Ray Hespen
The Maintenance Advantage: How Service Quality Defines Resident Retention and Revenue
Ray Hespen is the CEO and co-founder of Property Meld, a maintenance automation software company. Ray and his co-founder, David Kingman, started Property Meld in 2014 to bring intelligent maintenance to the property management world. His background is rooted in the manufacturing business. As a degreed engineer, his previous roles have involved reducing operating expenses while improving quality and consistency. He has taken this operational knowledge and combined it with technology to start one of the fastest-growing real estate technology companies in the United States.
12:30pm - 1:45pm - General Session Ballroom
Wed March 25 Wed
M. The Maintenance Advantage: How Service Quality Defines Resident Retention and Revenue
This presentation unpacks groundbreaking findings from the Resident Renewal Study, analyzing over 110,000 residents and 250,000 maintenance work orders to reveal the strongest predictor of lease renewal: the quality of the maintenance experience. Drawing from statistically validated data, this session demonstrates how small differences in response time, communication, and repair quality drive 8–12 percentage point gaps in renewal rates and translate into thousands of dollars in NOI and asset value per unit annually. Attendees will explore how maintenance has evolved from an operational function to a strategic growth lever, uncovering insights into:
- The true cost of churn and how poor maintenance compounds financial losses.
- The critical 90-day window that defines long-term retention.
- The impact of response speed and repair priority on renewal decisions.