FAQ | Grace Hill

Frequently Asked Questions

Get the answers to your questions about Grace Hill solutions.

Buying software to improve your property's performance shouldn't be difficult.

Here, you'll find answers to common questions and answers about our solutions, pricing, and how we support your success in property management. Explore below to get the information you need!

General FAQs

At Grace Hill, we offer a comprehensive suite of multifamily and commercial real estate technology solutions designed to improve property performance and ensure regulatory compliance. Our offerings include:

  • Training: Multifamily training content developed and maintained by industry experts, designed to elevate your team’s skills and foster success at your properties.
  • Policies: Tailored policies, procedures, and forms that empower your team and mitigate risk by ensuring compliance and consistency across the organization.
  • Surveys: Comprehensive survey tools and trusted benchmarks that capture stakeholder sentiment so you can take action and drive results. 
  • Mystery Shopping: Unbiased evaluations of your people and property so you can assess performance, improve the leasing process, and increase occupancy.
  • Reputation Management: Seamlessly monitor, protect, and enhance your property’s brand with an easy-to-use online reputation management (ORM) solution.
  • Virtual Leasing & Video Tools: Personalized virtual tours and videos to close leases faster, engage residents, and boost marketing efficiency.
  • Credentials & Continuing Education Credits (CECs): Convenient and affordable industry credentials and CECs through Visto, in partnership with the National Apartment Association Education Institute (NAAEI).

As a multifamily professional, we realize you have a lot on your plate, and the idea of implementing new software can feel like a daunting task. Our implementation teams understand your challenges and have developed proven processes to ensure a smooth and successful transition — without burdening you or your onsite teams. The actual software implementation timelines vary by product and level of customization required.

Yes, all Grace Hill products require a contract under our Master Services Agreement (MSA), which helps ensure a smooth partnership and clear expectations for both parties. Our standard contract length is a minimum of 12 months, though multi-year options are available, which can help secure your rate.

Currently, we do not offer month-to-month terms, as a set contract period allows us to plan resources effectively and invest in continuous product improvements for our clients.

PerformanceHQ is the future of Grace Hill! This new technology platform is designed so that Grace Hill solutions work together seamlessly in one powerful technology ecosystem. PerformanceHQ offers convenient and secure access to Grace Hill solutions and streamlines processes with unified user management and assignments. Plus, its built-in analytics dashboard provides detailed, visual performance insights on employee compliance, development, and satisfaction.

Disparate solutions cannot compare to the cycle of improvement that is possible through PerformanceHQ. By integrating key software functionality and analytics across solutions, you can drive overall performance and maximize the return on your technology investment.

Buying and selling properties is a natural part of real estate, and our Master Services Agreement) has you covered when it comes to pricing adjustments for acquisitions and dispositions. We ask that you update your unit count monthly to ensure accurate invoicing.

If you acquire a new property, your pricing will adjust based on the additional units or location. Similarly, if you sell a property, your pricing will decrease accordingly, although the total unit count can’t drop below 90% of the original contracted units. If it does, we may need to discuss a revised agreement.

As a standard, Grace Hill offers a single consolidated invoice with each property and billed amount displayed. We also provide detailed statements for each property location. However, some clients require property invoices to be sent directly to the individual sites. This can be accommodated for customers with over 2K units, with a 2% fee added to each invoice.

Grace Hill is proud to deliver our solutions in convenient packages with transparent pricing, so you’ll never worry about getting nickel-and-dimed or finding hidden fees on your invoice. Depending on your solution(s), our pricing is based either on the number of units or the number of properties that you manage.

Whether you are a growing organization with less than 500 units or a national brand with locations across the country, our pricing structure ensures you have the functionality you need with easy-to-understand pricing — and no hidden fees or surprises.

It depends on which Grace Hill solution you're interested in! Our Policies and Training solutions are designed for your entire portfolio and based on the total number of units you manage, so all properties are included.

