The short-term rental market via Airbnb and Vrbo is hot, and the MDU construction market is strong, so it makes sense that a targeted system for property managers would be needed. That’s exactly the target market for Dwellwell, a data and analytics product that monitors the health of the entire home.
The company launched recently targeting the residential property maintenance market. Since its founding in 2018, Dwellwell Analytics, Inc. has raised more than $12 million in seed funding from the State of Maryland and executives from the property technology, engineering and real estate industries.
Residential maintenance costs property owners in excess of $80 billion annually, yet there’s no way to know what’s happening inside a home’s vital systems until it’s too late and a catastrophe occurs, according to the company. Dwellwell is a smart home product that provides remote monitoring and alerts for all major residential systems, including HVAC, electrical and plumbing. It also delivers a wide-ranging view of the home’s environmental aspects, including temperature, CO presence and humidity.
The company says it combines patent-pending, multi-sensing technology and artificial intelligence to take the guesswork out of maintenance for owners and managers of residential property portfolios.
By identifying maintenance issues as soon as they arise ‒ and eventually predicting issues before they occur ‒ Dwellwell enables users to address repairs proactively, significantly reducing costs and averting major system failures.
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“In the U.S., we have 100 million cars on the road and all of them have a check engine light. By contrast, we have 130 million homes and none of them have a check engine light. Legacy smart home products typically focus on one aspect of a residence, and there has been no comprehensive solution for whole-home monitoring,” said Dan Simpkins, Dwellwell co-founder and CEO.
“With Dwellwell, we’re introducing a much-needed holistic solution. Our team of recognized experts in the fields of sensor technology, product design, proptech and artificial intelligence has built a product that reimagines preventative home maintenance, using data and analytics.”
Since the 2008 housing crisis, the country has seen a rapid uptick in the number of single-family rental (SFR) homes, build-to-rent communities, and multi-family residences (MDU). In addition, SFR and MDU companies face rising maintenance costs of 5% to 10% annually and are experiencing reduced staffing to support their properties.
“Within SFR and multifamily real estate, streamlining maintenance is imperative to control costs, protect property assets, and deliver a superior resident experience,” said Tim Naughton, Former CEO of AvalonBay Communities and one of several early real estate industry investors in Dwellwell.
“As an all-in-one tool, Dwellwell gives property managers an unmatched level of visibility into the health of the entire residence. This tech solution is unparalleled, allowing them to move from reactive repairs to proactive, planned, and even preventative maintenance. I’m eager to see it deployed and adopted by the industry.”
For property managers who oversee expansive residential portfolios, Dwellwell provides real-time visibility into the physical condition of both occupied and vacant homes. By providing 24/7 monitoring across major home systems, operations teams can optimize their time and effectiveness during on-site property visits, focusing resources on the issues that Dwellwell has already identified.
“A ‘check engine’ for our buildings to help us monitor system functionality across our apartment portfolio is very appealing. Dwellwell provides this visibility into our building systems,” said Robert Sandler, president of Bernstein Management Corporation.
“The product is designed to alert our team to maintenance issues and system irregularities in real time, and allows us to quickly address building issues before they turn into bigger problems. Dwellwell’s turnkey platform has allowed us to monitor our apartments and identify issues, and we expect this technology to continue enhancing our operations for years to come.”
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