How Portland Homes Cut 30+ Hours of Work Per Week with Automated Showings and Remote Access
Company Profile
| Company Name | Portland Homes and Commercial Properties |
| Market | Oregon, Washington |
| Units | 650 units |
| Property Types | Single-family homes and multi-family apartments |
| Use Cases |
|
Key Results
Eliminated reliance on full-time leasing agents
Saved 20+ hours/week by automating scheduling
Saved ~10 hours/week in drive time by digitizing access control
Andrew Gilburne purchased Portland Homes and Commercial Properties, a 40-year-old property management company, in 2016. Since acquiring it, along with one other managing partner, Gilburne grew the company from 260 to 650 single and multi-family units.
Until the COVID-19 pandemic, Gilburne and his team ran agent-assisted showings. But to keep prospective tenants and employees safe during the outbreak, they started conducting self-showings. They facilitated this process using a combination of AppFolio and lockboxes.
When the pandemic subsided, Portland Homes kept going with self-showings — because they had to. The influx of new residents brought on by the shift to work-from-home created a huge demand for tours.
And it was impossible to afford the staffing required to accommodate the new demand with only agent-assisted tours.
But self-showings were not a panacea for Portland Homes. They brought on costly administrative problems of their own.
The Problems with Manual Self-Showings
The problem, Gilburne explained, was that they were doing everything manually.
“We’re doing lockboxes on AppFolio, and that’s all manual. We had to manually authenticate. And then we would have to issue a code. All that was manual. So it was very time-consuming,” he said.
To respond quickly to incoming leads, a full-time employee monitored lead flow throughout the day. For this employee, monitoring and authenticating leads, scheduling tours, and issuing lockbox codes consumed 50 to 60% of the day, according to Gilburne’s estimate.
But then Gilburne got a call from a ShowMojo rep.
And she laid out exactly how ShowMojo could automate the entire Prospect Verification and Tour Scheduling process.
It was a no-brainer. If you’d called earlier, I probably would’ve signed on sooner.
Andrew Gilburne, Managing Partner, Portland Homes and Commercial Properties
From the Self-Showing Rickshaw…to a Bullet Train
Once Portland Homes switched from manual self-showings to automated ones with ShowMojo, the leasing process transformed.
Rather than manually scheduling tours, the Portland Homes team could focus on other things while ShowMojo handled the tours.
Gilburne explained what that transformation meant for his business:
“What ShowMojo does is it allows me to do three to four times more or five times more showings than I ever could possibly do with an agent.”
He continued, “It allows me to reduce the number of people I have to hire or hire at all for this function. So it eliminates the headcount, eliminates the cost of an FTE, the dollars of which I can allocate somewhere else.”
On top of that, Gilburne could reassign the employee who was previously responsible for scheduling tours to higher-value tasks.
Self-showings became so efficient and seamless that Portland Homes phased out almost all agent-assisted showings. Now, Gilburne’s team only offers assisted showings in the rare event a prospect requests one.
More than Self-Showings…the Many Benefits of Remote Access Control
As part of the switch to ShowMojo, Gilburne started outfitting the properties he manages with MojoLocks.
These access devices have been another game-changer. One that shifted how Portland Homes manages access for prospects, vendors, and residents.
Remote Access Keys a Cascade of Operational Improvements
A Better Tenant Experience
Referring to the MojoLocks, Gilburne said, “It’s access control providing more comfort and more benefits to tenants.”
He highlighted how tenants now Grant Access to Guests or Family without the hassle or risk of physical keys.
“They can give a code to Johnny, their child, to come and go without worrying about a key. They have a guest who’s staying with them for two months. They give them that extended code.”
MojoLocks also eliminates one of the most common resident frustrations: accidental lockouts.
“We removed the knob lock, we have a regular passage lock, we’re on a MojoLock, no one ever gets locked out again,” Gilburne said.
Tenants also gain greater peace of mind with managing access for vendors because, as Gilburne explained, “If we have a vendor who needs to go in, I give them a one-time code and the tenant knows that we’re not giving [the vendor] a key.”
Improved Cost Efficiency
Controlling access with ShowMojo and MojoLocks also delivers measurable savings for Portland Homes because it eliminates common access-related inefficiencies.
“The times you’ve got to track down a key and send one of my guys to drive over and let someone in — that’s money,” Gilburne said.
By his estimate, the switch to remote access saves roughly 10 hours of drive time each week.
The locks also reduce costs associated with turnover and rekeying. “The other value to MojoLocks is that they’re very easy to re-key. So there are some homes where I might have two or three MojoLocks. I just key them all to the same key. It’s priceless. It drives down cost for the owners because they’re not having to pay $150 every time a unit becomes vacant.”
Risk Management and Security
MojoLocks and ShowMojo strengthen Portland Homes’ response to maintenance issues and reduce security vulnerabilities.
“10 o’clock at night. Tenant’s not home, and there’s an emergency, someone needs to get in, I just generate a code, give it to the vendor,” Gilburne said.
Because any authorized team member can instantly generate and distribute a code, Portland Homes can deal with maintenance emergencies quickly. And quick responses reduce the chance of extensive and costly damage.
The new setup has also removed a long-standing security risk: the need to store physical keys onsite.
You’re adding a safety element because I don’t have to leave keys in the maintenance room anymore. They’re here in my office in a secure room because if maintenance needs to go in, they have to get a code from one of us.
Andrew Gilburne, Managing Partner, Portland Homes and Commercial Properties
Best in Breed Up and Down the PropTech Stack
As Portland Homes evolved, Gilburne decided to switch from his existing PMS to RentVine.
“As young as RentVine is in the market, they did an excellent job. It is saving my accounting team hours per week,” he said. But Gilburne still needed ShowMojo to handle leasing.
He explained: “[In RentVine] your relationship with someone doesn’t start until they submit an application. So as a RentVine customer, you better be using something [for leasing].”
ShowMojo filled a critical gap RentVine couldn’t cover. Rather than duplicating its functions, ShowMojo enhanced RentVine by continuing to handle lead intake, showing scheduling, and access.
Whether you’re using RentVine, AppFolio, Buildium, Entrata, or another PMS, ShowMojo delivers automation, scheduling, and access control that integrates.
Lean, Responsive, and Ready for Whatever Comes Next
For Portland Homes, what started as a fix for manual inefficiencies evolved into a fundamental shift in the company’s operations. Today, Gilburne and his team use ShowMojo to lease faster, do more with fewer people, and offer a smarter, more secure experience for residents, vendors, and prospective tenants.
The MojoLock, ShowMojo, isn’t just a tool for showing. Because of the MojoLock, it’s an access control product. It’s access control that is more secure for showings. It’s access control that provides more comfort and more benefits to tenants. The operational benefit of that [MojoLock] is huge.
Andrew Gilburne, Managing Partner, Portland Homes and Commercial Properties
Thanks to those operational benefits, Portland Homes is leaner, more responsive, and ready for whatever comes next.
Wondering how ShowMojo can make your management company more efficient? Let us show you.