What Owners Always Wanted That You Couldn’t Promise — Until Now.

You Can Finally Match Owners' Expectations in the PM Trends Report.

🎧 Listen to the Audio Version

It starts the same way every time.

An owner calls again.
A resident wants more, again.
A team member burns out again.

You’re solving the same problems, answering the same questions, defending the same decisions (on repeat).

And despite the grind, the good intentions, the heroic effort-

The inbox keeps overflowing.

The trust keeps slipping.

And your time? Gone.

Just… gone.

Imagine a firefighter trained to put out blazes, but instead of a hose, they’re handed a water pistol.

Now, imagine people blaming them when the house burns down.

That’s property management in a nutshell: you're held accountable with tools built for 2015 and expectations calibrated for sainthood.

Until now, the only logical response was to build flow charts, implement processes, and draw very clear boundaries around what you WON’T do.

It doesn’t necessarily match your owners’ desires.  It doesn’t necessarily match tenant expectations.  

But hey…

at least it has allowed you to say you gave them what you promised.

It’s not a communication problem.

It’s been a structural trap.

That’s what 2024’s Property Management Trends Report made impossible to ignore.

The good news is that it’s no longer 2024, the power of AI doubles 4x faster than computing power has for the last 30 years, and we’re starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel of disconnect between what the market wants from you, and what you’ll feel comfortable offering.

But we can’t connect the dots before we understand them.

What Owners Really Expect And Why You’re Set Up to Disappoint Them

Owners aren’t vague about what they want.

They’re clear.

They’re consistent.

And they’re done waiting.

The numbers are loud and clear:

According to the 2024 Property Management Trends Report:

• 72% of owners now expect repairs to be completed in 3 days or less.
• 73% expect to hear back on the same day they ask anything.
• Nearly half expect a response within just a few hours.
• Almost 2/3ds also want to remain involved in day-to-day decisions, but not at the cost of their own time or peace of mind.
• 66% list maintenance and tenant communication as one of their top challenges.

That chart says it all:

What PMs work hardest at (maintenance coordination and communication) is exactly where owners say things are still falling short.

But here’s the twist: these aren’t “unreasonable” expectations.

They reflect a broader shift toward a vision of management that’s fast, transparent, and personalized.

But if it’s so clear, why are property managers still struggling to deliver?

Not because they don’t care.
But because the job was never built to match the modern ask.

When communication and maintenance are the two biggest pain points…
And they’re also the most thankless, chaotic, labor-intensive parts of the job…

You’re not just managing properties…

you’re firefighting blindfolded.

And so, PMs have responded the only way they could:
By creating processes (flowcharts, boundaries, systems), just to keep the wheels on.
Not because that’s what owners wanted.
But because it’s the only way the team wouldn’t burn out.

Because without those walls, each exception feels like a fire drill.
Every preference becomes a liability. Every request pulls the thread on the whole operation.

This is what made maintenance coordination, response times, and personalization seemingly impossible to solve for scattered-site, single-family home property managers.

But the most forward-thinking CEOs have agreed:

“With AI, what seemed impossible will be the new hard (and the now hard will be easy).”

This is why truly native AI companies will pick the hardest problems to solve first, unlike the SaaS approach of solving the easiest problems one at a time.

Because making the impossible possible is where exponential value is created.

And there is no bigger value that can be created in this industry than helping property managers be valued appropriately.

The "Invisibility Trap": Why Property Managers Struggle

Let’s be honest about what it takes to run property management the traditional way.

Property managers aren’t failing in the stats because they’re careless.

They’re stuck in what we call the invisibility trap (the exhausting blur of tasks no one sees but everyone judges them for).

Take what looks like a “simple” maintenance request.

Behind the curtain, it kicks off a chain reaction: triage the issue, diagnose it, reach out to vendors, cross-check availability, compare pricing, chase down owner approval, schedule the job, log the work, follow up, and re-confirm completion.

And that’s if everything goes smoothly, which, let’s be real, it rarely does.

Now zoom out.

One email from an owner can cost you an hour.

That’s an hour retracing steps across inboxes, PDFs, Slack threads, and mental sticky notes. And that’s just to answer one thing.

The problem isn’t your team’s effort.

It’s the invisible complexity.

The fact that every unit, every owner, and every resident has their own unique preferences, histories, and expectations (most undocumented).

