Nate Kunes

Time is the biggest challenges property managers are facing. According to a recent survey from AppFolio and real estate consulting firm John Burns, property managers are struggling to find time to focus on business strategy, followed by challenges with manual processes and managing maintenance. In fact, 60% of property managers named these three obstacles as the top challenges to their business, and some of them are actually inhibiting growth.

“Interestingly, this makes a lot of sense given that a majority of the other challenges that professionals experience seem to be with things like manual processes and struggles to manage maintenance, all of which can be incredibly time consuming,” Nat Kunes, VP of products at AppFolio, tells GlobeSt.com. “The property management profession isn't your typical 9-to-5 job. The long hours, especially when doing everything manually—from logging and drafting unit inspection reports to posting unit vacancies across various outlets and digital channels—can really take a toll on work-life balance and leave very little time for bigger picture items like business strategy and improving customer service.”

Kunes says that technology can help gain back the time lost by automating manual processes and managing data. “Technology cuts out manual processes, automatically giving much time back to property managers to focus on more important, higher-level work like strategizing and improving the overall customer experience,” explains Kunes. Technology tools can be used to manage inspection reports in real time, syndicate vacancy postings, With the aid of property management technology, manage maintenance requests and work orders. Technology can also ease communication flows with two-way text features.

The time gained through technology can also help property managers achieve goals—not only combat challenges. The same survey shows that 67% of property managers listed delivering excellent service to customers, gaining operational efficiencies and providing accurate reporting to owners as top goals. “There is so much time to be saved with technology and in so many areas, giving people the ability to focus on business growth and how to make their businesses better,” adds Kunes. “Property management companies not riding the technology wave will have a hard time achieving those goals, especially if their business is experiencing a major growth spurt, time becomes even harder to manage during these periods, especially if hiring can't keep pace with that growth.”

While property managers and real estate professionals in general have been slow adopters of technology, compared to other industries, it is changing. Now, 78% of property managers are considering technology solutions to problems, especially for tools that show clear solutions to problems, according to Kunes. “Property managers adopt technology to drive growth and efficiency in their businesses,” he says. “In terms of some of the tech that businesses tend to have adopted first or right off the bat, those have typically been technologies used to streamline leasing or robust solutions for accounting/collections.”