Yes. Smart locks can be more convenient, efficient, and cost-effective than traditional locks for rentals. Your staff won’t have to manage physical keys, you won’t have rekeying costs, and residents enjoy a more modern lifestyle.

Smart locks are also critical for many other smart community upgrades, which is why many owners and operators invest in them early.

Incorporating smart locks in your apartment communities can make your team more efficient, reduce operating costs, and boost resident satisfaction. These benefits are the direct result of replacing traditional locks with smart locks in your apartment communities.

Minimal key management

Smart locks reduce the time your staff spends on key management. Instead of keeping track of a wall of keys that need to be handed to residents and maintenance staff, your team can remotely generate credentials like PIN codes and mobile access.

Smart locks that don’t rely on physical keys or key fobs can also virtually eliminate rekeying costs. Sure, residents can forget a PIN or lose their mobile phones, but generating replacement credentials is easy. Residents can even do it themselves with the SmartRent app.

Fewer repetitive tasks

Every site team has a list of relatively mindless tasks that keep your community running smoothly—like ensuring residents have credentials at move-in and maintenance staff can get into units that need repairs. But with smart locks, you can automate these tasks and take them off your site team’s plate completely.

Integrate smart locks with your PMS, and SmartRent will automatically send new residents credentials on move-in and revoke them upon move-out. Connect your smart locks with our Work Management app, and every work order will automatically contain credentials for the units that need attention.

More efficient leasing

Smart locks can decrease the time it takes to turn a unit by eliminating the need to rekey after each move-out. And instead of walking across the property to let prospects in and out of a unit, your leasing agents can focus on answering questions or creating personalized follow-up communications.

Because credentials are digital, you can even “show” units after hours by letting prospects tour your community on their own. Apartment hunters can check out the unit on their own schedule, which gets them to a decision much faster than waiting for the weekend or taking time away from work.

Better centralization

When staff aren’t onsite to manage and hand over keys, you have more opportunities to centralize your operations—which can lead to even greater efficiency and lower operating costs.

The key is combining smart locks with other proptech:

• Add self-guided tours and access control to reduce the need for leasing agents on site.
• Combine with mobile maintenance to help specialized technicians like plumbers and electricians service multiple local properties.
• Integrate with your PMS to automatically create a Community WiFi login alongside access credentials.

Smart home locks replace traditional keys with fobs or cards, but most don’t need a physical key at all. Conversely, a lockbox simply stores a key or key fob for a lock you already have.

Both smart home locks and lock boxes allow you to give someone access to a home without being on site. However, lockboxes add another step in the process and don’t eliminate rekeying costs like smart home locks can.