ICYMI: CJ Edmonds Discusses Smart Home Industry Trends and Predictions

By: Marissa Cohen

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SmartRent’s Chief Revenue Officer, CJ Edmonds was recently interviewed for G5 Partner Insights. In case you missed this informative session, we are recapping some of the highlights and key takeaways or you can view the full session below.

Looking Toward the Future
Contactless solutions will continue to be a major area of improvement for most communities. Owners and operators need to seriously consider how they will accommodate access to commonly-used amenity spaces and entry points to be the safest possible for their residents.

Additionally, many people will continue to work from home indefinitely and they’re looking to upgrade their living space. In fact, we are pleased to report that some of our SmartRent residents have indicated that the smart home upgrades have been a real-game changer while being quarantined at home. Which also presents the idea of reinvesting in your community; by implementing smart home solutions, owners and operators can keep residents satisfied and retain leases year after year.

Addressing Blind Spots in the Market

Engaging with residents is paramount to a community’s retention strategy. Beyond that, communities would be smart to consider using smart home devices as concessions. It’s beneficial two-fold, in that it gets your residents excited about their new smart home technology and it’s more affordable than offering the typical first month of free rent.

Industry Trends

Something that every organization needs to be thinking about is data security and privacy. It’s paramount that resident data is kept safe and not compromised. “You need to be asking all the right questions,” said CJ. “Make sure you know who owns the data and for how long it stays live. You must protect your community against a data breach.”

The Latest with SmartRent

While this year has been anything but predictable, SmartRent has made progress on developing new solutions and providing tools that solve industry pain points for our clients.

Self-guided tours have been our most popular solution this year because it’s something that industry desperately needs. In the last 60 days we’ve had over 1,600 communities use our Self-Guided Tours solution.

36% of the tours completed were done via the “schedule now” feature. This has helped marketers and operators to provide an immediate response to prospective residents. Prospects are able to scan a QR code and upon approval can tour almost immediately. This allows lead capture to occur instantaneously. Once the tour is completed, the data is synced into the community’s property management system.

Some communities have been able to underwrite their entire investment in SmartRent with insurance savings and asset protection they have received as a result of leak detection software. Water leaks can cost a property anywhere from $2,000-$10,000 per leak. With leak detection hardware in place, SmartRent can immediately alert maintenance staff and prevent extensive damage.

You can view the full video, or reach out to us and request a demo!