Resident portals goods and bads

We are a two building community (400+ units) and have been approached by a couple of companies that offer resident portal systems. I see how it can increase our staff's efficiency (I can only understand it in a non-tangible way) and provide convenience and sense of community to our residents.

I wanted to ask any of you who has already deployed such systems or thinking about them if you can provide the the main reasons that convinced you of their business case, and also any good or bad experience you've had with your system so far. Your input is greatly apprciated.

--Mass

Without knowing your property, it is hard to say where the value would be in having a portal. In general, though, a resident's satisfaction is centered on how quickly management takes care of maintenance concerns. A portal will make is easy for both the resident to send a request at their leisure, and for the office to get it and complete in a timely fashion.

Some portals have internal "facebook-like" pages that help to create a sense of community. There is one that has this kind of page for pets. It helps with retention.

There are some companies that make this process very easy, and others that are very cumbersome. If you might share what kind of services your property has and what you resident profile is, you might get more complete answers. In general, a portal that is easy to use, attractive looking, does not feel like technology to the resident is a good idea to implement. After you share some more information (do you have a front desk/concierge, do you have a large staff, do you cater to high-end or low/mod, etc), I am sure members of our "tribe" will be happy to help you. (this multifamily insiders place is really great)

We had many reasons for doing ours and the biggest was office efficiency. If you have a portal that takes payments. Money goes directly into your account...no more 2-3 hours for a manager to key it in then do the deposit slip then drive to the bank. Work orders usually can be entered from the portal going right into the system saving the leasing staff time.....thing about it this way the less time they are spending on bank deposits and data entry for deposits and work orders is more time they can spend with your traffic or your current residents which means better resident retention and better leasing numbers

It all depends on what you are trying to get out of the portal. Many just are a login in based platform where residents can pay rent online and submit service requests in a private forum.

At J.C. Hart we have a private login, but it's fronted using a community blog that helps our SEO efforts for search and to communicate news with our residents. We use this platform as the foundation for our social media efforts. Because of the way we've built it, any type of payments and service request backend can be used with it. We currently use the services Realpage offers.

If you would like for me to help you put something like this together I have created a company, The Resident Connection, to do so. Let me know.

Thanks guys for your thoughts.

Our property is a relatively high-end community with the following amenities:

- Valet parking
- reservable Tennis court
- Swimming pool
- Gym

We have onsite maintenance staff who take care of around 80% of WOs, and most of the preventive stuff. The other 20% goes to outsourced suppliers.

We have a mail-office which delivers packages to each resident, once they are delivered by the courier service.

We have a security desk at each lobby, who they also act as concierge for answering resident questions, calling for taxi, etc.

Our demography is un-evenly divided:

1. Young single professional 40%
2. Post retirement mature residents 40%
2. Others 20%

What I'm trying to gather is, weather I can come up with a more tangible business case for the investment, and to justify the CAPEX and OPEX that it requires. The couple of companies who have approached us, are not cheap. They are asking for a setup fee, monthly fee which is proportional to the number of units, and also we have to cover the tab for all the hardware that the system needs.

So I'm trying to see if there are angles that that I can look at for a business case that is a bit beyond touchy feely, and more on the ROI side.

Any insights is appreciated.

Mass