5 time-saving AI prompts for property managers

If you’ve kept up-to-date with business trends over the past year, then you’ve probably encountered more than a few stories with headlines like “how the latest AI tool is poised to revolutionize ‘X’ industry”, or “why AI will eventually make your job obsolete.”

While these topics may inspire some interesting debates, they rarely have an immediate impact on how you do your job…for now.

AI truly is revolutionizing the way people work a wide array of industries. It’s only a matter of time before it has direct effects on property management.

That begs the question: “What are the practical uses for AI in property management?”

In this post, we’ll explore a handful of ways you can use prompts in easily accessible tools such as ChatGPT to save you time on some of the every-day property management tasks. Think of it as a practical guide that can help you cut through the noise and hype around AI and start to see immediate value for your business, without having to buy into a particular service.

Whether you use this guide as a handy reference for the occasional project or a jumping-off point to explore more complex applications, here’s what you should know about AI prompts for property management.

The Benefits of Using AI for Property Management

The number of potential use cases for AI and the platforms and services dedicated to them is growing every day. It’s a shift in technology that’s affecting jobs in nearly every industry, including property management.

We’ve put together a detailed article on the specific impacts AI and machine learning are having on property managers along with several big picture strategies to get the most out of AI tools that you can read here.

To summarize, AI technology can:

1. Improve and automate operations and lease management
2. Enhance tenant engagement and the resident experience
3. Help you make smarter real estate investment decisions
4. Help optimize properties for energy efficiency and sustainability
5. Mitigate business risk and enhance security

There’s a lot to unpack with each of these benefits. If you’re not ready to go all-in on a particular strategy or simply want to test the waters with some low-effort (but significantly time-saving) tactics, then AI prompts are an excellent place to start.

With AI prompts, you can have an AI tool generate ideas, outlines, and even entire documents for various types of property management-related tasks and communication, saving you time and helping you to run day-to-day operations more efficiently.

AI Property Management Prompts: 5 Examples

So, what are AI prompts? Put simply, they’re specific questions or instructions you give an AI system to elicit a desired response. These can be as short as questions similar to those you’d ask Google, or as complex as asking it to organize data into a strategic business plan.

These interactions often come in the form of a chat feature in programs such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Bard, Poe by Quora, and a growing list of other solutions. The specific capabilities and quirks of interacting with each program varies and options with more bells and whistles, such as pre-built prompts or templates typically charge a recurring fee to use them.

The core functionality of these programs, however, remains the same: you enter an initial prompt and receive a text-based response. From there you can enter follow-up prompts to have the AI tool refine or elaborate on its response to suit your needs.

There’s some experimentation and guesswork that goes into getting the best possible output for what you’re looking for, but the good news is that most programs can learn from past interactions to improve the quality and specificity of future responses.

So that you aren’t starting from scratch, here are five particularly useful types of chat prompts for property managers that you can plug into your AI program of choice.

1: Writing Property Descriptions for Listings

Property managers can use prompts to assist in writing compelling and detailed property descriptions for all types of rental listings.

The first step is to compile all relevant information about a specific property. That includes details such as:

• Location
• Unit/property size
• Number of bedrooms and bathrooms
• Distinctive features of the property (ex: a fireplace, garden, or balcony)
• Recent renovations that add value
• Amenities (ex: a gym, pool, or parking),
• Other highlights and important considerations of the property, community, or neighborhood (ex: schools, parks, or public transport access)

Now comes the fun part. Include all the details you’ve gathered above into a prompt, instructing your program of choice to write a listing description. Here’s an example of a prompt you could create:

• “Write a 150-word, captivating residential rental description for a, 900 sq ft,  2-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment located in downtown Chicago, featuring a modern kitchen, a spacious balcony with a city view, in-unit laundry, and proximity to public transport and local cafes.”

Before you hit enter, you should also indicate the desired tone and style in your prompt. If your target market is young professionals, you might want a modern, upbeat tone. For a family-oriented property, a warm and welcoming tone could be more suitable. For example, add to your prompt:

• “The tone should be modern and professional, appealing to young working professionals.”

If there are certain phrases, keywords, or selling points you want included, mention these in your prompt. For instance:

• “Emphasize the fully renovated kitchen, in-unit laundry, and the short walking distance to the subway station.”

Now it’s time to send the prompt and see what your AI tool generates. Once you receive the initial output, you can further refine it. If certain aspects aren’t as you expected, adjust your prompt and ask for a revision. For example:

• “Revise the description to focus more on the spacious living area and the quiet, family-friendly neighborhood.”

At this point, it’s time to add the finishing touches yourself. Adjust the wording and add any details that may have been missed. Check for tone, accuracy of the description, and that everything you mention complies with all relevant real estate advertising laws and regulations.

2. Communicating with Tenants and Property Owners

As any property manager knows, communication with residents and owners can eat up a lot of your day. Instead of having to gather your thoughts, type up the usual pleasantries, and then write all the details that go into a typical update to residents or your clients, you can have an AI program handle it, leaving you free to focus on the important message you’re trying to express.

