Happy Inspector App for Easy Unit Turnovers

By Mallory Bulman, Associate Editor

The real estate industry is notoriously slow at adopting new technology, whether for reasons of perceived difficulty, added cost or the hassle of transferring large volumes of financial data and client information. Andrew Mackenzie-Ross, the co-founder of HappyCo’s Happy Inspector app, knows this to be true, as he told MHN, “We made sure that wherever we could, we tried to keep the app intuitive. Even though it’s a very customizable platform, you have to still try to make it simple for the end user to pick up, because it has to be easier than a piece of paper.”

Designed for multifamily property managers, the tools and features offered make it easy for inspectors to use custom ratings and scoring, document with digital photos, capture electronic signatures, submit reports instantly, store data securely in the cloud and search previous reports. Companies with existing inspection systems will find it convenient to customize the app to meet their needs. In fact, Happy Co. will even digitize existing paper forms, while companies looking for a ready-made system can browse the app’s Template Library, which has a growing database of forms created by other businesses.

Among the app’s existing customers is Equity Residential, which introduced HappyCo at its multifamily properties in early November. Equity signed a multi-year deal to utilize the Happy Inspector mobile app to inspect apartments at move-in and move-out, document damage and identify necessary repairs in its more than 80,000 units across 310 locations. “The big sticking point for [Equity Residential] was ‘How are we going to be able to roll this out to all of our people quickly and train them?’’ noted Mackenzie-Ross.

For Equity, it only made sense to move to an easier, more tech-savvy solution after years of paper forms and filing individual photos. “Equity Residential’s property managers and service teams began using it with minimal hands-on training,” said Edward Leigh, vice president of operations at Equity Residential. “Once people saw the app work, they were eager to learn it because they could see how much easier it would make their jobs. Even our less tech-savvy users that had no experience using a tablet picked it up from just a short demo.”

HappyCo offers free, personalized demos of their software online, so whether your company is double the size of Equity’s or a just a fraction of it, you can see how automating the inspection process can save time and money as well produce and analyze valuable metrics.