AI for small property managers: Gain big company prowess with easy-to-use tools
AI might seem like something only giant companies need, but a growing array of easy-to-use AI tools can sharpen your competitive advantage in crucial areas of your small portfolio management company. They can help you stay organized, proactively manage inventory, avoid excess maintenance costs, market more powerfully, decide which disputes to pursue, and spot business-critical trends in data you already collect.
Here’s an overview of how AI platforms can help you optimize your property portfolio with the same confidence and polish as your biggest competitors. Most of the tools deliver results in minutes and cost less than lunch.
Create how-to guides and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
Instead of answering the same questions over and over, wouldn’t it be great to be able to email or print comprehensive tenant move-in and move-out procedures, onboarding steps for new staff, maintenance protocols, and RFPs that gather the information you actually need? Using AI-enabled tools can slice the time needed to produce these resources.
Waybook can help you build step-by-step templates based on your description of a process. From there, you can customize the template.
Another tool, Scribe, can be particularly helpful when you need to create a how-to guide for using backend platforms, for example for training new associates on property management software. Scribe automatically captures where you click on the screens you view and provides written instructions for those actions.
To get the best results, ask for SOPs that include “if-then” scenarios: “If the tenant reports an emergency, then follow the attached emergency protocol.”
Review the AI tool’s results and ask for revisions based on your real-world expertise. You can include prompts such as “Rewrite the document verbatim, but if work is required, add a list of the vendors from the attached Excel spreadsheet.”
Quickly evaluate disputes…and pursue them if they’re worthwhile
AI has enabled new ways to handle disputes with vendors, tenants and remote owners.
Based on simple information you provide, DRai Solutions’ Matter Analyzer uses AI to identify and analyze factually similar cases that went through the legal system. Knowing how similar matters were resolved can help you make better decisions about whether to negotiate a settlement, drop the matter, or file a lawsuit.
If you decide to negotiate a settlement offer, DRai’s confidential online Dispute Resolution platform can provide an easy-to-use path that’s far less costly than going to court.
Spot trends based on data you already collect
Most small businesses collect a lot of information that seems routine but that can unlock cost savings, marketing insights and competitive advantage. Machines are very good at seeing patterns that aren’t obvious to people and creating business intelligence from them.
For instance, you probably have website analytics, rent payment and occupancy records, tenant surveys, maintenance patterns, and information about what percentage of prospects rented a unit. An AI-enabled tool like Microsoft’s Power BI can analyze those sources of data in only a few seconds and provide insights about how to tighten operations, market better and anticipate expenses.
Another business intelligence tool, Zoho Analytics, lets users ask questions in everyday language to discover insights from multiple data sources.
If you want an even more comprehensive way to evaluate your business’ performance, consider using Google’s Looker Studio. You can upload a cornucopia of data, including accounting reports; CRM information from Zoho or Google or Excel spreadsheets; GA4 (Google Analytics) and social media analytics; employee time-tracking info; and reports from booking systems.
After analyzing the information you provide, Looker Studio will spotlight a variety of valuable information:
- occupancy and turnover trends
- maintenance resolution times and common maintenance issues
- vendor performance stats
- revenue and cost trends
- tenant segments that are most likely to renew or present risks
- regional and portfolio overviews that highlight location-based trends in multi-site businesses.
Looker can even help you develop data-driven forecasts and analyze your results each quarter, something property managers who work with offsite owners likely are required to do and a powerful management tool for all small portfolio managers.
Proactively manage maintenance and inventory
Unexpected repair and maintenance costs return year after year as one of the biggest challenges small property managers encounter. Reactive maintenance can cascade into tenant complaints, higher energy costs, extended vacancy periods and early replacement of structural elements and appliances.
The good news is that according to research by MRI Software, a 50-unit property could save up to $11,000 per year by implementing a preventive maintenance plan for HVAC, plumbing, roofing, exterior building surfaces, alarms, sprinklers, and appliances.
Several AI-enabled tools can help you plan and manage proactive maintenance protocols. Monday.com is a customizable project management tool that streamlines property maintenance schedules and team coordination. Taskade can help you prioritize maintenance and other tasks across departments or roles at your property.
Market and communicate more effectively
If marketing is a mystery to you (or just a necessary pain), you can tap a range of powerful AI-enabled tools to make your marketing tasks not only easier but qualitatively better. Tools can help you evaluate what’s working as well. Here are some tasks that AI tools can supercharge for you.
More consistent messaging about common prospect (and tenant) questions
If you need to communicate better about common questions, you can feed tools like ChatGPT or customized chatbot services like Stan AI a list of questions that tenants and prospects frequently ask, and the bots can provide quick answers, freeing your time for higher level work. Stan AI also can schedule tours and other appointments automatically.
