Product Updates: Multifamily Leasing

Multifamily communities now have a dedicated settings hub. Seven tabs cover everything that belongs to a community rather than a single unit: the address and amenity list, community photos and branding, a listings widget scoped to that community, showing defaults, leasing defaults, floorplans, and every unit inside it.

Settings flow down a chain — portfolio defaults set the baseline, the community overrides when it needs to, and individual units inherit settings from the community defaults.

The other half of the release is the self-guided tour flow for apartment buildings. A prospect gets into the building, into the unit they want to tour, leaves feedback, and then sees every other matching unit in the community.

Here's what's new in RentEngine.

Community settings

Every multifamily community now opens to its own settings page, with the property ID at the top and seven tabs across it: General, Marketing, Showing defaults, Self-guided tours, Community defaults, Floorplans, and Units.

General

The General tab is where you name the community and set the basics: street address, community website, number of units, structure type, year built, and the description that runs on your listings.

Under Amenities and Features you can pick the community amenities, parking, and laundry, plus an optional field for anything that does not fit the standard boxes.

Marketing

Upload your exterior and common area photos, then drag them into the order you want. Whichever one you put first leads the listing.

Brand each community separately when you need to. Add a logo and a brand color, or leave both blank and the community falls back to your company logo and color, with the inherited color shown next to the swatch. Drop in a Google Business Profile link and RentEngine uses it for the post-showing review request.

The Listings Widget Builder generates embed code for a widget scoped to a single community, so a community with its own website can carry a live unit list of its own. This is useful if you run ad campaigns per individual community.

Turn on the Zillow and Apartments.com feeds you hold a paid multifamily contract for. Add move-in specials and they run on that community's listings, and schedule open houses against the community itself.

Showing defaults

Showing defaults set the showing method and subteam for every unit in the community, and any unit can override them.

Showing Details covers what a prospect reads on the way in: private gate instructions, community gate and access instructions, and a free field for anything else related to accessing units.

If the community offers self-guided tours, you can set the showings windows in the Availability drop-down. In the Advanced drop-down you can set whether a showing request requires PM approval and the guardrails that go along with that.

Community defaults

Set the leasing rules once for a community and every unit picks them up. Resident qualifications, deposit requirements, pets, utilities included in the lease, tenant's agent commission, and application visibility all live on this tab.

Anything you do not set here comes down from your portfolio defaults, and a banner at the top of the tab tells you whether that’s the case. Override the few things that are different about this community, leave the rest alone, and Reset to portfolio defaults puts everything back.

Two settings are worth a closer look. Minimum resident qualifications replace the standard text on that community's listings page, and any URL you add is hyperlinked automatically. Application visibility decides whether prospects see the application link on On Hold properties and whether they need to apply before they can book a showing.

The inheritance chain runs portfolio defaults to community to unit. Portfolio defaults are reachable from the Portfolio settings button on the Properties page, communities inherit from portfolio defaults, and units inherit from their community. Where a value is inherited rather than set locally, a Reset to inherited link sits under the field.

Floorplans

Add a floorplan with a name, bedrooms, bathrooms, the number of units carrying that floorplan, market rent, and a minimum and maximum square footage range. Add amenities as chips, then give the floorplan its own special offers and photo set.

Units

The Units tab is the same units table from the Properties page, filtered to the units inside that community. Unit, status, showing method, floorplan, rent, beds, baths, and square footage, with a status filter across the top so a community of 40 units narrows to what is available or on hold.

Where to find the new Settings page: Properties > Communities > select the community you want to edit.

Self-guided tours for multifamily communities

Self-guided showings now run inside apartment buildings. One template per community covers the welcome, the walk from the car to the front door, the way into the unit, and the amenities — and it applies to every unit in that community set to self-guided.

Building the tour template

Build the template on the Self-guided tours tab. A phone preview on the right shows exactly what your prospect sees and jumps to whatever you are editing.

Under Tour intro you write the welcome message a prospect reads when the tour opens, and the confirmation prompt they agree to before the tour unlocks. The default prompt asks them to confirm they booked the tour themselves and will not let anyone else into the building or apartment.

Write your directions and parking next — nearest exit, landmarks, where to park. RentEngine texts it to the prospect ahead of the showing.

Building access gets your prospect through the front door. Write the navigation to the entrance, then choose how they unlock the unit: a digital lockbox connected to RentEngine, a single code lockbox with key, a digital door lock with code, or open access. Whatever code you enter shows on their access instructions screen. Add a photo of the entrance while you are there — it is optional but it saves you a phone call.

When your amenities sell the building, put them on the tour. Add the pool, the gym, the roof deck, each with a description, access instructions, an optional access code, and photos.

At the bottom you see every unit currently running self-guided showings on this template. RentEngine pulls each unit's tour photos and descriptions from its listing page, and you set that unit's own access on its Showings tab.

What the prospect sees

Your prospect opens the tour on a welcome screen carrying the community name, your welcome message, their scheduled showing, the community photos and amenities, and a fraud-safety acknowledgment they tick before continuing.

They tap Get started, then Start showing, and RentEngine reveals the building entry code. Once they are inside they tap "I'm in" and move on to their unit, where they get the access code, an image, and directions to the lockbox. From there they open the full unit detail: a photo carousel, specs, lease terms, rent, and deposit.

Next steps collects the feedback. They pick where they stand — applying, still deciding, or not interested — then answer what they liked, what they did not like, and what it would take for them to apply today. They work through a lock-up checklist and tap Submit and lock up to close out that unit.

Cross-selling the rest of the community

The moment your prospect submits feedback, they see every other available unit in the community.

Units you set up for self-guided showings carry a Start tour button, and it is instant — they tap it and walk straight into the next unit, through the same access, detail, and feedback flow.

They can also tap Explore amenities, walk the amenity pages you built, and come back to the unit list when they are done.

RentEngine AI

The application support number is now scoped to technical issues only

RentEngine AI now sends prospects to the application support number for technical issues with the application itself. Leasing questions come to you, and prescreening questions no longer route to that number at all.

Three categories now reach you instead. When a prospect asks about ID verification, income verification, or document uploads on a RentEngine Application, RentEngine AI escalates it and tells them you will review and decide whether they can skip the step or need to send more. When they ask about adding or editing landlord and employer references, RentEngine AI sends them a link to log into their application and edit references under Existing Applications — and if they ask how a reference gets contacted, that reaches you too.

Command Center

You can now change a prospect's source from the Command Center. This is useful when a lead came in tagged wrong though a bad email parse, or someone asking about a different unit.

Open a prospect, click the pencil next to Source, pick the right one, and save. If the same person has more than one lead (same phone number), you can apply it to just that lead or to all of them at once.

Every change is logged in the timeline (old source, new source, and who made it), so there's a clear trail. It doesn't touch the prospect's status or their follow-ups.

Rental applications

Moved In can send a text and withdraw a person's other units

The “Moved In”-action on a RentEngine Application picks up two options.

Text the applicant from a template you configure. This is how you move a new resident off the RentEngine phone number and onto whichever channel your company uses after move-in.

Mark every other unit of interest for that person as Withdrawn, with the note "Moved in to" and the address of the application they moved into. One action closes out everything they are no longer chasing.

Listings

Shorter share links from the website widget

Share a listing from the website widget and you get a short link. RentEngine strips out everything except the unit ID and the account parameter, so the link fits in a text message without eating your character limit.

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