A successful resident retention program not only stops a revolving door of renters. It is critical to minimizing expenses and maximizing net operating income (NOI).
In the “Optimizing Revenue Through Smarter Renewals” session at the 2025 Entrata Summit, industry experts detailed a range of strategies for boosting retention. Among their recommendations: concentrate on a resident’s experience from the moment their lease is signed and embrace cutting-edge technology.
Joni Warfield, director of revenue optimization at IDM Cos., highlighted the considerable expense of losing a resident.
“If a unit sits vacant for 30 or 45 days, what are the costs associated with that?” she said. “If we turn a unit, it’s going to cost anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000. We have to remarket that unit, and then we’re paying our leasing teams bonuses and commissions to release that unit.”
Robert Jones, principal product manager at Entrata, detailed how retaining residents can benefit property values.
“When you start to think about what those turn costs do to the value of the asset, it really is kind of eye-opening,” he said. “Consider cap rates, which are 5% to 7% right now. If you can retain one resident more per month than what you’re retaining right now, the value change to the property could be in the neighborhood of $80,000. And so, from an investment performance standpoint, the more you renew your residents, the value of your asset gets better.”
In addition, “renewals often are going to perform better from a lease trade-out perspective than a new lease would,” Jones said.
Mattie Langford, senior manager of data science at Entrata, explained how the firm’s artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities can boost renewals. For instance, AI can continuously evaluate a resident’s interactions with leasing and maintenance associates, among other factors, to determine how happy they are with a community and, by extension, how likely they are to renew.
“You as a property manager can now have a centralized location to see, ‘Hey, I now have 10 units coming up for renewal, and I know based on their sentiment that about three out of those 10 are at risk,” Langford said.
Chris Amrich, vice president of systems support at B.Hom Student Living, noted that a major benefit of AI is that it frees up associates to focus on high-value interactions.
“We want to use AI to give our site teams more time to nurture that human connection with each resident because I think that’s what really tips the scale in getting a renewal,” he said.
Warfield and Amrich also emphasized the importance of understanding that a renewal effort really begins the moment a resident signs a new lease.
Operators have to provide a seamless move-in experience to begin building resident loyalty, Amrich noted.
“We know it starts from day one,” Warfield said. “The resident leases that apartment, and then it’s our responsibility to provide clear communication to really set that expectation for them about what that’s going to look like while they’re living in our communities.”