How AI is Upending Leasing

For the better.

By GEOFFREY YU, Respage

Automation is a funny word. It can conjure of visions of a dystopian future where hardworking men and women are kicked out of their jobs by uncaring machines. At the same time, “AI” has become a buzzword. Everything from your refrigerator to your autoresponder email sequence is now artificial intelligence, at least according to many a branding campaign.

The reality is different. The reality is that there are management companies now utilizing the latest machine learning technology to automate their leasing processes in ways that were never before possible. But this doesn’t replace the job of a leasing agent; it simply makes it easier, less tedious and more productive.

Note there is a difference between actual AI solutions and products companies simply slap that title onto. We’ll go into how you can tell the difference in this article. And you’ll want to know, because the leasing process as you know it is undergoing a paradigm shift to a smarter, more optimized system.

What is AI Leasing?

Imagine if every leasing team had the perfect assistant. This assistant would answer every leasing inquiry that came in – no matter if it was through email, phone, text, ILS or a chat via their website. Every prospect, within seconds, would receive the perfect answer to their question and specially tailored communication to push them towards a tour. It would follow up with everyone, responsive or not, at the perfect time. It would suggest properties, get feedback, remind people of appointments. It would even help retain residents after a lease has been signed. It would work 24/7 – and you wouldn’t even have to pay it overtime.

That is the ideal form of an AI leasing assistant. Simply put, it’s a technology designed to automate (and improve) parts of the leasing process while mimicking how humans think and talk. It does this by analyzing huge quantities of data to “learn” what to say and how to say it – this is called Natural Language Processing (NLP). There are very few NLP-enabled leasing assistants out there. A traditional leasing automation system would require the leasing team to create pre-set responses and messages tied to certain triggers. An NLP-enabled system would create every response itself, on the fly, without human intervention.

AI leasing assistants already exist and are in use today.

Primarily, leasing teams are using them to make more of each lead and converting more of those leads into leases. In general, teams using such solutions do see an improvement in those metrics, though it can vary wildly depending on which particular solution they are using. That might seem odd, given that even with all the advances in technology, a good leasing agent will still beat AI assistants in one-on-one interactions.

Sure, on simple questions and answers, a prospect might not even realize they are speaking with an AI. But on more involved conversations, a competent leasing agent is going to beat the pants off any automated solution, hands down. While AI is continuing to evolve, there are still nuances in language that can still currently slip past an AI assistant. And when it comes to understanding what someone really needs, well, a human being can emphasize better than a bot. So why are leasing teams with AI assistants still outperforming those without them?

Simply, most leasing agents don’t have the time to dedicate all their attention to a single prospect. If they did, they could do an amazing job answering that prospect’s questions, pushing them to tour, sending reminders at the perfect times, all of that. But, multiply that across all the leads a leasing agent has to handle. There is simply not enough time in the day. Further, over half of inquiries come in afterhours – meaning an AI assistant simply makes up the difference by handling more leads. In actual application though, management companies have found that this isn’t an “us versus them” situation.

AI helps leasing teams offload their most tedious tasks.

With an AI leasing assistant available to handle incoming leads and follow up, it means that leasing agents can remove a large part of their weekly “to-do” list – the queue. No more answering simple questions about pricing, availability and pet policies means a ton of freed up time and energy.

That can be redirected into tasks that actually need dedicated attention. Such as, for instance, solving problems for current residents, improving processes, getting more leases signed or handling those few prospect inquiries that can’t be handled via AI. Deployment of AI leasing assistants in the real-world show there is no replacing going on. Rather, leasing teams are usually the biggest advocates of AI solutions. It removes a lot of the rote work they do on a day-to-day basis, allowing them to focus on projects that really matter.

Given how AI leasing solutions boost leadto-lease rates while also maximizing leasing team productivity with minimum human intervention, it’s clear that management companies employing one of these solutions have a distinct advantage over ones that don’t.

AI will be essential in any competitive leasing strategy in the coming years.

That’s a near certainty, considering the results businesses today are seeing from a technology that hasn’t reached its fullest potential. NLP-enabled AI leasing has only been around for a year or two, and the very basis of the technology means it’s only going to get more impressive as more and more companies switch over. There will continue to be dramatic improvements in the level of inquiries AI leasing assistants can handle and the quality of their responses and customizations.

Therefore, as bots are better able to simulate human thinking and speech, leasing KPIs like lead-to-tour, lead-to-lease and resident retention rates will continue to climb. While nobody can predict just how dramatic those improvements will be, one thing is for sure – leasing has changed for good.

Geoffrey Yu is the Marketing Director at Respage. A leading provider of the AI-driven apartment marketing and leasing solutions, Respage has partnered with property management companies for over 19 years to create extraordinary results. The company’s comprehensive suite of solutions help generate more leads and leases, automate prospect nurturing, boost online reputation, improve resident satisfaction, and increase Net Operating Income (NOI). Visit www.respage.com to learn more about AI leasing.