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HighPoint Real Estate Reduced Hours Spent On Property Inspection Process Without Adding Headcount
2,000
Unit Count
CA, USA
Region
Mixed
Property Type
TL;DR
- > HighPoint Real Estate manages ~2,000 units with a small team
- > Manual inspections created scheduling bottlenecks
- > Inspections were delayed or missed
- > They implemented a tenant-led inspection system
- > Result: scalable, consistent inspection process
“There’s not enough time in the month to be able to do it all with scale… If you can onboard a software that allows one person to do 200 move-ins and move-outs… that’s very valuable from a business perspective.”
Why The Manual Property Inspections Process Breaks For Large Portfolios
Adam Muller, Senior Regional Manager at HighPoint Real Estate
Adam Muller and his department essentially run all day-to-day property management related operations. Adam oversees the HighPoint portfolio of almost 2,000 units, which consists of nearly 200 individual properties with 25 or so on-site managers, and all the ins and outs of what managing those properties and their tenants entails.
Improving the performance of his team of five relied heavily on coordination between the brigade on what’s working, what’s not, and what they see as the priorities for things to be improved internally. Early in his tenure, Adam and team identified excessive time spent coordinating tenants’ schedules and team travel to move-in and move-out inspections as the biggest opportunity for impact on their day-to-day operations.
“The biggest time suck of our property managers was coordinating move-ins and move-outs. Each move-out ended up costing us… around three to four hours of time… That’s like two full-time jobs."
Before RentCheck: By The Numbers
- Hours Spent Per Move-in/Move-out
- 3–4 hours per move-in / move-out
- Hours Spent Per Month
- 180-240 per month
- Headcount Required
- Two Full-Time Assistant Property Managers
Manual Inspections Caused Friction With Tenants, Operations Staff… and The Bottom Line
How HighPoint Real Estate Was Handling Inspections Before RentCheck:
- > Step 1: Schedule inspections with tenant
- > Step 2: Coordinate travel
- > Step 3: Capture documentation physically in unit
- > Step 4: Travel back to HighPoint HQ
- > Step 5: Review inspection and flag issues
- > Step 6: Create necessary operations tasks to handle issues (workorders, maintenance requests, etc.)
“It’s not only just talking to the tenants, but then it’s also the drive time to go to each of the properties… Meeting the tenants at the properties, driving back to the office or to the next property.”
Because HighPoint serves customers in one of the country’s most sought after real estate markets, their customer base tends to skew towards a higher net-worth resident. These types of residents come with their own set of challenges, but a challenge that is not unique to their client base is that tenants with jobs in any industry tend to request these property inspections in bulk during the weekends. Whether you’re a musician, a soap opera actor, a public relations executive, or a Senior Regional Manager at a real estate company… these coveted weekend spots are competitive and tough to hold.
Independent of the tenants and their scheduling, these busy weekend spots are also tough on the operations staff. It becomes much more difficult to request time off on these extremely important days for the business when all hands are needed, and regular denial of a family weekend at the beach or a concert with friends can cause frustrations with staff that may ultimately lead to frustrated team members and high-turnover.
Missed inspections due to scheduling constraints with both tenants and operations staff meant that inspections were deprioritized, happening late, or completely missed. It’s not hard to imagine how these problems piling up were causing constraints across the entire organization, their tenants, and their revenue due to missed inspections or unflagged issues.
How HighPoint Standardized Their Property Inspection Process
HighPoint Real Estate identified a key problem in their property management and inspection processes across their large portfolio, knew they needed a solution, and concluded that solution should:
- > Reduce staff time per inspection and property manager workload
- > Remove staff travel dependency on inspection completion
- > Maintain their world-class service quality standards
- > Enable seamless coordination between staff and tenant(s)
- > Ensure every inspection is completed consistently across the portfolio
“How can we make this (property inspection) piece more efficient to free up a bunch of our team’s time, while not sacrificing the quality of service that we’re giving the tenants or our clients?”
Armed with these criteria, plus the requirement that any tool or service they investigate further must integrate with their current AppFolio tech stack, they set off to research whether there was an inspection automation property management tool out on the market that could allow them to shift away from in-person inspections, was flexible for tenants with varying schedules, and still provided strong customer support.
The answer was clear.
RentCheck Provides Property Inspection Process for Large Portfolios
During their market research in early 2024, Adam and his team found that RentCheck’s product offerings continued to check off the boxes that they needed to continue to be confident they were serving their customers up to HighPoint’s world-class standards.
- Tenant-Guided Inspections
- RentCheck’s easy-to-use mobile app and simple interface proved to be usable for even the least tech-savvy users. Residents found it easy to flag maintenance issues and document every nook and cranny (literally!).
- Automation & Workflows
- For staff, inspections now get created automatically, reminders get sent to residents on a schedule as needed, and it all syncs with their chosen property management software tech stack.
- Reporting & Data
- Since HighPoint is a third-party management company who doesn’t actually own their properties, the need to show owners their investments were in good shape was a top concern.
- Integrations
- RentCheck partners with AppFolio (as well as RentManager, Rentvine, and other leading PropMan softwares) so the team can rest assured that all their work in RentCheck was working seamlessly and going back to the team’s dashboards.
“(Tenants) are able to do that now… whereas before, it needed to be during business hours because that’s when we were working. RentCheck has allowed us to accommodate those (after hours and odd time) requests.”
