What is the ROI of AI in Housing

The future of housing lies in the ways property managers integrate real estate AI into their workflows. With the right AI tools, you can streamline operations, improve tenant satisfaction, and boost your bottom line. In this blog post, we’ll talk about the ROI of AI in housing and ways it can ease day-to-day operations for property managers.

TLDR:

• AI in housing automates repetitive tasks, saving time for property management teams.
• Faster leasing processes lead to increased revenue and reduced vacancy rates.
• The opportunity cost of not using AI can result in lost leads and overworked staff.
• Enhanced resident experiences contribute to higher retention rates and lower turnover costs.
• For more insights on how AI can transform your property management operations, visit our housing solutions page.

Saving Time by Automating Repetitive Tasks

One of the most immediate ROI benefits of AI in property management is time savings. Property managers juggle countless repetitive tasks each day, from answering the same questions over and over to inputting data into systems. Individually, these tasks may seem minor, but together they consume a huge portion of the workweek.

Industry surveys show property managers spend up to 40% of their week responding to routine calls and messages. Here are some common duties that eat up staff time in a typical apartment community:

• Answering FAQs: Responding to the same leasing questions repeatedly (e.g., availability, pet policies, pricing) for prospective renters.
• Scheduling and Confirming Tours: Coordinating property showings with prospects, often involving back-and-forth communication.
• Logging Maintenance Requests: Taking maintenance calls or messages 24/7 and creating work orders.
• Translations: Assisting non-English speaking tenants by translating inquiries and responses.
• Following Up with Leads: Reaching out to prospects who expressed interest.
• Routing Issues to Staff: Directing urgent matters to the right team members (e.g., notifying on-call maintenance for an after-hours emergency)

Each of these tasks takes time, and this is precisely the type of time drain that AI is designed to eliminate. Modern AI assistants and conversational AI systems can take over a large portion of repetitive communication and administrative work. These AI agents operate tirelessly 24/7, meaning they can handle inquiries and tasks even outside of office hours.

AI saves time so your team can focus on what they do best. Instead of spending mornings buried in emails or calls, your staff can concentrate on strategic work, such as improving the property, meeting with important clients, or brainstorming ways to grow the business.

One of Conduit's clients' inboxes with 1500+ messages every week is managed 60% by AI. Here's what the communications manager had to say:

Accelerating Leasing and Boosting Revenue

AI isn’t just about saving time, it’s also a revenue generator. One of the most impactful uses of AI in housing is speeding up the leasing process and making sure no potential renter falls through the cracks. In the apartment rental market, responsiveness and follow-ups can make the difference between a signed lease and a lost prospect.

Unfortunately, many leasing teams struggle to keep up. Even when inquiries are answered, the average response might take hours or days, far too slow for today’s expectations. Every missed or late response is a missed leasing opportunity, translating to lost revenue and increased vacancy time. Here's how integrating an AI leasing assistant helps you:

• 24/7 lead engagement: It can respond to prospective tenants within seconds, regardless of when the inquiry comes in. Whether it’s a web chat at 11 pm or a text on a Sunday morning, AI will greet the prospect with a friendly, accurate answer.
• Lead nurturing: AI can automatically follow up with someone who toured the property by sending a courteous message asking if they have any questions or would like to apply. It can also schedule tours or send reminders without human intervention.
• Upsells and cross-sells: AI systems integrated with your property management software can check resident data or inquiries to identify opportunities for additional sales during the leasing and move-in process.
• Optimize pricing and occupancy: Based on market demand, lead volume, and even sentiment from inquiries, an AI platform can provide recommendations on rent pricing or concessions that will fill units faster while still maximizing rent.

➡️ Read more here: How to automate your leasing process

Enhancing Resident Experience and Retention

Keeping current residents happy and renewing their leases is the end goal for property owners, as it makes sure steady rent income and avoids turnover costs. However, providing the quick service that today's renters demand remains difficult, especially for growing companies with limited staff members.

Here's how AI tools make sure you can provide a better resident experience:

• Faster responses: If a tenant has a question or an issue, they want answers and action fast. AI-powered systems help deliver on these expectations. For example, an AI resident portal or texting assistant can handle a wide range of tenant inquiries instantly, whether it’s checking the account balance or explaining how to reset the smart thermostat.
• Maintenance: Nothing frustrates tenants like a maintenance request disappearing into a void or taking too long to fix. AI can ease maintenance workflows by automatically logging requests, categorizing them, and even triaging issues by severity. The result is faster turnaround on repairs and fewer issues slipping through the cracks, which leads to happier residents.
• Personalized engagement and communication: AI can send personalized reminders about lease renewals, rent due dates, or community events, making sure residents feel informed and cared for. For instance, an AI agent might proactively reach out with a friendly message like, “Your lease is up for renewal in 60 days. Would you like to discuss renewal options or have any questions?”

The overarching theme is that AI enhances the renter experience at scale, delivering the kind of attentive service that keeps residents satisfied, without burdening your staff. The payoff is better reviews, higher renewal rates, and a community where people want to stay, all of which contribute directly to a stronger financial performance for the property.

Key AI Use Cases Driving ROI in Multifamily Housing

AI in property management combines a variety of tools that work together. Here are some of the key AI use cases in multifamily housing that deliver outsized ROI benefits:

• Virtual Leasing Assistants (Chatbots/Voicebots): handle lead inquiries, answer prospect questions, and schedule tours 24/7 across multiple channels, making sure no lead goes unanswered.
• Resident Communication Bots: These bots manage resident questions, provide updates, and handle maintenance requests instantly, improving response time and efficiency.
• Workflow Automation and Task Routing: coordinates people and tasks by categorizing and routing incoming communications, logging leads, setting follow-ups, and syncing with PMS systems. This eliminates manual triaging and reduces administrative workload.
• AI-Powered Upselling and Cross-Selling: It can identify personalized upsell opportunities based on tenant behavior, increasing revenue with minimal effort across units.
• Custom AI Training and Knowledge Bases: It can be trained on property-specific knowledge to deliver accurate, context-aware support at scale. Over time, it resolves more queries independently, acting as a scalable extension of your team.

All these use cases combine to increase ROI, just by integrating with your day-to-day operations. To see some concrete outcomes, consider the following impact metrics that you can get by integrating AI in property management workflows:

Conclusion: Using AI to increase ROI in Housing

By automating the busywork, AI allows property management companies to do more with less and to do it better than before. Most importantly, these benefits compound over time. Happier residents lead to a stronger community and brand reputation, which attracts more business.

In summary, the ROI of AI for housing is both quantitative and qualitative. It’s the extra leases signed, the hours of labor saved, and tons of expenses cut. It’s also the improved experiences, the resident who is delighted by a quick response at midnight, or the property manager and their team who can finally leave the office on time because tedious tasks are handled.

All these factors eventually feed into financial returns, either by increasing income or reducing costs (often both). For more insights on how AI can transform your property management operations, visit our housing solutions page.