However, if you're looking at Surveys, Mystery Shopping, or Reputation Management, these are sold by the property, meaning you can start with just a subset of your portfolio. No matter what, we’re here to help you find the right fit for your needs and goals!

We’re here to help! Our friendly Product Support Specialists are ready to assist with any questions or troubleshooting needs. The best way to reach us is by submitting a support request through your Grace Hill platform—this allows us to quickly gather the details we need to help.

You can also:

Our support team is available Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM ET. Let us know how we can assist you—we’re just a message away!

Grace Hill’s solutions help reduce risk in your organization by providing detailed, individual tracking of your policy acknowledgments and training performance. For maximum protection, we strongly recommend that all clients provide employees with individual email addresses instead of using shared accounts. Here’s why:

  • Personal Accountability: Shared inboxes can cause confusion and imply that someone else is responsible. Personal emails hold specific employees accountable for taking action on their policy or training assignments.  
  • Secure and Confidential: Individual email addresses limit access to confidential or sensitive information. When assigning policies or training, only the intended employee will receive their personal content.  
  • Efficient Communications: Unique email addresses allow employees to efficiently manage their incoming messages, improving overall productivity and record keeping. 

If your organization does not issue individual inboxes or a corporate email, Grace Hill can offer alternative methods to capture secure, individual acknowledgments.

Yes, many Grace Hill customers use an automated data feed to integrate their HRIS or similar software with the Grace Hill platform. This process streamlines and secures the upload of employee, location, and position data, saving time and reducing manual errors. By leveraging a secure file transfer protocol (SFTP), data files are uploaded from the customer’s system and imported into Grace Hill for review and approval, ensuring accuracy and consistency without having to manually upload or input the information.

Product FAQs

Training

Many multifamily operators have portfolios that span multiple states, so Grace Hill's training and policies are generally based on federal regulations and are not state-specific.

However, we do offer some content that is designed to meet state-specific requirements, like our Human Trafficking course, our state-specific Sexual Harassment content, and state-specific Fair Housing approvals from Virginia's Department of Professional & Occupational Regulation (DPOR) and Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs (TDHCA).

Yes! Grace Hill is an NAA Alliance partner and our Training platform includes more than 40 NAAEI-approved courses. These courses can count for 50% of the annual CECs required to maintain NAA credentials. In fact, with an average cost of $120 per CEC, Grace Hill’s Training can save you up to $500 per year! Calculate your savings here.

Many Training Administrators have difficulty motivating learners to complete assigned training on time. We understand this challenge and provide built-in LMS features that gamify, socialize, and encourage participation. Capture your learners’ attention in PerformanceHQ with a personalized dashboard highlighting assigned and recommended courses, company announcements, awards, leaderboards, and more! Other tips to help boost training participation:

  1. Build time into busy work schedules.
  2. Clear obstacles and distractions.
  3. Make the most of training time.
  4. Incentivize learners to motivate and reward.

We understand that having too many courses assigned at once can be overwhelming and interfere with daily duties. This is why we work to educate learning administrators on how to set up role-based learning paths for employees.

Plus, our training platform includes advanced automatic assignment logic that considers learners' location, role, and property type, reducing the risk of excessive training. In addition, Grace Hill has shorter courses that allow you to consume the content in different ways, including audio/podcast style!

At Grace Hill, we understand the importance of developing your employees to avoid costly litigation. But there’s more to protecting your organization than just Fair Housing training. We don't offer standalone Fair Housing courses, but some choose to purchase individual subsidized courses through our partner, Visto. However, most multifamily organizations prefer a comprehensive approach to employee development that offers greater compliance and increases efficiency.

Our industry-specific training platform goes beyond Fair Housing to protect your business and reduce liability related to safety, human trafficking, sexual harassment, and more. Learn more today!

