Rentvine Raised $74M. Is That Good News For Property Managers? [5 Takeaways]

Everyone at NARPM Nationals walked away echoing the same thought-

“The vendor space has absolutely EXPLODED!” and no vendor had more action in their booth than Rentvine.

That’s no surprise to us with all the buzz they have generated in the industry, plus their eye-popping $74M fundraise.

That’s why I’ve been chasing Randall Henderson, COO of Rentvine, through the dance floors of Florida (seriously have you seen that man dance???), over the mountains of Utah, to pick his brain in Dallas about what it all means.

The conversation was worth the wait.  Here are the five main takeaways:

1. Property Management is Becoming BIG BUSINESS

With only 3% of single-family homes owned by institutions, property management is on the cusp of explosive growth as more investors rush into our asset class. 

Here’s why we think that: 

In the 1980s, 0% of multifamily homes were owned by an institution. 

By 2005, that number had ballooned to 75%

This same growth rate is coming for the SFH investment ecosystem (that’s us).

“We’re on the verge of a revolution” - Randall Henderson. 

This is good news! A growing market makes a lot of things easier for everyone.

More dollars will enter the market, more opportunities to be acquired, and more tech solutions to make your life easier. 

“We’ve already seen big players enter the space, which has put a lot of pressure on the management side, which has then attracted tools, technology, and different kinds of thinking.”

You’ll have the chance to pick how you want to run your business, and how far you want to take it.

From fully automated, to fully personalized, to everything in between- it’s your choice- but there is a new thing to worry about.

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2. It’s OUR Job to Show How Valuable Property Managers Truly Are

A growing market will attract more new comers into the property management space, and that means more competition from every direction, but here’s what the newcomers haven’t learned yet:

Property managers that can’t get past “the forever firefight”- spending too much time reacting to daily emergencies- tend to sell themselves as a commodity.  They take the work that comes their way and think they can just out-hussle the next guy (or worse, win on price). 

On the surface, you might think that our ability to put out fires is what will appear attractive to the owner.

And although that is crucial, the ability to PROVE YOUR VALUE is what stops owners from leaving you the moment that you miss a detail.

That’s why your ability to talk to owners and residents about how you prevent fires is your biggest advantage.

Or as Randall put it:

 “You can either be Smoky the Bear, or you can be a firefighter, right? And it's really hard to wake up every day and be a firefighter. You want to be Smoky.”

This is why we didn’t set out to build a maintenance software to manage the process.  We built a solution to take it off your plate, so your team can focus on building relationships.

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3. Gatekeeping is Dying—Open Source is the Future

The generational wealth transfer is completely changing who we serve.

The face of the customer is looking more and more like a millenial/gen z-er (native digitals)  with very different expectations than their Boomer/Gen X predecessors (native analogs).

Native analogs are willing to call you about something.  Native digitals only text.

Native analogs are willing to wait for responses. Native digitals expect instant answers.

Native analogs are willing to pick the best option.  Native digitals expect “a la carte service.”

That’s why Randall and Rentvine believe the way forward is through building tech that enables PM personalization. 

The “open source” mantra that Rentvine operates under is designed to allow you to pick and choose which tools you want to run your business.

“We let the property manager dictate what their stack looks like and what tech they need.” said Randall.

But, here’s something equally important: 

If you can’t change pieces of your tech stack without enduring massive pain, you’ll be stuck with old technology by this time next year… and that’s the fork the new PM in town uses to eat your lunch.

4. So Where Does AI Fit?

There is already two generations of AI in the market– generative and agentic

Generative AI is what we’ve all (hopefully you too) have started using with ChatGPT.  

You ask it to do something.  It does it.  You correct it.  It improves over time and gets faster and faster at answering your questions better.

But you still need to come up with the questions.. It’s like a genie with infinite wishes.

Agentic AI is different.  It is programmed and trained from the ground up to solve specific problems, check itself, improve, and think for itself.

It won’t stop learning until the job is done.  It’s like Agent Smith in the Matrix.

Open source property management software will allow you to plug these agentic AIs directly into your “Matrix” while closed softwares will, either:

• Force you to find a generative AI work around, or 
• Make you wait until they create one for you

🙈 (SPOILER ALERT - this is why we’re ecstatic to announce our new integration into Rentvine at the end of this newsletter!) 🙉

5. It’s Always Day 1

It’s pretty apparent that right now, there are 3 generations of solutions for SFH PM:

- the ones built for something else that also worked for you (SFHPM Friendly)

- the ones built just for you before AI took over the world (SFHPM Native)

- the ones built just for you and for an AI world (SFHPM/AI Native)

And here’s the rub:

If 1 business in your market figures out how to maximize the use of SFHPM/AI Native, they will break the frame of the capacity + performance - pain equation.

This will set a new expectation for pricing and quality in your market that you will inevitably have to accept while figuring out how to still make money. It’s the same thing that happened to cab companies when Uber.

If I was just starting a PM company, I’d be frothing at the mouth at my ability to take over my market to build my company with SFHPM/AI Native solutions., but many are just now coming to the market.

This means they’ll need SFHPM Native solutions with an “open source” mantra, like Rentvine, so they can plug and play their SFHPM/AI Native agents into it as the technology gets better.

REMEMBER-

• It wasn’t complacency that killed your local cab company, it was bias to previous success.

Translation-

• They held on to an old system for too long because they were too invested in it.

Randall’s Wants You To Avoid That Mistake: 

 “The choice is clear: evolve or risk falling behind,”

Stay Ahead with Rentvine x Vendoroo: BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

As the first ever SFHPM/AI Native solution that is built to eliminate maintenance for property managers, we couldn’t be happier to announce our official integration with Rentvine.

Once you connect, your work orders will immediately be put into Vendoroo where as soon as a work order comes in, you Agentic AI Powered Agent will:

• Triage/troubleshoot/diagnose the situation

• Automatically reach out to the appropriate vendor (or troubleshoot with the resident
• Coordinate all communications with residents and vendors until the work is done
• Upload all completed reporting into your Rentvine once the job is done

So you and your team can focus on what matters: building the relationships that most matter, instead of fighting through all the fires maintenance can spark.