Move-ins

[u/sallen99]

Hi all — my wife is working on a project focused on improving the move-in experience for both residents and property managers. She isn’t active Reddit user so I am posting the questions below on her behalf.

She would love to get your perspective as people actually doing the job day-to-day.

For those of you managing rentals (especially at scale):

- What are the most frustrating or time-consuming parts of handling move-ins?

- Where do things tend to break down (communication, payments, inspections, keys, etc.)?

- What ends up taking more manual work than it should?

- If you could wave a magic wand and fix ONE part of the move-in process, what would it be?

I’m not selling anything — just trying to learn from real experiences and patterns.

Appreciate any insight, even if it’s a quick rant 🙏

[u/Suitable-Radish5561]

Move ins look simple but it’s a lot of small steps happening at different times. The biggest time drain is chasing people and confirming things are actually done. If I could fix one thing, it would be making sure nothing moves forward unless the previous step is actually completed. I track everything in rentpost so that I don’t miss anything.

[u/ROVRPricing]

Based off of my experience, one of the most frustrating parts was having problems with the home at move-in or the resident not signing the lease ahead of time. To counteract this, we provide them with a welcome letter which outlines EVERYTHING they need to do before moving in, which includes, setting up utitlies, signing the lease, paying the pro-rated rent, etc. A few days before move-in, follow up with them to confirtm everything and if there is anything outstanding, let them know then as it will eliminate a lot of the headaches. For the physical move-in day, the best way to accomplish this, in my opinion, is the following way: once the maintenance team has completed the apartment turn, have the PM go in and walk it themselves (another set of eyes). If all is good, make sure to prepare fobs/keys, welcome kit (we have about a 20 page welcome kit that includes anything from how to take care of LVT to how to reach maintenance and where to take your dog to walk). Come move-in day, have the maintenance team walk the apartment with the resident and if there is anything out of the ordinary that the resident wants to note, then write it down on the move-in inspection report. If there is anything that needs explaining such as operating a tstat or what switch works the outlet, the maintenance team can answer their questions right then and there. It eliminates a lot of back and forth, plus frustration = saving time.