See how Obligo's deposit-free solution helped Landmark Communities reduce the time spent on deposit-related tasks by 96%. “Of all the platforms we’ve integrated into our leasing process, Obligo is the easiest and smoothest. It’s a breath of fresh air."

About Landmark Communities

Tara Anthony is the Director of City Center Residential Operations at Landmark Communities, a multifamily portfolio of 1,445 Class A units in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. Her team has been using Obligo since August 2019 to help provide residents with an outstanding move-in and move-out experience.

Tara’s Challenge: Simplifying the Move-In & Move-Out Experience

To help accelerate lease signings, Tara and her team wanted to provide prospective residents with the ability to complete move-in instantly and paperlessly, right from their phones. The process of touring a community and completing a lease application was easy enough to do on-site, but sending people away to get certified checks for their security deposit and move-in payments was complicating the process and resulting in lost deals.

“When someone visits one of our properties, we want to make the move-in as simple as possible,” said Tara. “We asked ourselves, how can we expedite this process and provide a more renter friendly experience? What are other property managers offering that we can integrate with our PMS, Yardi Voyager?”

Streamlining move-in payments and deposit collection was crucial, but Tara also wanted a way to reduce the administrative work required for deposit refunds at move-out. Tracking forwarding addresses, printing and mailing paper checks, and meeting state deposit refund deadlines had become a time consuming burden. Prior to implementing Obligo, the Landmark Communities team was spending an estimated 2.5 hours of deposit-related admin for every single lease. The Landmark Communities portfolio was also growing quickly. With young professionals flocking to the area, she wanted to provide an offering that would help her properties stand out.

A Better Security Deposit Alternative

“We have a very thorough vendor evaluation process. We ask a lot of questions and many vendors simply can’t make the cut,” said Tara.

In evaluating the available solutions, Tara wanted an easy to implement deposit solution that would give her residents the flexibility to live deposit-free
or pay a traditional deposit, if they so choose. The ability to quickly and easily integrate with her PMS software, Yardi Voyager, was also key. Enter Obligo.

To qualify for Obligo, residents provide a billing authorization to one or more payment method (i.e. a bank account or credit card). Obligo connects to these accounts in real-time and checks the average available balance to ensure that a renter would have the ability to repay any end-of-lease charges. In exchange for a small fee to Obligo, qualified residents keep their cash throughout the duration of the lease.

Our secure billing authorization then enables owners and managers to charge renters up to the established deposit amount at the end of their lease. Property managers can only charge up to this amount for damages or missed rent, and unreasonable charges may be disputed, just like a traditional deposit.

With a seamless integration into Yardi Voyager, new residents at Landmark Communities are automatically invited to live deposit-free or pay a traditional deposit if they prefer. All move-in payments are seamlessly processed via the Obligo platform.

Landmark Communities’ Results

“Implementation was super easy, we had zero issues. When we started offering Obligo, prospective renters were instantly intrigued. We rolled it out at one property and we quickly saw more and more renters choosing to live deposit-free. We then launched it across our entire portfolio,” said Tara.

Today, 82% of Landmark Communities’ residents choose to live deposit-free. As a result, Tara’s team has reduced the time they spend on deposit-related tasks by 96%. At move-in, new residents are automatically processed. At move-out, her team now spends just 5 minutes on security deposit administration per resident, which includes closing out the lease and double checking any deductions. The entire process is paperless - the Landmark team doesn’t accept certified checks anymore. Said Tara, “Obligo absolutely gives us a competitive edge. It helps us sign leases faster. It’s an amenity and we tell prospective residents about it up front. I love knowing that we’re making our resident’s lives easier.”