Market research
Some property managers might benefit from knowing more about the competitive landscape and trends in their particular markets. Perplexity and Gemini excel at market research and also can help you think through how to segment your market, for instance to serve travelers with corporate units, students with nine-month rentals, and older renters and people who have disabilities with amenities such as elevators or concierge services.
Moving from a scattershot approach to an actual marketing plan
If you’ve never written a marketing plan before, you might not be sure where to begin. You can ask an AI assistant like Perplexity or ChatGPT what questions would be helpful to answer before you even begin on the plan itself.
With that context in mind, you can ask Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini to create a marketing plan based on your prompts (the directions you provide the tool) and the documents, URLs (website addresses), photos and videos that you provide. Whereas you might labor for hours to produce something usable, AI-powered tools can write one in less than two minutes!
Once you have the first version of your marketing plan, you can tweak the wording, adjust the timelines and add your own suggestions based on your expertise.
Write and test marketing copy
Jasper AI, Gemini and Copilot can write listings, email copy, newsletters, website and social media copy based on your prompts.
For example, you might say “Write a listing for a 2BR penthouse apartment with a distant mountain view and quiet suburban surroundings. Amenities include a pool, gym and dog wash.” You also can specify the length you want.
Illustrate social media posts
When you don’t have photos of your property or when you want to create a unique vibe to appeal to different segments of your market, you can tap Artlist.io or Midjourney to make illustrations.
Write social media or print ads
Gemini, Jasper AI, Claude, ChatGPT and Copilot can produce ad copy based on your prompts, including what tone you want to project and who your audience is.
You can test different versions of copy and different calls to action to see which performs better.
You also can ask Perplexity or ChatGPT to research what colors and illustrations work best for the audiences you’re trying to engage. Nailing the graphics can significantly boost ad performance.
Monitor performance of your marketing effortlessly
In most instances, you’ll need to put an AI analytics tool in place before you begin your marketing initiatives so that the tools you use to monitor your campaigns have performance data to evaluate.
A key tool to consider is Google’s web analytics tool, GA4, which provides predictive metrics (its estimate about how well campaigns will perform), analyzes customer journeys (all the steps customers take to learn about, engage with and buy your offering), and generates automated insights.
If you need help improving your ads after your first attempts, have a look at Motion. It uses AI to analyze performance data across ad platforms and identifies winning patterns. It then can generate new ad concepts based on what works.
Hallucinations
AI products occasionally produce made-up information called hallucinations. Be sure to check sources and calculations.
Strategic ways to deploy your AI arsenal
Think about what tasks have the highest value for you
For instance, if you have never studied your rental market and are winging your pricing and how you specialize your units, you might start by spending an hour with one of the market research tools.
Or if you suspect that your property is leaking cash somewhere, either from operations that could be tightened, cash flow issues that have you frequently tapping a line of credit, or maintenance issues that you can’t seem to get ahead of, you might prioritize one of the financial and operational analysis tools. (If it points to the need to change how you handle maintenance issues, you can do follow-on work with a maintenance planning product.)
Likewise, if you know your marketing is lukewarm, pivot to one of the marketing tools. Remember that you can test not only different AI products to see which writing and suggestions you like the best, but also different messaging to see which descriptions and calls to action get the most action from prospects. You also can test which “creative” —graphics, colors, fonts and photos—get the best engagement and lead to the most sales.
Start with one tool and add another in six weeks
Six weeks should give you time to get to know the first AI tool—the ones mentioned here are easy to use—without getting stuck in your progress.
Moving through tools aimed at optimizing each part of your business also will create a sense of momentum, free up brainspace and time, give you new insights, and begin to show returns in a quarter or two.
Track suggestions and results and tweak where necessary
Remember that while AI-enabled tools are helpful, they’re not clairvoyant.
For example, if the inventory management system suggests you will need 26 new fridges this year, but most of your refrigerators are still under warranty, lower the number you order, and adjust the assumptions that you’ve plugged into the platform.
Over time, you’ll begin to get real-world feedback that can challenge viewpoints you’ve held as truths. If you optimistically expect that 97% of your tenants will pay on time, but the number who do is 88%, you can use the data as an impetus to adjust how you screen applicants, how often you send reminders, and what terms you require for late payments. You can even test different messaging in rent reminders to see whether friendly or crisp language works better.
Tracking the results you get—including the time you and your staff spend on routine matters—will provide further encouragement to use tools to do the heavy lifting. Calendaring time for reviewing your progress is an important part of getting the most value from the AI tools you select.
And if you find it hard to set aside time for that analysis, remind yourself…there’s an app for that.
David Lazzara, CEO
The DRai Solutions platform allows landlords and property managers to quickly resolve tenant and vendor disputes in a cost-effective, secure portal that reduces friction to preserve business relationships. Through AI-powered case law references, documented digital records, and a convenient negotiating portal, DRai offers alternative dispute resolution directly to property managers without the high upfront costs associated with formal mediation or arbitration.
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