Last week I wrote about the value of keyless entry systems. The analysis highlighted the pros and cons of enabling owners to go keyless. The main con cited by industry sources tends to center on the disintermediation of property managers as the point of key exchange. The basic conclusion is, “keyless entry is one more reason to incentivize owners to migrate to independent management”.

Although this is a respectable concern, we wanted to highlight data points that suggest keyless entry will not motivate rent-by-owner migration.

In a recent FlipKey study, we surveyed 22 owners who currently use property managers. The sample size is limiting, but provides some solid directional findings in their motivations to use a property manager.

Key findings:

• The primary value owners see in property management is convenience. Property management allows the owner to effortlessly collect additional income, without having to worry about marketing, maintenance or cleaning logistics.
• Key exchange is a secondary motivation.
• Focusing your service messaging on convenience is the most effective message. If enabling your owners to become ‘keyless’ supports that message, you can position it as an added benefit.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 10:10 am and is filed under Market Statistics, Property Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.