RealPage COVID-19 Resource Center: Managing Rental Housing’s New Challenges

By closely monitoring and standing vigilant during these uncertain times brought on by COVID-19, RealPage is doing everything possible to provide clients, partners, employees and constituents effective ways to meet new, daily challenges in rental housing.

On March 10, RealPage activated its Enterprise Business Continuity Plan to address potential internal operational threats related to the coronavirus. The plan is designed to mitigate the impact of threats of losing facilities, staffing, technology and key vendors/suppliers that affect how we serve customers and provide solutions essential to property management operations.

In addition, RealPage is helping clients and the industry stay informed regarding the virus’ effect on multifamily, student, senior and other housing sectors while providing information critical to operations through the RealPage COVID-19 Resource Center. The Resource Center is filled with tips and best practices to protect your residents, prospects and teams, and offers ways to effectively conduct business amid tightening mandates regarding face-to-face interaction.

Tips and practices for conducting business remotely

Daily workflows in the rental housing industry are being restricted through social distancing. While inconvenient, the practice doesn’t have to bring operations to a halt. Technology has blessed the industry with ways to conduct day-to-day business like using immediate two-way communication between your staff and residents who are divided by location.

Among its many offerings, the Resource Center answers what can be done to minimize interaction between staff and prospects, whether hosting community tours or broadcasting critical information that residents need now. The Resource Center also provides insight on technology that helps leasing staff working remotely to manage incoming leads and critical calls. For maintenance teams, the resource page provides ways to share information between the field and back-office teams so that routine and urgent resident requests are easily manageable.

For onsite administrative staff who must work remotely, there are electronic solutions for managing vendor transactions—from purchase orders to payments with minimal physical handling—and technology, tools and systems needed to stay productive.

Staying abreast of COVID-19’s industry impact

The Resource Center also helps operators and property managers stay up to date on how COVID-19 is affecting occupancy, rent prices and other critical metrics in all rental housing sectors.

Throughout this crisis, RealPage’s top market analysts and leaders will host weekly on-demand webcasts that explore the immediate impact on rental housing operations. We will also provide updates on how the student, single-family and vacation rental housing markets are faring, as well as trickle-down effects on capital markets and new developments.  

The series kicked off with "COVID-19 Impact on Apartment Demand," hosted by Greg Willett, RealPage Chief Economist, and Jay Parsons, RealPage Vice President, Multifamily Optimization and Deputy Chief Economist. Also, Willett shares how apartment demand could be slowed in his article on RealPage’s Market Analytics blog.

Helping rental housing weather coronavirus

Enabling safe, remote interaction with residents, teammates and vendors so the rental housing business doesn’t miss a beat is a key priority as we confront and manage this new global challenge. One of the best defenses in times of crisis is reliable, accurate knowledge and understanding of how to move forward.