But beyond the product features offered, Adam says that the fit with RentCheck was ultimately an operational one, not just one that offered a few fancy bells and whistles. RentCheck’s customer service mirrors the standards that HighPoints sets themselves to, which gave the team the confidence that this partnership would be worth every penny and last as the company continues to grow.
“RentCheck’s willingness to listen to customer feedback has created a good working relationship.”
Time Saved On Inspections Operations By The Numbers
Key Outcome
- >200 move-ins / move-outs handled by 1 person in a quarter
Before vs After
- >Before: ~2 full-time roles required
- >After: 1 person handling scaled volume
Efficiency Gains
- > Reduced coordination time
- > Eliminated travel time
- > Increased team capacity
Tenant Experience Improvements
- > Flexible scheduling (day/night/weekends)
- > Works across diverse tenant types
RentCheck – The Tenant-Led Property Inspection Solution
Is your property inspection process for large portfolios requiring more headcount? Struggling with missed rental property inspections? Is AppFolio’s current inspection tool getting in the way? Is staff getting access to all homes proving impossible and resulting in missed inspections? Are you looking to have confidence that your properties are in good condition and so you can continue to add more?
Check out how RentCheck handles move-in, mid-lease, and move-out inspections with property management growth tools: pricing, view a demo for our AppFolio integration, or reach out to our property management solutions team today and find a way to get every inspection done with RentCheck.
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RentCheck FAQs
How do property managers conduct inspections at scale?
As your portfolio grows, in-person staff-led inspections become impossible to keep up with — there simply aren't enough hours in the day to physically visit every unit. That's where tenant-guided inspection software from RentCheck comes in, which allows residents to complete inspections themselves using their smartphone. This gives property managers full coverage across every unit without requiring staff to drive property to property. Automated scheduling and reminders ensure no inspection falls through the cracks, even across hundreds of units spread across a wide geographic area.
How do you inspect rental properties without visiting in person?
Tenant-led inspection tools like RentCheck allow property managers to send inspection requests directly to residents, who then walk through the property and document its condition using a guided mobile app like RentCheck. The tenant submits timestamped photos and notes, which are stored in a centralized dashboard the management team can review remotely. This approach gives you documented proof of property condition at move-in, mid-tenancy, and move-out without a single staff member needing to set foot on the property or disrupt the tenant's day.
What is tenant-led inspection software?
Tenant-led inspection software puts the inspection process in the hands of the resident. Instead of scheduling a staff member to visit each unit, managers send tenants a structured inspection checklist through an app like RentCheck. The tenant completes it on their own time, submitting photos and condition notes for each area of the property. The results are automatically logged and made available to the property manager, creating a consistent, documented record of property condition that reduces disputes, liability, and missed inspections.
How does RentCheck integrate with AppFolio?
RentCheck connects directly with AppFolio's property management platform, allowing managers to trigger, track, and store inspections without leaving their existing workflow. Once integrated, inspection requests can be sent automatically based on lease events — like move-in, move-out, or scheduled mid-lease checkups — that are already tracked in AppFolio. Completed inspection reports sync back into the platform, keeping all your property data in one place. Monte Vista Properties used this exact integration to bring consistent inspection coverage to all of their units.
How often should property managers inspect rental homes?
Industry best practice is to inspect rental properties at three key moments: move-in, once or twice mid-lease (typically every 6 months), and move-out. For larger portfolios, sticking to this cadence manually becomes a significant operational burden. Tenant-led inspection software makes it realistic to hit every inspection on schedule regardless of portfolio size, since the process doesn't require staff travel. Regular inspections also protect owners from costly surprises — like the $50,000 situation Monte Vista Properties faced — by giving managers visibility into what's actually happening inside their units.
Testimonials
What customers say
"RentCheck has helped us automate our property inspections, saving countless man hours and scheduling headaches. Our homeowners love getting a thorough inspection with photos of their property, and our residents are empowered to take control over their security deposit. We love the team at RentCheck. They take our feedback and keep improving the platform. We can't recommend them enough!"
"RentCheck is an excellent way to set and forget your routine inspections or to begin an inspection process. If you are looking for a solution to improve or leverage your unit inspection process, RentCheck just makes perfect sense."
"Now that we use RentCheck, residents can conduct the inspection themselves saving us time. Rentcheck has also proved invaluable upon move out. It’s very easy to compare the move in report with the move out report. Easy to show support charges against the resident deposits. It’s a much more comprehensive report than we previously utilized. Rentcheck has been very receptive to feedback and exploring options if we run into issues. I highly recommend Rentcheck. We are very happy with their services."
More Customers We Love
I like that we can send tenants inspections, so that we can see the status of the home without having to invade their space multiple times a year.
- Isabella Schaefer
Farnsworth Realty and Management
RentCheck was user friendly enough for a broad spectrum of individuals to be able to utilize it.
- David Sandow
Owner, All County Polk and All County Metro
RentCheck helps me sleep well at night knowing I can tell any client, ‘Yes, this is how we’re handling inspections. Your tenant will receive the notices, and we’ll be keeping track of everything.
- Nurith Berstein
Agent, Next Level Rentals & Realty
With RentCheck, we provide tenants our condition record at move-in for them to review and confirm or add their own notes and photos as needed. Tenants love this transparency and it eliminates confusion at move-out since everyone agreed on the condition upfront.
- Brent Moore
Property Manager, Iron Creek Properties
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