For property managers, operational success largely depends on three things: foresight, visibility, and execution.
Operating with foresight allows you to conduct proactive maintenance and detect (and possibly resolve) minor problems before they become expensive headaches. In part, that’s dependent on experience, knowing the kind of issues that can escalate if left unchecked.
It’s also about the information you have at hand. After all, you can only address structural problems if you know they are present.
Visibility is vital to the role of the property manager, though it can easily be constrained by budget limitations and, until fairly recently, a lack of technical solutions.
Even once a problem has been identified, a quick and cost-effective resolution isn’t guaranteed. Maintenance needs to be carefully planned, major works needs to be coordinated, and data-driven decisions need to be taken to ensure resources are deployed in a timely manner.
Read on to discover how drone data is enabling property managers to work with greater foresight and visibility while improving project execution.
Digitizing Property Inspections
Traditionally, property management has relied on manual inspections and subjective analysis. It was largely a reactive profession in which the issues that arose drove the efforts of the property management team.
In recent years, it’s become clear that a more proactive approach is required to keep costs down in the long run. Better still, the data is now here to enable that kind of process.
Drones provide granular and objective data that can be used to more effectively assess the condition of your property through automated analysis and smooth project planning.
On one hand, this helps reduce human error, allowing you to take that out of the equation and focus resources where they can make the most impact. On the other, new insights are now available to property managers, such as those derived from thermal imagery that pinpoints roof damage or issues with HVAC units that may not be visible to the naked eye.
With drone technology, actionable data is more affordable and accessible than ever before. Full visibility of your property is within reach. The level of awareness drones provide is limited only by how regularly you conduct aerial inspections.
Improving Inspection Workflows
Allocating resources is one of the most challenging aspects of property management. Manual roof inspections, for example, cost considerable time and money. It’s vital to streamline your workflows where possible, particularly if you can automate tasks and have a robot carry out a potentially risky mission.
With drones in your toolkit, you can gather high-quality inspection images in a fraction of the time it would take to complete a manual inspection. Armed with insights from high-resolution imagery and DroneBase Insights Roof Reports, you’re in a much better position to decide if it is necessary to take action immediately.
Repeatable, Comparable, & Scalable
The best way to ensure drones make an impact on your property management business is to use them with consistency. That means integrating them into your proactive maintenance workflows and conducting regular, repeatable missions.
With flights on a monthly or quarterly basis, you can assess your property’s key areas and their condition over time. Before long, you’ll be making maintenance decisions based on the projected condition of your property months down the line and resolving issues before they become serious.
Making Smarter Property Management Decisions
Property management is a business that often operates with tight margins and important decisions that need to be made every single day.
Drone data provides the enhanced situational awareness and objective data you need to make those decisions with confidence and they do so in a way that’s faster and more cost-effective than traditional methods. The result makes the investment a no brainer: smarter workflows, better decision making, and a smoother process from problem to resolution.
Gathering data is only one part of the process, of course. In order to glean as much insight as possible from your inspection flights, consider tapping into the power of AI alongside the experience of our in-house team. Interested? You can find out more about our Insights Roof Reports here.