We realize you have a lot on your plate, and the idea of implementing a training platform can feel like a daunting task. Our implementation teams understand your challenges and have developed proven processes to ensure a smooth and successful transition — without overburdening you or your onsite teams. We offer different levels of implementation support to ensure a smooth rollout of your new training solution:

Standard Implementation: Implement our industry-specific training program for your team with predetermined training paths that fit your needs. With our Standard Implementation in PerformanceHQ, you’ll be up and running in less than 30 days

Customized Implementation: Lean on our experts to ensure a smooth and successful training program launch in 30 to 45 days. When you choose our customized implementation, we help develop learning paths that are tailored to meet your organization’s unique learning goals. 

SkillCat Implementation: Whether your goal is to elevate overall skills or help your techs troubleshoot difficult repairs, our seamless onboarding process quickly provides access to SkillCat’s powerful mobile app in just 2-3 weeks.

We recognize that technology plays a pivotal role in improving operational efficiency, streamlining training, and enhancing the resident experience. As you evaluate opportunities to integrate systems, you may wonder if it’s possible to simply add Grace Hill’s training or policies to your PMS. Although there are benefits to reducing your tech stack, you don’t want to sacrifice crucial functionality in the process. PerformanceHQ offers advanced learning and policy management features that are not available in any PMS available today, which is why we only provide our best-in-class content through our easy-to-use platform.

Rest assured that PerformanceHQ will not burden your staff with complicated software. The intuitive interface is easy to learn and use and has a single login to access training, policies, and more! Plus, its powerful assignment engine saves admin time and ensures employees get the training and policies they need to be successful and compliant. We continually review and update content as regulations change so you can be confident that your training is current, accurate, and comprehensive. Best of all, those content updates are automatic, eliminating the manual process of modifying content kept in a disparate PMS system.

Grace Hill’s award-winning training goes beyond the basics, providing the rental housing topics and features you need to grow your team’s skills, save valuable time, and mitigate risk at your properties.

Grace Hill tracks all learner achievements, including course completions, policy acknowledgments, and mystery shopping reports, within our platform. When an employee leaves one Grace Hill Training customer’s company for another, the transcripts do not transfer.

This ensures the employee receives training specific to their new company, which may be utilizing custom content or require a policy acknowledgment after training is complete. However, transcript transfers are possible in the case of an acquisition or explicit request from the Grace Hill client.

Grace Hill’s PerformanceHQ platform allows admins to record training that occurs outside the LMS (e.g., courses offered by local associations or other equivalent training).

Grace Hill Training allows you to download a certificate of completion after you finish each course. If this training was completed while working for a previous employer and you do not have the certificates mentioned, you must contact your previous learning administrator to receive a transcript of completed courses and scores. Be advised that this transcript may not transfer to or be accepted by your new company, and you may be asked to complete all required training. 

If you completed an online CEC course(s) through Visto, a partnership between NAAEI and Grace Hill, you can view certifications by accessing your NAA online account.

 

FAQ Page - Training Section and training page

Policies

Grace Hill’s policy management solution offers scalable, transparent pricing designed to fit your business and budget. Starting at under $200/month for small businesses with under 500 units, we provide customizable packages, including popular add-ons like the Employee Handbook & Manager Guide, for comprehensive policy coverage. Our flexible per-unit pricing allows easy adjustments as your property portfolio grows, ensuring a tailored package that protects both your business and budget.

At Grace Hill, we sell our policies by the manual. Our manuals include comprehensive, industry best practice policies designed to work together to successfully mitigate risk. Better yet, our team of industry experts and partners continuously monitor legal changes that affect multifamily rental housing to ensure our policies are always in full compliance. 

When you purchase our Basic Policy Package, you can rest easy knowing you have the essential policies and forms you need to run a compliant multifamily operation. Most clients opt for a more comprehensive approach with our Complete Policy Package, which includes emergency procedures, maintenance, operations, and more. Lastly, our Student Housing Policy Package has everything you need to manage calm in the chaos!