This lets you get out messages, emails, and notifications quickly and with professionalism.

Here are some specific scenarios and how to use prompts in each:

Drafting Routine Communications to Tenants: Draft emails or messages for routine announcements such as maintenance schedules, policy updates, or rent reminders.

• “Create a friendly reminder email for tenants about upcoming routine maintenance checks. Maintenance checks will occur on [date] from [time window].”

Responding to Tenant Inquiries: Generate responses to common tenant questions, ensuring they are informative, polite, and in line with the property’s policies.

• “Draft a response to a tenant’s question about the building’s pet policy. The policy stipulates [enter details on your policy as written in your lease agreements]. The tenant is inquiring about [enter specific question]”

Creating Newsletters or Updates: Keep tenants informed and engaged with regular newsletters or updates about the property and community.

• “Write a monthly newsletter for tenants highlighting community events, maintenance updates, and safety reminders. Include [add in relevant details on the events and updates you’d like to include].” 

Handling Maintenance Requests: Communicate effectively about maintenance issues, providing clear timelines and expectations.

• “Compose a message acknowledging a tenant’s maintenance request and provide an estimated time for the repair. The repair involves [details on the request and repair timeline].”

Communicating with Property Owners: Create detailed outlines, professional reports, or updates for property owners, ensuring they are kept informed about their investment.

• “Draft a quarterly report for a property owner detailing occupancy rates, financial performance, and upcoming maintenance plans. Performance details include [add in information you’re comfortable with entering into your AI system].”

Addressing Complaints or Concerns: Respond to complaints or concerns in a manner that is empathetic, professional, and solution-focused.

• “Write a response to a tenant’s complaint about noise. Be empathetic and express a proactive approach to resolving the issue.”

Lease Renewals and End-of-Lease Communications: Communicate about lease renewals or end-of-lease procedures, ensuring clarity and adherence to legal requirements.

• “Generate a lease renewal offer letter, including any changes to terms and conditions. Include [add details on the lease conditions and changes to the initial lease]”

Emergency Notifications: Quickly draft messages for emergency situations, ensuring they are clear and provide necessary guidance.

• “Create an urgent message to all tenants about a water outage due to emergency repairs, including expected resolution time. The outage will affect [details on residents] and last [details on resolution time].”

As with other AI-generated messages, you’ll always want to closely review and edit these responses to refine the tone, add personalization for the individual or group you’re reaching out to.

Once your message is ready, enter it into the online portal, email platform, or other system that you’re using to communicate. You can even use AI-generated messaging in tandem with the templates, reports and communication tools found in property management software for an extra level of ease and efficiency.

3. Enhancing Your Marketing Efforts and Online Presence

Sometimes marketing both your properties and your services comes down to finding the perfect phrasing. Other times, it means taking the time to get a lot of ideas out there to find the ones that resonate the most. Either way, AI can keep your marketing efforts rolling along by refining existing listings and content you have on your website, as well as creating a consistent selection of posts to stay active on social media:

To enhance existing listings (or really any written elements of a website) you can prompt your AI program to rephrase a specific piece of text. Here are a couple of examples:

• “Rephrase the following sentence to be more engaging and clear: ‘Apartment has 2 beds and a big kitchen.'”
• “Expand on this bullet point to make it more vivid and descriptive for potential renters: ‘Includes a spacious deck.'”

These responses can lead to richer, more detailed descriptions to help potential tenants visualize a space. They can help potential clients clearly understand the benefits of working with you, as well.

You can also use AI prompts to craft social media posts that capture attention and generate interest, using language that resonates with the platform’s audience. You can even improve the searchability and search engine optimization (SEO)—the ability for your posts, listings, and website to appear higher in relevant searches—by integrating relevant keywords naturally into the text. Here’s what an effective prompt might look like:

• “Write a catchy social media post for a newly renovated loft-style apartment that emphasizes its open-concept living space and modern finishes. Include keywords such as ‘sustainable living’ and ‘energy-efficient appliances’ in a listing for an eco-friendly home.”

You can use a similar approach to market your services to property owners. Here are just a few of the types of prompts you can use as starting points, adding in details on your services and competitive advantages as needed:

As a residential property manager looking to attract the business of rental property owners, you can use a variety of ChatGPT prompts to create marketing materials, emails, social media posts, and advertisements. Here are some prompts you might consider:

• Email Campaigns: “Compose an introductory email to prospective rental property owners explaining our management services and client success stories.”
• Social Media Engagement: “Create engaging social media posts that showcase before and after scenarios of rental properties we manage, emphasizing our value proposition.”
• Advertisement Copy: “Write an ad copy for a property management service that emphasizes low vacancy rates and high tenant retention.”
• Client Testimonials and Case Studies: “Formulate questions for gathering testimonials from satisfied property owners about their experience with our property management services.”
• Service Detailing: “List the key services provided by our property management firm that we should highlight to attract rental property owners.”
• Informative Guides and eBooks: “Outline an eBook that provides property owners with insights on the benefits of property management and how to choose a service.”
• Follow-up Messages for Prospects: “Compose a series of follow-up messages for property owners who have shown interest in our services but have not yet signed up.”

