on January 30, 2026
Property Management Articles Maintenance itself hasn’t changed much: homes still break, residents still submit requests, and vendors still do the work. What has changed is the pace and volume that come with scale.
As portfolios grow, maintenance volume increases and compounds. Processes that feel seamless at 500 units begin to fracture at 5,000 and become a liability at a national scale.
Manual vendor assignment, scattered email threads, and “black hole” job statuses slow teams down and erode the owner trust and resident satisfaction that fueled the growth in the first place.
For large-scale operators, visibility is no longer a luxury, it is the baseline for survival. This was the operational reality facing Renters Warehouse as they scaled toward a national footprint.
Who Renters Warehouse Is
Renters Warehouse is a national residential real estate platform. They support owners across the entire property lifecycle, including buying, selling, leasing, and full-service management.
Currently, the organization manages approximately 10,000 corporate doors across 21 markets, with an additional 6,000 to 7,000 doors operating through their franchise model. Managing such a diverse range of geographies and property types demands a sophisticated operational engine that establishes maintenance as a core, integrated system.
Where Scale Introduced Friction
Expansion into dozens of markets inevitably created noise. Vendor coverage was uneven, as some markets were responsive while others lagged. Internal teams found themselves acting as switchboard operators, spending more time chasing status updates than resolving work orders.
The most significant pain point was the information gap. As work orders moved through various vendors, leadership lost the ability to see the context behind the data.
How long were jobs actually taking? When did the technician arrive? Without clear answers, property managers were stuck in a reactive loop, fielding frustrated calls from residents and owners without the insight needed to respond confidently.
“Scalability has always been a challenge because not every vendor is in every market, and not every vendor has capacity.” — Josh Zupfer, VP of Portfolio Services
How Renters Warehouse Evaluated Change
When Renters Warehouse began looking for a solution, they weren’t looking for a wholesale replacement of their culture. Maintenance was already a critical part of the resident experience, and any change needed to be incremental and collaborative rather than disruptive.
Throughout the evaluation process, the team was cautious about over-automating maintenance. While automation could help manage routine coordination, Renters Warehouse emphasized the importance of maintaining clear paths to human intervention. At scale, maintenance still required people to step in, communicate clearly, and resolve edge cases when situations called for it.
They also prioritized optionality. In national property management, a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works. No single provider can cover every trade in every market. Renters Warehouse needed a solution that could handle high-volume coordination while allowing strong local vendor relationships to remain in place.
“Their willingness to collaborate on what we needed them to do, versus telling us ‘this is how we do it,’ was a big factor.” — Josh Zupfer
This mindset shaped how Renters Warehouse approached rollout. Rather than forcing a large transition upfront, the team preferred to test, learn, and expand over time.
What Changed After Partnering With Lula
By integrating Lula into their existing workflows, Renters Warehouse effectively “de-cluttered” their maintenance operation. The results were felt across three distinct areas:
- Operational Velocity: Automation replaced manual routing. By reducing the administrative burden of assigning and tracking jobs, internal teams shifted their focus from “logistics” to “exceptions.”
- Granular Visibility: For the first time, leadership had a “GPS view” of the portfolio. They gained insight into technician arrival times and actual time-on-site. This data didn’t just help them manage Lula; it helped them benchmark their entire vendor ecosystem.
- Consistent Communication: Automated, real-time updates bridged the gap between the work being done and the resident’s awareness of it. By setting clearer expectations through technology, they reduced the “status update” call volume significantly.
“Lula gave us insights we didn’t have before around key aspects of a work order, like tech on-site time, arrival times, and how long it’s been with a vendor.” — Josh Zupfer
The Takeaway: Scaling with Intention
Scaling maintenance was never about centralizing control or replacing the human element. It was about building a model that could breathe with the business.
By treating maintenance as a core operational system, with Lula as the engine for that system, Renters Warehouse achieved a rare balance of structure and adaptability. They standardized seasonal services like HVAC tune-ups and winterizations across 21 markets, while simultaneously preserving the local flexibility that makes their service unique.
For other operators, the Renters Warehouse story offers a clear blueprint: You don’t have to sacrifice control to achieve scale. With the right systems in place, you can grow deliberately, keep your eyes on the data, and ensure that a “broken faucet” in a new market doesn’t break your reputation.
Learn how Lula supports maintenance operations at scale
Lula helps property managers coordinate maintenance across markets without losing visibility or control. Speak to a member of our team today.
Anything found written in this article was written solely for informational purposes. We advise that you receive professional advice if you plan to move forward with any of the information found. You agree that neither Lula or the author are liable for any damages that arise from the use of the information found within this article
