20/20 Elevate the Vision - Rewired, the 32nd Annual National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM®) Convention & Trade Show took place in an entirely virtual space this year. For three days in October, single-family property managers gathered around their digital screens to digest innovative content, network with industry peers, and connect with vendor exhibitors from across the country. The successful conference included both live and recorded sessions, interactive Q&As, town hall meetings, and virtual happy hours that attendees were able to navigate with the click of a button.
PetScreening, 2018 NARPM Vendor of the Year, was one of nearly 50 vendors to participate in a virtual exhibition throughout the conference. Brian Birdy, professional property manager and Director of Education and Outreach at PetScreening, hosted a series of live discussions from PetScreening’s virtual booth focused on what a PropTech platform like PetScreening can do for property managers.
“Without the technology that is available today, property managers would have previously struggled to accomplish the same projects as 2020,” Brian shared during a live discussion.
Kellie Tollifson, MPM® RMP®, 2020 NARPM President and owner of T-Square Properties — a Washington based property management firm since 1996 — echoed this sentiment. “Imagine if I had these tools that are available today when we started…the pain points that we would not have experienced!”
Other topics that were up for discussion at the PetScreening virtual booth included an analysis of HUD’s 2020 Assistance Animal Notice; the differences between pets, service animals, and support animals; how to effectively drop breed and weight restrictions from pet policies; and methods to generate new pet-related revenue streams. The following example illustrates just how much additional revenue property managers could potentially earn by using PetScreening’s FIDO Score to set tiered pet fee amounts.
Example:
You manage 50 properties that are pet occupied. Each of these properties is charged with pet rent of $40/month, giving you $24,000 annual revenue in pet fees.
But, under a tiered pet fee format based on the PetScreening FIDO Score that is represented on a 1-paw (high risk) to 5-paw (low risk) scale, your annual pet fee revenue could increase significantly.
Tiered Pet Fee Pricing
*approximately 80% of pets screened receive between a 1-3 paw rating.
So, say the pets in your 50 properties received the following FIDO Scores:
1-paw=10 pets; 2-paw=10 pets; 3-paw=20 pets; 4-paw=5 pets; 5-paw=5 pets
Total: $30,900 per year
(That’s a 29% increase in annual pet revenue.)
PetScreening uses the FIDO Score to represent the level of risk a property manager may undertake when renting to an individual pet and its owner. Animal behavior, pet ownership care, vaccination history, type of animal, weight and breed are all factors considered in the results. It’s important to note that PetScreening is completely web-based and offers its services free of charge to property managers, making that additional pet-related revenue pure profit.
“As I share the power of this technology and new revenue streams, I think about how much money I left on the table as a property manager because I didn't have these digital tools at my fingertips,” Brian said. “Pets are a growing population in property management, and property managers who implement digital processes now to handle the growth are going to be more successful in the future. Managing pets through technology while generating new revenue opportunities is a win-win in my book.”
