Committed to enhancing apartment living with technology and energy efficiencies
Alex Cuenca
Director of Asset Performance
Maxus Properties
12+ years of experience in multifamily
Leads portfolio-wide smart home technology initiatives and oversees software implementation, product support, and product training
Maxus Properties
When Maxus Properties first came to HappyCo in 2016, they needed help streamlining their move-in and move-out inspections. We sat down with Alex Cuenca, now Director of Asset Performance, in 2017 to chat about how HappyCo helped reduce turn time and aided with maintenance. But, in the six years since, Maxus and HappyCo have both changed a lot. HappyCo has evolved from a single offering to a multi-product provider, and Maxus has upleveled the quality of their assets.
Pen and paper inspections lacked organization and limited collections
Estimated budgets due to a lack of clarity around how much money needs to be allocated to repairs, damages, etc.
Barely keeping up with fire and life safety demands led to unnecessary costs
Miscellaneous, one-off asks from various stakeholders were total time sucks
Lack of portfolio-wide visibility for compliance issues
Solutions
Digital inspections with Happy Property: Maintenance include photos, timestamps, and detailed notes
Property managers are required to conduct a monthly property inspection with HappyCo
Use HappyCo to determine replacement smoke alarms needed in advance and order in bulk
HappyCo’s custom reporting capability makes it easy to pull any information needed
Easily generate and distribute incident reports with HappyCo
Outcomes
Collections process improved by 25%
Detailed understanding of wish list items versus absolute requirements and total expected cost
18% savings on fire and life safety equipment
60% time savings on custom reports
Improved communication and bridged disconnect between VP of Operations, Construction Managers, and Regional Maintenance team members, among others
How HappyCo Helped
In the last few years especially, Maxus has scrutinized their tech stack and optimized the use of their current tools—HappyCo being one of them. So, why has Maxus stuck with HappyCo, and how has their usage of our products evolved? Keep reading to find out!
"Sometimes, when I evaluate our tech stack, I think, ‘Do we really need this? Do we really need that?,’ but that’s never crossed my mind with HappyCo." Alex Cuenca Director of Asset Performance
Where We Started: Impact on Inspections
When Maxus Properties first partnered with HappyCo in 2016, their primary objective was to improve property inspections, specifically move-ins and move-outs. Even then, Alex and his team were quick to find additional use cases for HappyCo—eventually, they converted more than 30 inspection templates into electronic forms.
“We really got into the weeds and ended up converting 30 different inspections into the mobile app,” shared Alex. “Everything from keeping up with our refrigerant log, our incident reports, our IT team even used it as an inventory tool to store hardware!”
As of 2023, Maxus conducts an average of six inspections per unit per year and has collected 1.08 million ratings in the last year via HappyCo.
Richer Insights = Greater Cost Savings
Now, the area where HappyCo has had the biggest impact on Maxus Properties is producing insights into the state of operations at their communities.
As part of the semi-annual apartment inspections, onsite teams record the expiration date and purchase date of smoke alarms and smoke detectors to comply with fire and life safety. With HappyCo, they have an accurate property- and portfolio-wide picture into their yearly budget for new equipment.
“We get a better discount on those products, which is a huge win for us,” said Alex. “Previously, we may have not kept up with it as easily or to that scale, and we wouldn't have been getting those bulk discounts—which have been a home run for us.”
Taking Visibility to New Heights
With more than 8,000 units spread across 30 properties, keeping communities up and running smoothly requires a ton of moving parts. Keeping reports and inspections on pen and paper wasn’t working—it’s difficult for onsite teams to keep track of individual reports, let alone sharing them with Maxus’s stakeholders in different states.
With HappyCo, the team can easily distribute reports and inspection results across the organization. When an incident occurs at any property, the new standard protocol is to send them off to the VP of Operations, Construction Managers, Regional Maintenance teams, and so on to bridge the disconnect across the portfolio.
With the semi-annual apartment inspection, Alex can see how many units have been inspected so far, view the dashboard for real-time progress, and send it out to his regional and property managers on a weekly basis for increased transparency.
