Smart Apartment Solutions: A Review by Dustin Lacey at Mark-Taylor

iApartments, innovator of enterprise-level smart apartment solutions, welcomes Dustin Lacey, Vice President of Marketing and Technology at Mark-Taylor Residential, for a 3 year post installation review of the iApartments system.

Watch Our 3 Year Post Installation Interview with Dustin Lacey

Get to know Mark-Taylor Residential

Mark-Taylor Residential ranks as the largest apartment developer in Arizona’s history, the second largest owner of rental communities in the state and is the investment managers to over 22,000 units.

iApartments’ smart home solution was installed into Mark-Taylor communities starting in 2021 as a operations solution to staffing challenges, the need create specialized roles and to meet the post-pandemic shift to self-service.

Smart tech solutions provide new efficiencies for property operations and leasing

Today, centralized teams have enabled Mark-Taylor to serve residents 1 personnel to 1500 residents’ ratio vs. the traditional 1 to 100 residents’ ratio. This has provided a pathway to payroll efficiency and performance improvement. Mark Taylor achieves cost savings and provides more efficient service to residents by sharing personnel between properties. “Smart lock access has enabled maintenance teams to shave off 10-15 minutes per unit access.” Across Mark-Taylor smart apartment communities, smart access has been used over 39,000 times over the past year, providing more than 246 hours of access efficiency per community.

As a keyless solution, teams no longer need to re-key and generate new keys for door locks. Now leasing can “turn units” more efficienctly. Data shows Mark Taylor communities are saving more than 2,500 hours in “unit turn” efficiency.

“Our collaberation with iAparments represents a pivital step within our strategic game-plan as we pioneer a centralized operations model that sets a new benchmark for resident service excellence.”

What types of smart home devices are installed?

iApartments smart apartment solutions includes:

1. Smart thermostat / Smart Hub
2. Smart water leak sensors
3. Smart lock (Yale, Kwikset or similar)
4. Resident smart home app
5. Management portal software

How do property management teams benefit from these smart devices?

Smart thermostats optimize energy usage, reducing utility costs. Smart locks streamline access control, improving security and convenience for both managers and tenants. Smart water leak sensors detect and alert to potential issues early, preventing costly damage and repairs. Smart automations help them reduce energy cost in vacant units, streamline the move-in/out process with smart lock access control, and detect water leaks and critial HVAC issues in resident units.

Together, these technologies enable more proactive and responsive property management, enhancing tenant satisfaction and operational effectiveness.

Maintenance teams receive automated alerts:

1. High humidity alerts
2. 24/7 water leak detection
3. HVAC system failures ( float switch or outage)

As a keyless solution, smart locks help turn units more efficienctly and improve the response time for staff when needing to access a unit, as opposed to managing hundreds of physical keys.

Self-guided tours has been a phenominal success at Mark-Taylor

SGT (self-guided tours) has enabled Mark Taylor to operationally transform their business. From a leasing prospective, “self-guided tours has been a fenominal aspect of Mark-Taylors shift to a centralized leasing model,” according to Dustin. “It has enabled immediacy for our Class-A prospects by giving them the ability to tour our communities on their schedule, not having to reconsile their personal schedule with our leasing team appointment schedule. It’s reduced the work load put on leasing teams and improved our ability to convert them from a lead to a resident at a Mark Taylor community.”

“Self-guided tours has saved our leasing teams almost 2,500 hrs in ‘in-person’ touring time and helped us realize our centralized leasing pivot.”

Offering smart home is a market differentiator

After extensive polling and surveying residents, Mark-Taylor concluded that smart technology is a differentiator in the decision around a new apartment to call home. “It’s a distinction, if don’t have it – they note it, but if you do have it, it become a value add, helping drive the ‘yes’ when deciding to live at one of our properties”

Read More on Smart Technology for Multifamily