Offer Contactless Tours With Swiftlane

Self-guided touring is quickly becoming the most convenient way to show apartment buildings. While more convenient and flexible, they have also been shown to increase lease conversions by 86% versus tours escorted by property staff. 

Swiftlane Video Intercom offers a convenient, secure way for property managers to provide their prospective renters with contactless, self-guided apartment tours in order to:

• Provide secure, temporary access to properties for prospective renters
• Eliminate long commutes to show their vacant units
• Avoid touring schedule conflicts and limited touring hours
• Increase site visit frequency to win more tenants
• Scale their property management business 

The Problem With Modern Apartment Touring 

In-person apartment touring is an inefficient and time-consuming process for property managers. A limited capacity to be onsite at their property means a disadvantage to renting their vacant units and a major barrier to scaling their business. Likewise, prospective renters are also busy and finding a time to coordinate the showing can take days. This can leave renters disinterested and give them a window to find another unit to rent. 

Improve Renting With Contactless Tours From Swiftlane

According to data from the NMHC’s OpTech Conference & Exposition, self-guided apartment tours increase lease conversions by 86% versus those escorted by property staff. With Swiftlane Video Intercom and Access Control, property managers can easily facilitate contactless, self-guided tours for prospective tenants in order to sign leases faster and reduce the amount of time a unit sits vacant. Additionally, Swiftlane offers the most convenient solutions for contactless touring by: 

• Ensuring building security
• Cutting down on site visits
• Saving time on coordinating schedules
• Providing flexible scheduling for prospective renters

Ensuring Building Security

Swiftane Video Intercom and Access Control allows property managers to generate single-use PIN codes. These PIN codes expire after 5 minutes of initial use and can be given out via text, phone call, or email. PIN codes can also be scheduled to grant access during any period of time determined by the property manager. This ensures the highest level of security for the apartment building and its tenants. Finally, Swiftlane captures and stores photo of access events so that property managers have the highest level of visibility to who accessed the building and when. 

Cutting Down On Site Visits

Property managers handle a large number of buildings spread over many locations. Property managers have to visit their buildings for a variety of issues. Cutting back the necessity to make frequent building visits in order to conduct showings and tours saves them a tremendous amount of time and overhead. 

Swiflane allows property managers to generate and issue unique PIN codes remotely so that they never have to visit the apartment building to conduct a tour. A unique PIN code can be generated through the admin dashboard or the mobile app, and scheduled to cater to the prospective tenant’s schedule. The prospect can then use the code to access the apartment building and take their self-guided tour. The PIN will expire keeping the building secure, all without the need for the property manager to visit the building. 

Saving Time On Coordinating Schedules

Property managers are busy, but so are prospective tenants. Finding free time for both parties to meet and tour the building can take days. Which is why traditional apartment touring is so hard to coordinate. 

With Swiftlane, neither the property manager nor renter has to be restricted by scheduling conflicts. Prospective renters can give their availability, and property managers can generate a secure, single-use PIN code during that time. The renter can then gain access to the apartment building using the code to take a self-guided tour for the allotted time. The property manager generates this code from the admin dashboard remotely and does not have to make a trip to the property. 

Flexible Scheduling For Renters

As we mentioned, people are busy. Renters want to be able to tour an apartment building according to their schedule. Contactless, self-guided tours with Swiftlane give prospective tenants the opportunity to create their own schedule. Property managers will remotely schedule and share a PIN code at the time the renter wants to see the apartment building.  

How Swiftlane Contactless Tours Work

In order to run a contactless, self-guided tour, prospective renters need access to the common area and to the individual unit itself. Using Swiftlane for common area security can be combined with individual unit smart locks, lock boxes with keys to the unit, or pin pads for the most seamless apartment touring experience. 

How to Create a Contactless Tour with Swiftlane

1. Navigate to the Swiftlane Intercom dashboard or mobile app to generate a new PIN code. 

2. Generate a unique single-use PIN code. To create this pass code, fill in the details of the contactless tour and designate the appropriate door for which access should be granted. Then, schedule the PIN to grant access during the time the prospective renter would like to tour the apartment. Scheduling and restricting time windows ensures access to the building is not leaked. 

3. Send this unique PIN to the prospective renter to gain access to the main entrance. The PIN code, unlike a QR code, can be shared with anyone over text, phone call, or via email. 

4. Grant secure access to prospective tenants. Once a prospect has arrived for their self-guided tour, they will use their unique PIN code in Swiftlane’s touchscreen interface to access the apartment building and be able to conduct a tour at their convenience. 

5. Enjoy touring the apartment building at your own pace!

Benefits of Swiftlane Contactless Tours

Swiftlane’s contactless tour solution has unique value for property managers that goes beyond traditional apartment showings. Swiftlane puts property managers at an advantage by catering to prospective renter’s needs, which attracts quality tenants, closes leases faster, and decreases the amount of time a unit sits empty. Facilitating self-guided, contactless tours also benefits property managers by putting them ahead of the competition and being able to do so at scale. 

Decrease Vacancy Rate

The amount of time that an apartment sits vacant when it could otherwise be rented has a direct effect on a property manager’s rental income. Other indirect but significant effects include perceived value of the property and desirability. So, it should be an easy decision for property managers when it comes to improving processes that influence vacancy rates, like touring the unit.

Instead of being on site to give a tour, property managers can offer self-guided tours by creating temporary access for each showing in just one minute. This allows property managers to multiply their number of showings by 3-5X each week, which results in faster closing times. Being able to quickly accommodate a potential renter, even within the same day, has a higher likelihood of winning the tenant over other properties.

Swiftlane makes it easy to facilitate contactless, self-guided tours and self-showings for faster renting and minimal unit vacancy time. By offering contactless touring options, prospective renters are able to see the unit immediately without any scheduling bottleneck. No back and forth scheduling or accommodating is required. Property managers are able to remotely create single-use PIN codes for temporary access to the property. PIN codes can be scheduled to grant access during the time the prospective renter can come tour the building. With a custom access code that is activated at the time of the showing and expires afterwards, there is no gap in building security while renters tour at their leisure.

Winning Over The Competition 

In regards to self-guided tours, Dionne Van Druff, Vice President of Property Management at Mill Creek Residential says, “Customers are more self-sufficient than ever before and continue to demand increased speed and convenience.” By offering self-guided tours that allow renters the freedom and flexibility to engage with the building and imagine it as their own, property managers put themselves ahead of the competition. And the results are in the numbers. Since Mill Creek’s launch of self-guided tours at one of their properties, 60% of first-time prospects choose to take a self-guided tour over one with an associate. And in a 2018 leasing activity analysis by Anyone Home, those who used self-guided tours converted to a lease agreement at nearly twice the rate—9.3 percent vs. 5 percent—than those who didn’t.

Swiftlane’s contactless, self-guided touring solution is not only convenient for property managers and their prospective renters, it results in winning more lease agreements over competing apartment buildings who do not offer the convenience or speed of self-guided tours. Similarly, getting a prospect in to see a unit before any other also puts that building at an advantage. 

Scale Building Management Operations 

Property managers do not have the time to oversee multiple properties by themselves. There is simply not enough time in the day to commute to and manage each site, let alone coordinate each apartment tour. This makes scaling property management without additional staff very difficult. 

Swiftlane makes scalability attainable. As a cloud-based, remote-first solution, it allows property managers to oversee and operate the physical security of their properties from anywhere. Which makes the management of multiple apartment buildings easy, convenient, and compliant.