How 21st Century Property Management Cut Market Times, Leasing Costs, and Improved Resident Experience

Why Keyless for Single-Family?

Dodgion had used keyless access at multi-family properties before. But doing so with single-family homes was his white whale. He explained why:

Keys are inherently a challenge to deal with — storing them, keeping them secure, tracking lost keys, replacing them, rekeying doors, coordinating key exchanges for vendors and new residents. There’s a ton of time that goes into key management. And the security is weak because someone can just copy them.
Troy Dodgion, Co-founder, 21st Century Property Management

With the ShowMojo platform and the MojoLock, Dodgion revolutionized access management by eliminating these age-old hassles.

For 21st Century Property Management, keyless entry is now part of an ecosystem that includes Real-Time Access Management, Improved Labor Efficiency, and Enhanced Security Protocols, all controlled through a single interface.

This transforms the logistical landscape of property management, making operations smoother and more responsive.

How To Win Owner Buy-in To Keyless

Despite the obvious drawbacks of physical keys, Dodgion faced pushback from owners when he started rolling out MojoLocks. Owners had cost and security concerns. But with ShowMojo behind him, Dodgion cracked the code.

The trick for him was explaining to owners the security flaws of physical keys, the robustness of MojoLocks, and the simplicity of the ShowMojo platform.

For instance, he explained that, unlike physical keys, a digital access code from ShowMojo can be revoked if it falls into the wrong hands. Moreover, ShowMojo provides time-limited access codes, so managing vendor access doesn’t require trusting them with a key or coordinating a key exchange.

With ShowMojo, Dodgion could also point to a host of convenient features that tilted the scales in favor of replacing keyed locks with MojoLocks hosted on the ShowMojo platform.

For example, with Resident Access, MojoLocks and the ShowMojo mobile app would allow residents to lock and unlock their doors with an iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone. Residents could also create and share temporary access codes with their guests.

With ShowMojo and Dodgion’s powers of persuasion, the case for keyless quickly became undeniable. Today, 21st Century Property Management has 52 MojoLock-equipped properties and counting.

The Keyless Resident Experience Becomes Standard

Keyless entry worked so well for 21st Century Property Management that it’s now built into their management contracts. They won’t operate any other way.

For units that predated the keyless transition, Dodgion’s team slaps MojoLocks on all the doors once a unit turns over. After the vacant unit is leased, the team invites the new resident from their ShowMojo account and it’s all self-serve from there.

Once the lease starts (and not before), the resident receives an email inviting them to download the ShowMojo mobile app. The resident then manages their account through the ShowMojo mobile app. At the lease end date, ShowMojo automatically ends resident access.

The process works great and the residents really like it [the MojoLock]. It sets us apart from other property managers when a resident asks us where to pick up their key and instead we can just send them an email with their access code.
Troy Dodgion, Co-founder, 21st Century Property Management

One Door Closes, Another One Opens

Building on the success of keyless entry, Dodgion embarked on another transformative journey with ShowMojo — introducing Self-Showings.

He had heard the pitch:

Leasing Automation makes self-showings a safe and fully prospect-driven experience. From the moment the prospect reaches out by phone, email or text, ShowMojo can answer the inquiry, conduct a pre-showing qualification, schedule the tour, distribute an access code, and even follow up for feedback.

Still, he wasn’t fully convinced, but he decided to roll self-showings out on a trial basis.

The results were game-changing. I don’t have the exact numbers but I’m fully confident our days on market has been significantly reduced with self-showings. It has 100% allowed us to reduce headcount. To do what we’re doing on 450 doors [without ShowMojo], we’d have to have at least 2, maybe 3 leasing agents.
Troy Dodgion, Co-founder, 21st Century Property Management

Self-showings powered by ShowMojo don’t just automate the showing process; they transform how your prospects interact with properties. In traditional property management, the prospect interaction is driven by showing agents and leasing managers. With ShowMojo’s self-showings, it’s a prospect-driven process.

As a result, on self-show listings, Dodgion can hand over the marketing, scheduling, showing, and application process to ShowMojo. From the moment a listing is syndicated until the application is submitted, Dodgion and his team only have to intervene when and if they want to.

As for rolling out self-showings across the portfolio, Dodgion’s advice to other property managers is to fully utilize ShowMojo’s security features. These features include:

• Fully Automated Identity Decisioning with Precision ID
• Location Verification
• Listing Watermarking
• Temporary Access Codes
• Enhanced Anti-Fraud Screen

Market Times Just Keep Shrinking

ShowMojo gave 21st Century Property Management another edge to help them reduce market times even more — data.

Because it’s never fun for a property manager to tell the owner their rent is too high, Dodgion uses ShowMojo’s Listing Activity Reports to make that conversation much easier.

The report displays a listing’s page views, email inquiries, incoming calls, and scheduled showings. This makes it easy to identify when a listing isn’t performing well due to its price.

Here’s how Dodgion does it: He pulls the report and notes whether the ratio of scheduled showings to listing traffic is commensurate with what he’d expect. If there’s a lot of traffic relative to scheduled showings, that’s a strong indication the listing’s price is too high.

With this data, he can easily and (more importantly) quickly convince owners to reduce their rent. Along with the advent of self-showings, this helped him and his team shrink market times even more.

Speaking of shortening market times, 21st Century Property Management also leverages ShowMojo’s Showing Feedback Surveys. These surveys enables the team to collect feedback on active listings which provides insights on what improvements need to be made.

A Superstar Duo: 21st Century Property Management and ShowMojo

It’s one thing to make a hit. But it takes special stuff to keep ‘em coming. Here’s a quick recap of what ShowMojo and 21st Century Property Management have churned out:

• Shorter market times
• Reduced leasing costs
• Improved resident experience
• More informed leasing decisions

See how ShowMojo can transform your property management experience just as it did for 21st Century Property Management. Schedule a demo or start a free trial today to see the difference innovation can make.