Simplifying Move-Ins: Creating a Seamless Experience for Renters and Staff

RealPage^®’s 2024 National Renter Study has revealed that 90% of renters have experienced moving challenges. Top difficulties include juggling lease and move-in documents, setting up payments and tracking too many moving parts in a lengthy, complicated onboarding process. The overwhelming feedback from renters highlights a desire for three things to reduce moving stress: technology, simplicity and convenience.

Moving stress doesn’t just affect renters—it also impacts property management companies. When a renter experiences move-in challenges like tracking down move-in documents, it sets a negative tone in the resident-property manager relationship that typically

Another fact that should give property managers pause for concern is that onsite staff is stressed, too—often overburdened with complex move-in and move-out processes, including:

• Lengthy and complicated onboarding procedures
• Handling endless paperwork
• Processing insurance details and confirming coverage
• Managing pet information
• Limited resources to improve the resident experience
• Ensuring a consistent and compliant experience across multiple properties

This combination of renter and staff stress makes resident satisfaction and retention a formidable challenge. It drains community resources and threatens business continuity.

The solution? Technology that automates processes and puts resources at renters’ fingertips.

Enabling a Smooth Transition Impacts Resident Retention Rates

Today’s renters expect a seamless, all-in-one app experience for their entire rental journey. While they want the same modern-day convenience and simplicity experienced in every other aspect of their lives, much of the rental industry has not caught up with their expectations.

Today’s renters want a smooth transition into life in a new apartment community—and during their residency—powered by easy-to-use technology that allows them to apply, get screened, sign a lease, submit move-in documents, set up utilities and pay rent without the hassle, and eventually renew their lease.

After move-in, they want similar technology that delivers simplicity and convenience in their daily life in the community, with 97% of renters saying they would choose a property that delivered on five key expectations:

1. A loyalty program that offers points or rewards for on-time payments.
2. An all-in-one app that can power their end-to-end resident journey.
3. Special offers and discounts with local vendors.
4. Convenient rent payment options.
5. Flexible rent payment schedules (weekly, bi-weekly, etc.).

To paint a mental picture, consider your experience when purchasing on Amazon, where you’re given options to fit your purchasing, payment and shipping preferences. You can buy a quantity of one or buy in bulk at a lower price. You can buy once or get a discount for subscribing to auto ship, pay with your preferred payment method (credit card, debit card, checking account, gift card, etc.) or apply for Amazon credit. Then, Amazon provides shipping options to suit delivery speed preferences, including the ability to opt into Amazon Prime for even faster delivery. It’s all right at your fingertips on a single screen in the Amazon mobile app or website. The focus is on your preferences.

Shouldn’t a renter’s multifamily living experience work the same way? It should, and it could. But before we talk about that, let’s first dive deeper into the moving challenges that get the resident experience off to a less-than-ideal start

The Stress and Expense of Moving

For renters, moving is stressful and expensive (spending $6,483 on average). About half of the moving expenses are related to setting up the new apartment, paying for temporary storage, buying new furniture, and paying for the actual move (trucks, movers, boxes, etc.). Tracking down move-in documents, opening utility accounts, and packing/unpacking is time-consuming, which poses time-off challenges for renters. The cost of moving plus coordinating the move puts moving at the top of their stress list.

Traditionally, PMCs have attempted to create a smooth move-in experience for renters by working with vendors across the ecosystem, adding point solutions to their renter experience. However, while these approaches may have solved specific problems, they have also created a disjointed experience that has confused renters and PMCs struggling to manage vendor relationships.

After the renter signs the lease, there is often additional move-in stress, particularly if the multifamily community doesn’t have a comprehensive resident portal through which renters can easily pay rent, find a moving company, open utility accounts, report maintenance issues and submit service requests, reserve amenities, and more. Such a portal not only simplifies these tasks for renters—it also enables multifamily properties to deliver a better living experience.

While all these things can be manually accomplished, having to do so adds up to an unsatisfying resident experience. It should come as no surprise, then, that 94% of renters have moved in the last two years. In other words, finding an apartment community that meets renters’ experience preferences and expectations outweighs the financial and emotional stress they know they’ll endure if they move.

Innovating for a Better Move: The Role of Technology in Enhancing the Moving Experience

Moving is time-consuming and fraught with finding a new apartment, packing, arranging movers, signing a lease, moving in, setting up utilities, unpacking, and more. Innovative technologies that streamline the moving process can reduce the burden for renters and property management staff, leading to a more positive moving experience for everyone involved.

Resident features like digital checklists, mobile apps, ability to load documents, and a simple way of setting up internet and utilities allow renters to complete all necessary steps before they move in. At the same time, those tools help property management teams optimize operations through automating routine tasks.

This is such an important part of resident satisfaction that of renters say they’d be much more likely to choose a community that offers such a service.  

Delivering Personalized Onboarding and Community Engagement

We live in the age where personalization is not only appreciated but is also expected. Renters want personalized experiences in their apartment communities, much like what they experience in other aspects of their lives. This is underscored by a Forbes’ 2024 State of Customer Service and CX Study finding that 81% of customers prefer companies that offer a personalized experience, and a recent Zendesk finding that 73% of customers now say CX is the number-one thing they consider.

Amazon has set the gold standard for personalization and convenience to drive customer experience and loyalty. Property management companies can follow suit by providing renters with seamless, personalized onboarding experiences that meet these expectations.

Turning Renter Pain Points into Opportunities: The All-In-One App

An all-in-one app that streamlines the application, leasing, moving, payments and living experience can be a game-changer for renters and property managers. The app should include:

• A modern consumer experience that seamlessly connects the resident experience
• An AI assistant to guide renters through the application and leasing processes with 24/7 support.
• Tools to facilitate identity and income verification, reducing back-and-forth communication and ensuring faster approvals.
• A digital wallet for rent payments, a move-in checklist, and integrations with local vendors for utilities and moving services.
• A rewards program for on-time rent payments.

This technology is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity in today’s multifamily housing market. That’s because renters' feedback is clear: they want a seamless, stress-free moving and living experience powered by technology. By offering solutions that streamline leasing, moving, and day-to-day processes, property managers have the opportunity to turn renter pain points in to a competitive advantage. Doing so can significantly enhance resident satisfaction and retention.

This technology isn't just a nice-to-have anymore; it’s a critical component in modern property management. We call it LOFT™—an all-in-one app that simplifies the renter journey from application to move-in and beyond, designed to give residents and property managers the tools they need for a smooth, tech-enabled experience.

Learn more by visiting our LOFT web page.