Five Key Areas to Cut Costs in Affordable Housing [eBook]

Only 35 Affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low income (ELI) renter households in the United States, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Affordable property owners and managers are tasked with meeting demand through limited resources, and they must exercise cost control to ensure operations are most efficient.

“As public funding sources come under threat − it becomes increasingly necessary to identify opportunities to lower the cost of providing affordable homes,” says the Urban Land Institute.

Technology helps Affordable Housing industry become more efficient

The challenges inherent to providing safe, quality Affordable Housing continue to require a continuous reassessment of costs. This enables communities to flourish and helps owners, operators and agencies cultivate their investments and fulfill their missions.

Industry experts say the performance data of thousands of portfolios reveals the top costs for Affordable properties are attributed to repair and maintenance, payroll and utilities. Across the board, community operations have been burdened by inefficient processes, less-than-cost-effective spending, neglected energy management and other overhead challenges.

But Affordable housing technology is playing an active role in helping property managers and owners provide more efficiently operated housing.

Because many of the owners and managers of Affordable properties pay for utilities consumed by their residents, utility management and performance tracking has become paramount to their operating success. Technology is available to accurately measure resident consumption data to support the adoption and advocacy of conservation and reduction measures.

Saving time and money through technology solutions 

Mobile technology is assisting with repair and maintenance so repair techs spend less time completing work order forms and return faulty equipment that may be adding unnecessary and wasteful costs back to efficient operation. 

Real-time visibility metrics are being used to reveal cost overruns before they escalate. Visibility into spending and the ability to compare against existing budgets in real time is helping properties achieve maximum savings. A spend management solution that provides this insight is making it easy to identify spend spikes, before they escalate.

Document management solutions are improving the certification process to avoid mistakes, oversights and inefficiencies that could result in penalties and lost tax credits. Not to mention cutting down on time and eliminating courier costs. According to a recent study, 51 percent of workers in traditional offices spend at least one hour per day searching for paper documents and 30 percent spend at least two hours per day engaged in the same task.

Realizing the successes of financial and revenue management

And, automated financial and revenue management is replacing manual spreadsheets to save time while offering perks like providing a layer of protection to the property and resident through electronic payments.

“I’ve seen the success revenue management can deliver to a (LIHTC) portfolio,” says Katherine Gibson, National Director of Marketing for McCormack Baron Management.

“Five Key Areas to Cut Costs, Best Practices for Affordable Housing,” details how Affordable property managers and owners can produce leaner operations that generate more value for residents and stakeholders. Download the eBook today!