Grace Hill only sells policies with the purchase of our policy management system. This is because we continually monitor regulations and make necessary updates to ensure compliance and protect your business. Our experts keep policies up-to-date and relevant, ensuring compliance and helping to prevent legal consequences. Plus, our platform includes automated features like policy assignment and acknowledgments that make policy admin easy!

Many multifamily operators have portfolios that span multiple states, so Grace Hill's training and policies are generally based on federal regulations and are not state-specific.

However, we do offer some content that is designed to meet state-specific requirements, like our Human Trafficking course, our state-specific Sexual Harassment content, and state-specific Fair Housing approvals from Virginia's Department of Professional & Occupational Regulation (DPOR) and Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs (TDHCA).

We know that your time is valuable and the idea of implementing a policy solution can feel daunting. Our implementation teams understand your challenges and have developed proven processes to ensure a smooth and successful transition — without overburdening you or your onsite teams. We offer two levels of implementation support to ensure a smooth rollout of your new policies:

Standard Implementation: Includes the standard policies in your selected package, the tools you need to make content updates, and resources to share the new solution with your team. Our intuitive system interface and simple onboarding process make our standard implementation easy, affordable, and fast — getting your company up and running in just 21 to 30 days. 

Customized Implementation: Our team is hands-on, reviewing your current policies and making suggested edits based on current regulations and industry best practices. We meet with your stakeholders either in person or virtually to ensure the new policies align with your processes and business goals. This personal “white glove” approach provides the policy expertise you need to protect your organization and ensure a successful internal launch. The timeline for implementation varies based on the complexity of your organization's current policy content and the availability of your stakeholders. However, on average, it takes about 18 weeks to launch your new customized policy solution.

We recognize that technology plays a pivotal role in improving operational efficiency, streamlining training, and enhancing the resident experience. As you evaluate opportunities to integrate systems, you may wonder if it’s possible to simply add Grace Hill’s training or policies to your PMS. Although there are benefits to reducing your tech stack, you don’t want to sacrifice crucial functionality in the process. PerformanceHQ offers advanced learning and policy management features that are not available in any PMS available today, which is why we only provide our best-in-class content through our easy-to-use platform.

Rest assured that PerformanceHQ will not burden your staff with complicated software. The intuitive interface is easy to learn and use and has a single login to access training, policies, and more! Plus, its powerful assignment engine saves admin time and ensures employees get the training and policies they need to be successful and compliant. We continually review and update content as regulations change so you can be confident that your training is current, accurate, and comprehensive. Best of all, those content updates are automatic, eliminating the manual process of modifying content kept in a disparate PMS system.

Grace Hill’s award-winning training goes beyond the basics, providing the rental housing topics and features you need to grow your team’s skills, save valuable time, and mitigate risk at your properties.

Surveys

At Grace Hill, our KingsleySurveys solution offers a comprehensive range of survey types designed to empower real estate organizations with actionable insights. 

Grace Hill's Resident Satisfaction Survey Programs are designed to create happier communities and reduce turnover by gathering feedback throughout the resident journey. Our ongoing survey program provides insights at key moments like prospect, move-in, work order, pre-renewal, and move-out, offering a complete view of resident sentiment. For a comprehensive snapshot of overall satisfaction, our annual survey program gathers feedback from all residents during a focused survey window, delivering actionable insights to improve community performance.

Our annual Tenant Survey is tailored to help you strengthen tenant relationships and improve retention in your commercial properties. Whether you're managing office, retail, medical, or industrial spaces, our surveys offer a clear view of tenant sentiment, empowering you to create exceptional experiences that keep your tenants happy and your properties thriving.

Our Client and Investor Survey Program fosters stronger partnerships through detailed phone interviews that provide richer insights than traditional surveys. By uncovering stakeholder priorities and demonstrating your commitment to their success, these personalized surveys help build trust and ensure your clients and investors feel valued.

Learn more about our survey programs!

