8 practical use cases for AI in property management that you can try today

Property managers are under pressure to do more with less. AI won’t solve everything, but the right tools can cut down on busywork, streamline your operations, and keep residents satisfied. In this article, we’ll show you how to start putting AI to work in your day-to-day workflows today.

What Is AI in Property Management?

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to computer systems that can simulate human intelligence by performing complex tasks like learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and recognizing patterns.

In property management, these abilities are used to optimize workflows that would otherwise take longer. For example, property managers can now use natural-language processing chatbots to resolve common tenant issues, machine learning algorithms to predict maintenance issues, and computer vision to offer virtual tours to rental applicants.

In just a few years, the property management industry has evolved from spreadsheets and basic software to cloud platforms—and now to AI-powered tools such as Buildium that help teams work smarter and more proactively than ever.

Benefits of AI in Property Management

From cutting costs to improving the resident experience, here’s where AI is already moving the needle:

• Increased Operational Efficiency: AI lets you automate repetitive tasks like accounting, scheduling, and responding to common tenant questions, so you have more time for higher-leverage tasks like securing new clients and expanding into new markets.
• Enhanced Tenant Experience: Unlike human customer support agents, AI chatbots never get tired. They can handle multiple conversations, 24/7. This leads to faster response times and increased availability for tenants.
• Cost Reduction: AI can reduce labor costs by aiding or replacing staff who perform repetitive tasks. Plus, AI can help you catch maintenance issues early to reduce repair costs and optimize utility use to lower energy costs.
• Improved Decision Making: Whether it’s tracking tenant behavior, maintenance patterns, or market trends, AI can give you deep operational insights that can help you make better business decisions.

Challenges and Limitations of AI in Property Management

Before you roll out any new tech, it’s worth knowing where AI falls short—and where human judgment still matters most:

• Data Privacy Concerns: AI systems rely on copious amounts of property and tenant data to make useful predictions. However, you must be careful not to violate any data privacy laws or fair housing regulations that protect tenants from discrimination.
• Implementation Costs: Despite the long-term cost savings, implementing AI can be expensive upfront. But with comprehensive property management software like Buildium, you can get pre-built AI features and third-party AI integrations that lower the barrier to entry.
• Balancing AI and Human Involvement: Ultimately, many tenants and rental owners still want to have personal interactions with real humans. If you automate too much, you could end up losing business.

Practical Use Cases for AI in Property Management

Now let’s get tactical—here are 8 real-world ways property managers are putting AI to work today:

1. Automated Accounting

Instead of following tedious accounting workflows, use AI to automatically categorize transactions, track expenses, and create financial reports on your behalf.

For example, Buildium Marketplace partner Clyr lets you capture and upload receipts for property-related expenses and automatically categorizes them. It’ll even remind you to upload missing receipts to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. From there, you can get real-time insight into your properties with AI-generated financial dashboards and reports.

Similarly, Buildium lets you set up automated payments for recurring expenses, seamlessly turn work orders into bills, and reconcile bank accounts. In the long run, these AI-powered accounting features can save you a lot of time while reducing human errors.

2. Communicating with Residents

As a property manager, responding to tenants is a big part of your job. But not all requests need to be handled by you or your team personally. Many can be handled by an AI chatbot.

For example, Buildium Marketplace partner STAN AI can respond to calls, texts, emails, and chats 24/7 to help residents book amenities, submit maintenance requests, report policy violations, and more. Of course, if a tenant wants to speak to a human, they can. But most just want their issue resolved, and an AI chatbot can often respond faster and at scale.

Pro tip: You can also use generative AI tools to spin up emails, text alerts, and other kinds of tenant communication quickly. This works best with several key types of content that we cover in more detail here.

3. Virtual Tour and Property Viewing

Most people shop for rentals on sites such as Zillow and Apartments.com. After browsing listing photos, they might schedule a tour to check out the property in person.

With AI-powered virtual tours, however, prospective tenants can experience remotely what it would be like to live there. They can navigate the space digitally by clicking through 3D room renderings and rotating within them. AI can enhance this experience by simulating different types of lighting or even staging the space with custom virtual furniture and decorations.  It’s a great way to speed up leasing cycles and expand your pool of potential tenants.

4. Predictive Maintenance

All properties suffer wear and tear over time, making repairs inevitable. However, if you wait for a maintenance request to come in, chances are the worst of the damage is already done.

To minimize repair costs, invest in AI that can forecast when HVAC, roofing, plumbing, and other systems need attention. Paired with the right occupancy and usage data, AI models can determine the optimal time for maintenance to avoid larger repairs. It can even automate work order scheduling to keep everything running smoothly.

Pro tip: Use Buildium’s maintenance request management features to stay on top of work orders and keep tenants updated. 

5. Lease Management Automation

Managing leases and lease renewals can be challenging, especially as your portfolio grows. If you’re not careful, these documents can turn into mounds of disorganized paperwork.

Fortunately, AI can read and extract critical information from leases for you in seconds. That way, you don’t have to comb through every document yourself. For example, you can have AI pick out lease expiration and renewal dates and alert you as they draw near. This helps minimize turnovers and ensures tenants always have an active lease in place.

Need to write a lease from scratch? Generative AI models such as ChatGPT can help you draft one. Just make sure you still have a legal professional review the final version. Another great way to find lease agreement templates is right here on Buildium’s site.

6. Energy Efficiency and Smart Building Technologies

Rental ROI is tied to property expenses. The less it costs to operate a rental, the higher the return for the owner (and, by extension, you as the property manager).

With AI-powered smart devices, you can track and automatically adjust HVAC, lighting, and other utility usage. For example, smart thermostats for common areas can respond to outside temperatures, and smart lighting fixtures can turn on and off based on sunlight levels.

This lowers your energy costs by avoiding unnecessary utility use, such as blasting the air conditioning when it’s already cool or leaving lights on during the day.

7. Optimizing Rental Rates

Setting rental rates can be a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, you want to set them high enough that you don’t leave money on the table. On the other hand, you want to set them low enough that you don’t price out potential tenants and end up with too many vacancies.

To hit the sweet spot, use AI to analyze real-time rental market data. For example, Buildium Marketplace partner Beekin gives you rent estimates on apartments, single-family homes, and condos based on 15+ million rental units. All you have to do is provide basic property information like address, property type, square feet, and number of bedrooms and bathrooms. From there, Beekin will generate a rental price range for optimal returns. Just remember to remain fair and unbiased when setting rent based on the intel you gather with the help of AI-powered tools.

8. Simplifying the Rental Listing Process

Creating and promoting rental listings takes time, especially when you’re managing multiple units. But with AI, you can automate much of the listing process to fill units faster.

For example, instead of writing listing descriptions from scratch, supply generative AI models with basic property details and have them write compelling ads that you can tweak. Then add some high-quality photos. With Buildium, you can also syndicate the listing across all the major rental marketplaces with a single click.

How to Start Using AI in Property Management Today

Whether you’re testing the waters or going all-in, these tips will help you start using AI in a way that fits your business:

• Assess your current tech stack. What property management software do you use now? And which AI tools can most easily integrate with it?
• Consider a platform with built-in AI features. Comprehensive property management software like Buildium makes it easy to try a wide range of AI integrations.
• Start small and scale. Begin with one AI use case, such as automating accounting or adding a customer support chatbot. Then build from there.

Getting started with AI doesn’t have to mean reinventing your entire business. With tools already built into platforms such Buildium—and integrations such as Clyr, STAN AI, and more—you can start small and see real results fast. Ready to see how it works? Start your 14-day free trial or schedule a live demo with a platform expert.