Texting Tenants is Mainstream in Much of the Multifamily Industry

DALLAS—Multifamily owners now have the convenience of a text messaging tool that connects directly with existing property management software platforms. A cloud-based SAAS platform with custom SMS/MMS solutions, IRIO, is partnering with RealPage Inc., provider of real estate software and data analytics. In this partnership, IRIO will provide RealPage clients with a texting solution integrated into RealPage’s platform.

IRIO joins RealPage’s list of partners as the only full-service text solution available on the platform. IRIO’s TextCommunity and Text-4-Info products offer solutions from the point of generating a lead to sending community messages via text.

“This is an exciting partnership because RealPage’s users will now be able to communicate through the entire lifecycle of a renter via a single provider,” said Taylor Davis, executive vice president of IRIO. “Historically, RealPage clients would have to seek out two or three different text messaging providers on the platform to get the same capabilities. But now, it’s all in one place.”

In this partnership, IRIO brings its experience in real estate text message communications, industry compliance and customization abilities to RealPage to support improved daily property management functions. IRIO’s integration into the platform allows users to streamline the steps to communicate with current or potential renters, eliminate bottlenecks in productivity, support sustainable growth and ultimately realize greater convenience.

“Currently on RealPage’s platform, there are other providers that offer an SMS tool though none specialize in it,” Davis tells GlobeSt.com. “And many others have tried to get into the real estate industry and quickly left because they didn’t have the knowledge, compliance understanding, resources or innovation to be able to customize to what different property managers need. For those that are within RealPage’s platform now, like KEY, these solutions only offer one type of communication, for example just renter communication or just lease renewal communication. Real estate is also IRIO’s specialty industry and we’ve been working in the space for years. Because of our existing knowledge and experience with the needs of the industry, we already know how and what property managers need in an SMS/MMS tool.”

Davis says IRIO can streamline the steps to communicate because it is the only provider on the platform now that has a patent-pending lead generation tool called Text-4-Info, two-way communication to engage the prospect, customizable programs for tenant/resident conversion, regular communication abilities for tenant/residents, and customizable programs and experiences leading up to lease renewal.

“Now that users can do this all under IRIO’s solution, it saves time/streamlines their efforts instead of creating flyers or emails or other forms of communication that only work 20% of the time vs. texts that have a 98% read rate,” Davis tells GlobeSt.com. “This is where the sustainable growth factor comes in–having an end-to-end solution like IRIO’s allows property managers to lessen the time it takes to do the work, so they can count more of the growth.”

According to Davis, as the multifamily industry has grown and advanced, it’s seen the requirement for integration grow as well.

“RealPage is one of the best property management software platforms in the industry,” said Davis. “We believe our focused products and niche specialty will help set RealPage apart from its competitors. In fact, we’ve already had RealPage users begin leveraging our solutions, and have gotten an overwhelmingly positive response from others we’ve spoken with.”

Another tech tool that is gaining traction for multifamily marketing is Instagram. According to the Pew Research Center, Instagram is popular with young urban professional women age 18 to 29 and draws a significant base of African American and Latinos. Those characteristics match extremely well with the demographics of renters as identified by the National Multi Housing Council. The NMHC reported that 57% of renters are younger than 30. In major US urban centers, apartments make up between 30 to 50% of the housing market. Single females are the most common household type for renters, representing 28% of renters.