RealPage’s Smart Water solution is helping managers and owners identify and address water leak issues before they become a major problem for common areas and residents. It is the grand winner in the Best Use of Proptech, a new category for the MFE Awards this year.
By leveraging IoT submetering technology and algorithms based on artificial intelligence, clients are able to detect unusual consumption and meter issues in real time, enabling on-site maintenance teams to take action. In addition, Smart Water provides visibility into areas of a property that are not typically submetered, such as pools and irrigation systems.
AT A GLANCE
Organization: RealPage
Mission: RealPage’s Smart Water helps multifamily properties reduce the cost of managing waste and water.
Initiative Began: August 2021
According to RealPage, the solution also provides owners and managers transparency into performance data.
Camden Property Trust partnered with RealPage on a pilot program at two of its properties for a year to reduce overall water usage and excess waste. For the purpose of the pilot, the costs for the two properties were roughly $3,600, which included hardware and implementation fees for the common areas since it already had submetering in the units.
Via Smart Water, it reduced overall consumption by 9.5%, helping bring the firm closer to its sustainability and environmental, social, and governance goal. One month into the pilot program, RealPage identified an irrigation leak that resulted in an annualized savings of $18,548. After three months, Camden had seen an annualized savings of $24,931 with a return on investment of over 300%.
By the end of the year, Camden had received 121 IoT water alerts from the Smart Water platform, totaling 171,780 gallons of water used, and 34 hardware-related alerts, which helped maintain 98% meter health. According to RealPage, this helped save the client 626,000 gallons of water. Because of the success of the two-property pilot, the client is moving forward with implementing Smart Water at an additional 26 apartment communities that have been identified to have water leak issues.
“Giving residents access to their daily usage is extremely unique and beneficial,” said Elizabeth Lutz, vice president of sustainability at Camden. “In property management, we typically say property managers have little impact on what utilities residents consume, but we can now give residents tools to help manage their water usage using Smart Water.”
