of information available to optimize Building Energy Management Systems.

5. Customer Service:

AI can be used to provide personalized customer service experiences. By using natural language processing, AI chatbots (yes, like ChatGPT) can understand customer inquiries and respond quickly and accurately with the correct information. This will help property managers improve response times while providing tenants with a quicker, easier way to answer their questions.

While looking up "AI for Property Management", I found this chatbot platform (STAN – If you want to check it out, follow this link) that does exactly what I described above. It is compatible with any community, from HOA to Student Housing.

They promise to respond to residents without lifting a finger and have a 97% satisfaction rate.

As all experienced Property Managers know, talking to residents is an essential and time-consuming part of running the business.

This software has four different features:

• Account Inquiries lets you integrate your software to provide residents with real-time inquiries about their accounts.
• Service Requests, which help you handle requests from your residents.
• Booking Amenities, people can book instantly through the chatbot.
• Instant Messaging, which helps respond to all questions 24/7.

This is possible using API that integrates directly with your Property Management Software. They set it all for you, so you don't need to worry about integrating.

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