Some other enhancements you can make with the help of prompts include:

• Making listings more accessible to a wider audience by using simple, engaging language
• Connecting  with potential tenants on an emotional level, making the property feel like a home rather than just a space
• Tailoring descriptions to fit the local market and community preferences, which can be particularly effective on social media
• Using quotes, customer testimonials, and survey responses to create social posts and full-length case studies

To get the most benefit out of these prompts, you’ll need to start with a strong idea of your brand’s voice, the selling points of your business or of a particular property, and the specific audience you’re trying to reach. Including all these details leads to more compelling, useful responses.

4: Creating a Property Inspection Checklist

With the right prompt, you can create materials to help organize almost any part of your regular operations. A great example of this is an AI-generated property inspection checklist.

Before creating this kind of prompt,  identify the main categories of items you need to inspect. These usually include exterior, interior, appliances, safety equipment, plumbing, electrical systems, HVAC, and any additional amenities.

From here, you’ll want to create a specific prompt for ChatGPT for each category. Here’s what this might look like:

• Exterior: “Create a checklist for a property inspection focusing on the exterior including landscaping, roofing, and external structures.”
• Interior: “List key points to check during an interior property inspection, such as walls, flooring, and windows.”
• Appliances: “Generate a checklist for inspecting home appliances, including the refrigerator, oven, dishwasher, and washing machine.”
• Safety Equipment: “What items should be included in a safety inspection checklist for a residential property?”
• Plumbing: “Provide a detailed checklist for inspecting a property’s plumbing system.”
• Electrical Systems: “List all the electrical elements that need to be checked during a property inspection.”
• HVAC: “Create a comprehensive checklist for the inspection of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems in a home.”

If there are special considerations for certain properties, (such as a pool or a fireplace), you can add prompts for these items, as well. You should also mention the property type (single-family, commercial, dorm, etc.) in your prompts.

Once you have the individual lists, compile them into a master checklist. Organize the items in a logical order, typically starting from the exterior and moving to the interior, or in the order of an inspector’s walk-through flow.

Keep in mind that properties may have different inspection needs based on the season. You can account for this with prompts such as:

• “What should be added to a property inspection checklist for winter readiness?”

For a general idea of seasonal maintenance items to include, you can review our checklists for spring, fall, and winter.

Once the checklist is complete, review it to make sure all the elements are included and that it reflects and tasks needed to comply with safety laws and regulations.

5: Developing Tenant Applications

You can even use prompts to speed up your lead-to-lease process by developing tenant applications from AI responses.

These applications are usually standardized, so you’ll be able to generate most of the details you need before adding in specific details. Here are some common sections in a rental application and the prompts you can use to create them:

• Personal Information: “Generate a list of personal information fields that should be included in a tenant application form.”
• Rental History: “Create questions for a tenant application that cover rental history and past landlord references.”
• Employment and Income Verification: “List the employment and income verification questions necessary for assessing a tenant’s ability to pay rent.”
• Credit and Background Check Authorization: “Draft a section for a tenant application that obtains the applicant’s consent for credit and background checks, ensuring compliance with legal requirements.”
• Emergency Contacts and Personal References: “What information should be requested from a tenant regarding emergency contacts and personal references?”
• Lifestyle and Preferences: “Suggest questions to include in a tenant application that help understand the applicant’s lifestyle, such as pet ownership or smoking status.”
• Additional Occupants: “Formulate questions to identify additional occupants who will be living in the property with the primary tenant.”
• Vehicle Information: “Write a section on vehicle information that includes what information should be collected from a tenant if there is parking space involved in the rental agreement.”
• Terms and Conditions Acknowledgement: “Write a statement for a tenant application that requires applicants to acknowledge understanding of the rental terms and conditions.”
• Signature and Date: “Write a signature and date section to be included at the end of a tenant application form to ensure it’s legally binding.”

Prompts such as these make it easy to gather all necessary information for a comprehensive tenant screening process, which frees you up to review these documents with a critical eye and have them ready to send off so that you won’t lose out on qualified applicants.

A word of caution: As with property management contracts, you should only use the responses you generate as a starting point for your final document and you should review each section carefully to make sure it complies with your company policies, the intricacies of the property, and all relevant laws, such as the Fair Housing Act.

A helpful alternative to creating applications from scratch is to use a pre-built, customizable template such as those available in Buildium’s platform.

The Evolving Role of AI in Property Management

Prompts are some of the most straightforward and practical ways that AI can make your life easier as a property manager. It’s also the perfect starting point to exploring how other AI-based technologies can help you run a more effective business.

While no one knows for certain what role AI will play in property management in the future, the answer probably lies between some of the more vocal narratives out there today. AI most likely be able to take over the many of the complex responsibilities property managers face. At the same time, the benefits of the technology are far from theoretical. There are already many exciting ways you can put these tools to work, and AI prompts represent just a glimpse into those possibilities.

Given the potential of these tools and the evolving capabilities of software built specifically for the industry, such as Buildium and STAN AI,  the future of property management technology is looking bright.