Why Multifamily Operators Are Rethinking Retention In 2026

As rent growth moderates and the market moves past a historic wave of new apartment deliveries, multifamily operators are entering a more complex phase — one where occupancy is harder to maintain and revenue is less forgiving to volatility.

That pressure is forcing a closer look at how resident retention — one of operators’ biggest levers for revenue stability — has traditionally been handled. 

“Nearly half of multifamily residents move out each year, and most continue renting elsewhere,” said Rob Hayden, CEO and co-founder of Renew, the first artificial intelligence-powered retention platform built specifically for rental operators. “Property teams are facing high costs to replace residents, and renters are experiencing the process as transactional and impersonal. The issue isn’t renting itself. It’s the lack of meaningful engagement at the lease renewal stage.”

Increasingly, renewal is being recognized as a strategic moment that directly shapes long-term asset value. But for years, it was treated as a simple back-office function — with clear consequences for operators, he said. 

Why Renewal Has Remained An Operational Blind Spot 

Renewal has long been a “missed opportunity hiding in plain sight,” Renew co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Kevin Murphy said. Part of the reason is structural. 

Over the past decade, most multifamily technology has emphasized attracting new residents over retaining existing ones. Leasing, marketing and lead management have become increasingly sophisticated, while renewal workflows stay fragmented, manual and reactive, he said.

“There’s a belief that the billions of dollars the industry spends annually on unit turns, concessions and lead generation to replace residents is unavoidable,” Murphy said. “Because it’s this presumed inevitability — death, taxes and turnover — renewal investment has been overlooked.”

In reality, most moveouts aren’t leaving the rental market altogether.

“We’ve found that 75% of residents who move out continue to rent at a different building,” Hayden said. “Sometimes the move is unavoidable, like a change in location. But often, it comes down to factors within an operator’s control, like unit size or price.”

Murphy said this leaves operators with vacancy loss, turn costs and marketing spend to replace a resident they could have retained if they had seen the signals earlier.

Murphy and Hayden estimate the industry spends $10B annually to advertise empty units on third-party marketplaces, with acquisition costs ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars per lease.

At the same time, resident relationships rarely carry across properties. A renter can leave one community and move into another owned by the same management company, only to be treated as a brand-new applicant.

“Operators are paying to acquire the same customer repeatedly, and residents have a poor experience,” Hayden said. “That’s what renewal and retention software is designed to fix.” 

What Renewal Looks Like When It's Treated As An Experience

After seeing how broken the renewal moment was from years spent in the multifamily business, Hayden and Murphy built Renew in 2021. The goal: to give operators a way to act earlier on retention risk and to give renters a better path forward at lease renewal.

Murphy said that for operators, the value shows up in two ways. 

Renew’s platform surfaces signals across resident behavior, timing, communication and service interactions to identify renewal risk before decisions are locked in. When a resident does need to move, Renew enables operators to guide that resident to another property within their portfolio, rather than losing them entirely.

“It changes the economics,” Murphy said. “Savings on third-party marketplaces can be redirected toward resident incentives, and a persistent customer profile helps operators recognize and retain residents across properties.”

Hayden said this shift also reflects a broader change in renters' expectations as long-term renting becomes a more common choice. In 2025, the median age of first-time homeownership in the U.S. hit 40. Residents are looking for more continuity and transparency in how they are engaged. 

“The renting experience is no longer a pit stop on the way to homeownership for most Americans,” Hayden said. “When people are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars over time and raising their families in these spaces, they want them to feel like home and to have a corresponding level of respect in that relationship.”

Modern retention software like Renew supports that by creating more transparency, continuity and personalization at a moment that has traditionally lacked all three. 

What This Means For The Next Generation Of Multifamily Proptech

As retention moves to the center of performance, it is also reshaping how operators think about their technology stack.

For years, multifamily proptech leaned toward do-it-all platforms. Now, more teams are seeing the need for targeted solutions that better address high-impact moments in the resident life cycle, with renewal emerging as one of the most critical.

That is where Renew is focused. Through its modern Renewal Management System and suite of specialized products, the platform is designed to help operators turn lease renewal into a strategic advantage.

One advantage is that it delivers a self-service renewal experience where renters can seamlessly review pricing, explore options and sign offers. Hayden said the goal is to remove friction, not human interaction.

“We’re reducing the workload of repetitive tasks while improving speed, intelligence and responsiveness for teams,” he said.

Another advantage is Renew’s AI-powered Momentum Score, which analyzes how residents engage with pricing, communications and property content to identify those at higher risk of moving so teams can focus efforts where they matter.

Murphy said that enabling more flexible renewal paths is also an advantage of Renew’s system because of options that include alternative units and flexible lease terms. As resident needs evolve, operators can retain residents who might otherwise leave.

The impact shows up in the numbers. One National Multifamily Housing Council-identified top 10 owner increased retention by nearly 3 percentage points after implementing Renew, translating to approximately $6M in added value across a 100,000-unit portfolio.

“We’re not just automating to automate. We’re helping partners retain high-quality residents longer, reduce turnover-related costs and grow revenue,” Murphy said. “By strengthening relationships at a critical point in the resident journey, Renew enables operators to think of their portfolio as a platform and their resident as a long-term customer.”

This article was produced in collaboration between Studio B and Renew. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.