Response rates for surveys can vary widely based on your property type and the type of survey conducted. Our experts leverage 35+ years of experience and industry best practices to maximize response rates. We work with you to seamlessly capture the critical data you need and make your survey a success.

Plus, our survey solution offers alerts and real-time feedback in a single dashboard, helping you quickly respond to urgent insights and address issues fast. Leverage our survey tools to maximize engagement including email and text/SMS survey formats, custom templates and branding, and more! 

Response Times by Survey Type: 

• Office: 51%-56%
• Industrial: 39%-44%
• Retail: 31% -36%
• Medical Office: 64%-69%
• Ongoing Multifamily: 17%-22% 
• Employee Engagement: 61%-66%

KingsleySurveys has been trusted for 35+ years to help real estate organizations seamlessly capture valuable insights and drive actionable feedback. Our proven process ensures your survey launch is smooth and successful. Plus, our team of experts works hand in hand with you to customize your survey content and set up distribution seamlessly. From kickoff to launch, we can typically have your new survey up and running within 45 to 60 days.

Yes, you can tailor your survey questions to meet your organization’s specific needs. The number of custom questions available depends on your package and survey type — resident surveys allow up to 15 questions, while tenant surveys offer up to 20.

However, with our industry experts and proven best practices, many clients find that our standard survey templates are already optimized to deliver the insights they need. This eliminates the need for extensive customization and ensures you gather valuable feedback from your residents, employees, or stakeholders.

Our standard survey duration is 3-5 weeks but will vary based on survey type and property size. However, we understand that every property and organization is unique. Our industry experts can work with you to customize a survey program that aligns with your specific needs and goals.

Yes! With KingsleySurveys, you can receive custom email alerts or log in to our secure portal to see all response results in real time. Be the first to see time-sensitive results with dynamic push reporting capabilities and respond immediately. That way, you can resolve concerns before it’s too late.

Rest assured that Grace Hill safeguards your resident data. Our survey solutions are designed to help you gather valuable feedback while maintaining the highest level of data privacy and security for your residents. 

 

All resident information stored in our systems is encrypted using AES-256, a trusted security standard. This ensures that the data would be unreadable, even in the unlikely event of unauthorized access to our storage. Additionally, when data is being shared — whether during surveys or between systems — it’s encrypted using TLS (Transport Layer Security). This provides robust protection against data interception or tampering during transmission.

 

These practices are in place to give you peace of mind, knowing that your residents’ data is secure at every stage.

Grace Hill's KingsleySurveys includes robust tools to measure NPS, a key metric for understanding customer satisfaction. Our comprehensive survey engagement program helps you gain a clearer picture of resident sentiment and uncover areas for service improvement. Plus, our intuitive portal includes dashboards to benchmark your performance so you can make investments that translate to increased satisfaction.

Grace Hill’s Pulse Surveys are designed to help you keep your “finger on the pulse” of employee sentiment throughout the year. Send targeted, one-question Pulse Surveys for ongoing insights that help you better understand what drives or hinders employee satisfaction and retention. Learn more.

The Kingsley Index is the most comprehensive performance benchmarking database specific to the real estate industry, comprising survey results from 7.3 million residents and 2.2 billion square feet of commercial space.

These awards recognize multifamily and commercial properties that achieved outstanding performance in resident/tenant satisfaction based on survey data collected in the previous year.

The Kingsley Excellence Awards is a listing of the top properties in the multifamily rental space. The Kingsley Excellence Elite 5 goes further to recognize the five top-performing multifamily companies across Grace Hill’s three main client tiers:

  • Tier 1 - More than 30k units
  • Tier 2 - 10k to 30k units
  • Tier 3 - Less than 10k units

Our award tiers are designed to recognize a broad range of companies that demonstrate exceptional performance. Because the number of participating companies changes each year, the number of customers in each tier also varies. To maintain the integrity and confidentiality of the award process, we don’t disclose the exact number or identities of companies within each tier (except for naming the Elite 5). This helps ensure a fair evaluation based on industry standards rather than direct comparisons among clients.

