Owner Expectations vs. Reality: New Trends Report

Not Meeting Expectations is Eroding PM-Owner Relationships

Property Managers…

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In a first of its kind survey containing data from 10,000 property managers, LeadSimple uncovered a major misalignment between PMs & owners:

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• 44% of owners expect a response to their inquiries the same day or the day after.
• 29% expect one an hour or sooner.

If you’re looking at this and thinking and thinking that’s a bit unreasonable… or that you thought industry standard was 1 to 2 business days….

You’re NOT WRONG.

 Answering requests often requires multiple steps with multiple stakeholders (particularly in maintenance!)  It’s completely reasonable that:

• Understanding an issue from a resident
• Getting an opinion from a vendor
• Coordinating between a resident and vendor for an appropriate resolution
• Getting back to an owner

Can take a day or two when you have multiple other fires burning, not to mention your own life!

But the expectation is still there.

This is one of the biggest reasons why property managers are rushing to A.I.  To solve this massive communication expectations gap.

And there are 3 strategies currently being deployed for it, which we break down below….

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But first…

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If you don’t have your own thesis on A.I., what it can do for you, and WHO you can work with to create it, it’s time you do.

Introducing SFHPM 2030: The AI Virtual Summit for Property Managers

The Future of Property Management is Here—Don’t Get Left Behind

The property management industry is shifting faster than ever, and the stakes have never been higher.

Between skyrocketing renter expectations, tech-savvy owners demanding more transparency, and the rise of AI-powered tools, the way you operate today won’t cut it tomorrow.

We’re excited to announce SFHPM 2030: Single Family Home Property Management in the AI Future, a virtual summit created in collaboration with like-minded companies and industry leaders to prepare you for the biggest transformations the property management industry has ever seen.

🗓️ When: Wednesday, January 30, 2025

⏰ Time: 2 PM – 4 PM EST

📍 Where: Register Now at betterwho.com/summit

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At SFHPM 2030, you’ll discover how to:

• Solve Your Biggest Operational Headaches: Learn how the latest tools eliminate inefficiencies and free up your team.
• Outpace the Competition: Get ahead by understanding the trends reshaping Single Family Home Property Management.
• Build a Roadmap for Success: Walk away with clear, actionable strategies to stay competitive in the next decade.

Register Now at betterwho.com/summit

Now back to the immediate matter at hand…

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Bridging The Communication Gap: 3 Approaches

Let’s get back to the original triple conundrum:

Response times need to be shortened.  Responses need coordination between multiple people.  You can realistically only work on one at a time, and have a million other things to do.

It’s pretty clear, you need an english speaking, robot octopus clone of yourself, right??? 😆  

Well that’s kind of what an AI agent represents, and there are 3 ways you are being sold them:

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1. The Chat Bot Approach

This isn’t technically agentic, but it can fool you when buying it (more reason to sign up for SFHPM 2030).  These are the types of interfaces we’ve all gotten used to that use generative AI to respond.

The problem with these is that they don’t feel human at all.  So you don’t actually get credit for responding.

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2. The SaaS AI Approach

Like I shared in our last newsletter,  SaaS companies are great at technology, and will be implementing agents into their service as they realize they need to become AI companies.

What they’re not good at is owning full outcomes.  So they’ll roll out agents to solve pieces of the equation.  

It’ll feel human to the stakeholder on the other side, but it leaves the property manager with…

one major problem: The context handoff is a major point of failure.

As we spoke earlier, getting the job done requires multiple points of communication, and each one has its own individual nuance.  

The SaaS approach will solve for the one nuance at a time, while leaving you to handle the rest.  

These solutions will start off feeling amazing, but when problems happen (and in our industry, problems WILL happen) there will be finger pointing-

“Did the agent inside the SaaS platform get it wrong or is your teammate just not using the tool right?”

“Did the agent misfire or is it not communicating well with the rest of the software?”

It’ll have the same issues you have when trying to coordinate communication between your different departments.  Context gets lost in the handoff.

They’re “out-of-the-box solution” is better than the last one, but you still need to be responsible for the gaps.  You still own the outcome.

It’ll feel like SaaS.

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3. Native Agentic Approach

These solutions own the full outcome of an entire process.  

They’ll create multiple agents at multiple points of communication, and also understand they need to fill in the gaps, themselves.

Agent to agent communication is seamless because they are built by the same team.  That same team owns any gap in that communication.

You can think of it like vertically integrated communication-  

No loss of translation.  

No finger pointing between competing parties.  

The problem comes first, not the credit (or blame).

THIS is the Vendoroo approach, and we’ve identified over 20 different agents that are needed to completely own maintenance outcomes.   

A handful are fully built and operational.  

A handful are in testing.  

A handful are on the way.

In the meantime, response times are getting shorter.

In the meantime, you can do something better with your time.

In the meantime, the solution is customizing itself to you, not you to it.

This is what agentic AI feels like.

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Why Vendoroo Is Different

Here’s the thing: you can’t be anchored to the past while the future is being written.

Agentic AI isn’t fully scalable right now the way SaaS is.  It requires more operational load on our side, but offers our client the ability to truly replicate themselves, if we get it right.

Agentic AI will allow property managers to scale in ways that weren’t possible. 

And that’s what we’re here to do: solve the property manager’s toughest problems, not just build tools that look good on a dashboard. 

That’s why we’ve been investing in Agentic AI from day one—because we know it’s the only way to truly transform how property managers work.

Understand See the Future of Agentic Property Management For Yourself

2 things you can do:

BOOK A DEMO and let us build an agentic AI solution to eliminate 80-85% of your maintenance headaches.

JOIN US for the SFHPM 2030 Virtual Summit

Because you deserve solutions that work as hard—and as smart—as you do.

- Pablo Gonzalez
Chief Evangelist at Vendoroo