You face an impossible choice:

• Protect yourself with rigid processes and welcome the churn (and arguments) that come from unmet desires of your clients
• Build a business that will burn you (and everyone that works for you) out

It’s no wonder it just wears people down.

But an agentic AI approach to property management can break that mold.

With agentic AI, context is automatic, action is instant, and infinite personalization is easily orchestrated..

We’ve had a couple of “AHA!” moments behind the scenes at Vendoroo that are starting to paint a picture of what that can look like.

It starts with faster answers.

The Real Fix for Response Time

According to the PM Trends Report, 92% of owners expect a response within a day.

And over half want it within the hour.

In the old PM system, meeting that expectation meant a scramble.

When a question comes in from an owner, “Did we approve that HVAC replacement?”, the answer might be buried in a Slack thread, a PDF lease, a vendor email, or someone’s memory of a meeting two months ago.

Even with great systems, it meant a work order dive that could take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, while offering the same promise: “Let me get back to you.”

And in that delay, trust quietly eroded.

Now contrast that with what’s possible today.

Instead of relying on memory, notes, or a teammate who might know, an AI agent with access to all your channels instantly recalls what was said, what was decided, and what’s already in motion. It surfaces the lease provisions, the approval trail, and the latest vendor update - not in hours, but seconds,,, and can understand sentiment.

It’s the difference between searching for an answer…

and being given one in full context.

Think of it like this:
Old workflows feel like Googling your own operations.
This is more like having a GPT that already knows your portfolio, your owners, your vendors, your SOPs  and answers in a way that makes sense.

That’s the fix.

Response time isn’t just faster. It’s smarter.
It’s available 24/7, and doesn't just know the answer, but why it matters.

Combine that capacity with an AI voice line that is taking ten 15-minute calls off your plate PER DAY, and we can start to see a world where you can answer owner and tenant question in an hour.

But “hard” was made easy last quarter.  The newly possible is the ability to give owners control.

What Giving Owners Control Looks Like Now

Owners don’t want to micromanage.

But they do want to feel like their properties are being run the way they’d run them with nuance, context, and care.

Traditionally, that’s a hard line to walk when you’re managing 300 doors for 100 clients.

Remembering the quirks, rules, and preferences for every property, resident, and owner?

Nearly impossible. And that means even loyal, long-term, or vulnerable residents often received generic treatment by default.

The only way to preserve consistency was to standardize policies across every unit.

No exceptions.

Everyone got the same treatment, not because it was best, but because it was manageable.

Then this week, we saw the light turn on.  A property manager was reviewing an AI-powered interaction - a simple QC of a maintenance request.

When she realized the resident was an elderly, long-time tenant, she thought,

“Why would I bother even troubleshooting here? I should just send a vendor every time.”

Before, that request could’ve lived on a sticky note.  Maybe it wouldn’t have even made it out of her head.  At best, it could be a line in an already full field of property notes..

But this time, she realized the AI could just remember it.

Plus, she didn’t have to set a reminder, write a new SOP, or explain the history to a new team member.

She just had to prompt the AI to treat this resident this way from here on out.

In real time, that became the new way this tenant would be treated going forward..

That level of attention (that kind of contextual care) is what owners think they can ask you to do (and can make them pissy when you won’t).

And here it was- requested, implemented, and handled going forward.

This is the part where AI conversation shifts from “what can be automated?” to “how can I bring the most value?”

It’s what lets owners stay involved without needing to be in the weeds.
If they believe your team will act on their values, their preferences, and their standards, they won’t leave you for someone else.

This is what shifts the dynamic.
Because empowering owners isn’t about sending more updates or asking for more approvals.

It’s about letting them trust that their intent will be carried out, even when they’re not looking.

But investor control preference is the least measurable stat for you in that Trends Report.  Work order duration is an entirely different manner.

Instant Resolution Becomes the New Normal

Maintenance.

It's the #1 reason owners hire property managers.

And, according to the 2024 PM Trends Report, it’s also the number one reason they get frustrated.

The data says it all: 72% of owners now expect repairs to be completed in 3 days or less.  But 41% still cite maintenance as their single biggest pain point, followed closely by tenant communication.

That’s not because repairs aren’t happening.

It’s because the resolution process feels like a relay race with mismatched runners.