Another area where HappyCo has had a great impact is on budgeting visibility. Because everything is documented in such great detail, they have a crystal clear understanding of where funds need to be allocated.
"Having a monthly property inspection that our property managers are required to complete each month has really helped us plan our budgets more effectively. It gives us a better idea of wish list items versus absolute needs." Alex Cuenca Director of Asset Performance
Cover Your Ass(ets): Prioritizing Liability Concerns
Liability is a primary concern in multifamily. Accidents happen, but multifamily owners like Maxus need to ensure they do everything they can to protect their residents.
HappyCo makes it easy to reduce risk and get ahead of any compliance issues. From elevator inspections to exterior light checks, the Maxus team uses HappyCo to keep up with their properties’ overall condition to catch any potential problems before they occur.
Alex has found particular value in the snow log template, where he can easily record if there was snowfall or not and upload pictures of the team shoveling and throwing down snow melt. “Being prepared for anything has been huge” Alex shared.
Custom Reporting = Valuable Time Savings
As Director of Asset Performance, Alex is no stranger to random, one-off asks. But, with HappyCo, fulfilling them is less of a headache. If someone asks him how many incidents in the past month involved a dog or a cat, he can easily customize reporting to find the answer.
“The Happy Property reporting is extremely flexible and useful for any sort of report, photo, comment, or rating you want to look at,” said Alex. “Whatever it is you need, you can find it in there.”
Now, instead of combing through incident reports and manually categorizing them, Alex can spend more time doing what really matters—providing the best possible experience for Maxus residents.
Customer Service/Partnership
At HappyCo, one of our core values is to remain customer obsessed. We want to do more than just provide a solution to our customers—we want to be true, long-term partners who work together to make our customers’ communities a great place to call home.
Alex shared that he’s found HappyCo’s collaborative spirit to be a major asset to Maxus Properties. In one specific instance, the HappyCo team created an integration with Maxus’s property management provider so when onsite teams complete an inspection, it’s automatically reflected in a resident activity log. That way, even if property managers can’t get a PDF of the inspection report, they can still access it from anywhere.
"Whenever I talk to anybody from HappyCo, it always feels very personal and like a true partnership. The team isn’t hyper-focused on revenue, but instead on asking questions like, ‘What can we do for you?’ or ‘How can we improve this process?,’ which I value quite a bit." Alex Cuenca Director of Asset Performance
The ease of use with HappyCo software combined with the ease of working with HappyCo team members, has made a world of difference for Maxus.
What’s Next for HappyCo and Maxus?
After a seven-years-long partnership, it’s safe to say that for Maxus Properties, HappyCo isn’t just a phase. As Maxus hones their focus on optimizing the usage of their current tech stack, they’re continuing to find new, innovative ways to use HappyCo’s property inspection and insights software.
We couldn’t be happier to have them as a long-term partner!
"We just acquired a new property in Kansas City, and the first thing the regional manager said to me was, ‘When can we have HappyCo active and ready to go?" Alex Cuenca Director of Asset Performance
The Road to Success
Challenges
Pen and paper inspections lacked organization and limited collections
Estimated budgets due to a lack of clarity around how much money needs to be allocated to repairs, damages, etc.
Barely keeping up with fire and life safety demands led to unnecessary costs
Miscellaneous, one-off asks from various stakeholders were total time sucks
Lack of portfolio-wide visibility for compliance issues
Solutions
Digital inspections with Happy Property: Maintenance include photos, timestamps, and detailed notes
Property managers are required to conduct a monthly property inspection with HappyCo
Use HappyCo to determine replacement smoke alarms needed in advance and order in bulk
HappyCo’s custom reporting capability makes it easy to pull any information needed
Easily generate and distribute incident reports with HappyCo
Outcomes
Collections process improved by 25%
Detailed understanding of wish list items versus absolute requirements and total expected cost
18% savings on fire and life safety equipment
60% time savings on custom reports
Improved communication and bridged disconnect between VP of Operations, Construction Managers, and Regional Maintenance team members, among others
Ready to learn how HappyCo can create efficiencies at your communities?
