Real Estate Data Reveals Struggles of Property Owners and Service Providers to Better Manage Work

Economic Concerns

According to the survey, hurdles to business growth among property owners and service providers include a lack of funds, mostly due to the cost of startup materials and the time to get paid for completed jobs.

Other Data Included in the Survey:

• Four in 10 owners and service providers say that the most significant issues they face overall are that there are not enough skilled workers available to hire and they have issues sourcing materials for jobs.
• Just slightly over a quarter (26%) report that they don’t have enough work, while slightly less (24%) say they have too much work.
• Asked to name their biggest challenge toward the growth of their real estate businesses, nearly half (46%) of respondents pointed to the cost of materials to start a job, while 41% noted that it can take one to four weeks to get compensated for a completed assignment.
• Close to one-quarter (24%) noted that a lack of funds was the greatest obstacle, while 19% cited having a difficult time getting paid for work.

Technology Woes

The survey of 505 property owners and service providers found that many struggle to find a key end-to-end management solution, as a majority noted they’re still using multiple forms of technology to find jobs (76%), manage their jobs (72%) and manage payments and accounting (83%). In addition, 75% report that they would be able to take on more work with the help of a third-party company that assists with upfront materials and costs. Other tech worries include:

• 34% still rely on “paper” to organize their businesses and keep track of jobs, while 37% use a single computer.
• Only 29% manage most of their business using online software from a third-party provider.
• One-quarter say they spend 20% to 30% of their time looking for new business, with another 18% spending 30% to 40% of their time doing so and 14% spending between 40-50% of their time on this endeavor.
• Another 20% say they are lacking in technology adoption.

“What we discovered through this survey is that there’s a pressing need for an efficient technological approach to managing the day-to-day business for both property owners and service providers,” said Candice Bradley, EVP, marketplace operations at Lessen. “Those we surveyed indicated that their biggest obstacles were related to finding skilled professionals to hire, a search that technology helps to streamline more efficiently. It also assists with the challenge of conducting business remotely and in an organized fashion. Professionals expressed the need for technological tools enabling them to search for more work and for ways to outsource materials for their jobs so the outcome is greater productivity.”

Lessen modernizes the real estate industry with technology that delivers a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for property services. The company saves all parties time and money by replacing outdated manual processes and spreadsheets with centralized project and work order management, as well as integrated dashboards, billing and analytics. Lessen’s platform is flexible, efficient and service professional friendly. It provides a well-defined and consistent job flow for service professionals, incorporating fast and guaranteed payments for completed work, as well as tools that providers can use to quickly grow their businesses.

Methodology: A national online survey of 505 real estate professionals and property managers, ages 18 and over, was conducted by Propeller Insights on behalf of Lessen in April of 2021. Survey responses were nationally representative of the U.S. population for age, gender, region, and ethnicity. The maximum margin of sampling error was +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.