Your maintenance coordinator needs the tenant to check a few things before creating a work order →

Your tenant is at their 9-5 inflexible jobs, calling on his lunch break→

A work order gets created with incomplete information →

The vendor shows up and realizes they didn’t need to be there →

The owner pays more than they should →

The vendor loses trust in your team.

So, unless the maintenance coordinator can be available to triage and troubleshoot in perfect sync with the tenant’s schedule, things stall.

Then, what should’ve been a routine repair suddenly becomes a litmus test for whether the PM is “doing their job.”

This is not new.

Every property manager knows the feeling: a resident claims an issue

Now, imagine solving the problem before it starts.

A resident comes home at 10 p.m. and finds her dryer broken. Normally, she’d wait until morning to report it.

Then wait again for someone to respond.

Then play phone tag to find a time that works.

By the time it’s fixed, days…

even a week might’ve passed.

But if she’s talking to an AI agent, the fix starts at 10:01 p.m.

The resident texts in. The AI responds immediately, guiding her step-by-step, instantly triaging, and troubleshooting (like a 24/7 teammate). Not with generic advice, but based on her unit, her appliance model, and her maintenance history.

And within minutes, the machine was back up and running (or a clear diagnosis was recorded).

That kind of availability (showing up exactly when needed) is the key to hitting those lightning-fast expectations owners now demand.

No bottlenecks…

No escalation.

The AI schedules the vendor visit, prepares the work order, and notifies the owner (automatically).

These are the types of interactions we are starting to see stand out inside our system.

The next morning, you don’t start your day in a backlog of emergencies.

You start with clarity: a dashboard showing what was resolved, what’s queued, and which vendors need to be sent out. This is where Agentic AI changes the limitations and expectations in property management.

Reducing work order duration isn’t just about being fast, it’s about being available.  And AI is available 24/7, 7 days a week.

In 2024, the gap between expected and actual repair times felt impossible to overcome. Now, in 2025, with agentic AI, that 3-day expectation just feels hard..

And more than anything, it’s the power to imagine this as a new kind of promise you can make:

“Text us anytime. We’re on it even at 10 p.m.”
While others are still signing off at 5.

Because when the system works like this, you're not just meeting expectations…
You’re resetting them.

Just THINK about that type of messaging in your marketing and sales calls.

Now think about competing against someone saying that.

This is a major advantage (for now).

Now You Can Finally Say YES!

For too long, property managers have had to say “NO.”

Now, when an owner asks:

“Can I get a faster answer?”, “Can we handle this after hours?”
“Can you make sure to do this ONE THING for me?”, “Can I trust it’s all being taken care of?”

You don’t have to explain, apologize, or scramble.

You now have a way to say “YES!”

And do it all with your standards, your sanity, and your team intact.

The old system demanded: draw a line between what’s promised and what’s possible… and never cross it.

Now, that line is gone. This isn’t theoretical anymore.

It’s happening.

We're finally solving the hardest, most defining challenge in property management — maintenance — with a system that gets smarter the more you use it, not heavier.

And what’s striking is how few have seen it.

Most PMs are still stuck in “it’ll never scale” mode: adjusting expectations downward, assuming these kinds of wins are only possible if you shrink your portfolio or hire more staff.

Other managers are already running 24/7, delivering concierge-level service, making data-driven decisions on the fly…
And they’re doing it with less effort, not more.

They’ve stopped waiting for AI to catch up to their business (because their business is already moving forward with it).

This is the early-mover advantage.

While the rest of the industry is still marketing “no news is good news,”
you could be promoting faster fixes, smarter service, and personalized operations — at scale.

That’s the biggest brand upgrade property managers have seen in decades.

You don’t have to justify delays.
You don’t have to walk owners through the complexity.
You don’t have to hide behind policies built for capacity instead of care.

Now, you get to say YES without sacrificing anything.

You’re not here to hold the line. You’re here to move it.

At Vendoroo, we didn’t just choose to solve the hardest problem first because we’re an AI first company.

We’re an AI first company because it’s the way to create transformational outcomes for you.

If you are a client that hasn’t reached this level of operation with our AI, or someone who took a demo last quarter and wasn’t convinced, shoot me an email.

We’re hosting many different cohort demos for clients to get up to speed with the latest capabilities, and webinars for those of you who want to check it out without being in a demo.

Just reach out, and I’ll set you up.

Pablo Gonzalez,

Chief Evangelist at Vendoroo

‍