Reputation Management

Our proven implementation process is designed to help you launch faster so you can begin managing and improving your reputation sooner. Our dedicated team of experts works with you every step of the way, allowing you to gather key credentials and location deliverables to ensure a seamless setup. From initial kickoff to launch, our goal is to have you fully operational in just 30 days!

Displaying a balanced mix of reviews, including negative and positive feedback, plays a critical role in building credibility for your property. Potential residents value authenticity and are more likely to trust a brand that acknowledges both the good and the bad. In fact, a mix of positive reviews highlighting your strengths, alongside thoughtful responses to negative concerns, enhances your reputation by demonstrating your commitment to resident satisfaction. 

Grace Hill's Reputation Management platform helps you manage and respond to all reviews to boost your brand’s credibility, contributing to a stronger and more trusted reputation in the multifamily market. Learn more about the value of negative reviews!

We understand that responding to reviews can be overwhelming. Our add-on ReviewPro service is designed to take this burden off your shoulders and give your team back valuable time. Our team leverages client-provided templates and AI-powered generation to ensure your brand’s voice is consistently reflected in every response. We’ve got it covered, giving you peace of mind knowing your brand’s reputation is in expert hands.

Yes, our Local Brand Visibility (LBV) score allows multifamily organizations to compare their online presence with local and regional competitors, gaining valuable insights into how your property stands out in the market.

Unlike other scoring methods that focus solely on review ratings, LBV is the multifamily industry's only metric that combines reviews, social media engagement, local competitors, online listings, and search rankings to provide a comprehensive view of performance.

Plus, Grace Hill clients achieve even better benchmarking visibility by leveraging both the Kingsley Index and LBV score to see how your property stands out. Learn more about Grace Hill’s LBV score!

Virtual Leasing (Realync)

Multifamily leasing teams use Realync to connect with leads and engage renters virtually, offering a seamless tour experience that drives conversions. This service is not only a time-saver for leasing teams but also an essential tool for corporate teams to achieve property goals, streamline marketing efforts, and ensure brand consistency across all properties.

Realync offers a service called Realync Studios, where our expert team can record, edit, and publish high-quality Realync virtual tours to your media library for your teams.

Realync specializes in multifamily. All classes and types of properties use Realync — Class A, Class B, Class C, lease-ups, new development, and stabilized communities.

Clients create videos of property units, amenities, maintenance tutorials, resident events, post-tour follow-ups, and more. Your dedicated client success team member will provide additional video ideas, tips, and resources.

Every property has unique goals, whether it's increasing leasing activity, improving engagement, or reaching new prospects. Our tool helps clients measure success with video by tracking a variety of key metrics, such as the number of views, signed leases, and qualifying leads. In addition, clients can monitor clicks, engagement rates, and conversion statistics to understand how their virtual tours are performing.

We have a dedicated client success team ready to assist clients every day. In addition, we offer new Realync clients an in-depth training program on demand.

Yes, we offer 360° virtual tours. This interactive, click-through video tour allows viewers to explore every angle of a property at their own pace. By simply clicking on different areas of the screen, prospects can virtually walk through rooms, view key features, and get a true sense of the space — just like they’re there in person.

Yes, our live video tour offering lets you connect with renters in real time, providing them with an interactive tour of your property. Through a secure, private link, they can view the space as you walk them through it, ask questions, and get instant answers — all while ensuring their safety and privacy.

Yes, Realync is compliant with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and Fair Housing. We take accessibility seriously, ensuring that all users — regardless of ability — can fully engage with our platform.

Absolutely. Realync integrates with your current systems through our open API and ongoing partnership efforts.

Mystery Shopping

Our proven process ensures your Mystery Shopping experience is seamless and efficient. Our goal is to launch your first mystery shop within 30 days of your kick-off call, helping you quickly gain valuable insights and drive performance across your properties. From start to finish, our experts are with you at every step of the implementation process.

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