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“The solution that KingsleySurveys delivered across our portfolio has given our executive team and board of directors new insights and permitted them to ask more insightful questions about the resident experience and how we are investing."
Thomas Stanchak
Director of Sustainability
Overview
Stoneweg US is a real estate investment firm based in St. Petersburg, Florida, specializing in the acquisition and development of multifamily assets. Currently, their portfolio spans 15 states across the Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest portions of the United States. Stoneweg US — part of the Switzerland-headquartered Stoneweg Group with offices across Europe — was founded in 2016. They serve as the exclusive asset manager of Varia US Properties AG, a publicly traded company focused on investment in American workforce multifamily apartment communities that promote a high quality of life for residents.
Stoneweg US challenges the conventions of real estate investment by using a research-driven, results-oriented approach that integrates ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and sustainability into their overarching strategy. Leading that charge for Stoneweg US is Thomas Stanchak, Director of Sustainability, whose core responsibility is to innovate and integrate relevant ESG and sustainability practices into the routine operations of the communities where Stoneweg US invests. In addition, Thomas is responsible for corporate reporting aligned with relevant ESG frameworks and benchmarks, including GRESB (Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark).
Thomas believes resident satisfaction is the key to unlocking the full value of the communities where they invest. However, with a business strategy that outsources site management to various professional third-party fee managers, he quickly realized they needed a strategic solution for collecting resident feedback that could be applied consistently across their large and diverse portfolio.
Company Profile
Industry: Multifamily Investment & Development
Headquarters: St. Petersburg, Florida
Years in Business: 9+
Number of Team Members: 41
Portfolio Includes: 50 Assets, 14K Apartment Units, 15MM Gross Sq. Ft, and >$2.2B
Challenge
The problem Thomas faced was clear: He wanted to deliver an unbiased report on resident sentiment to current and future equity partners, investors, and market analysts, but he lacked a survey solution that could scale.
As a result, he saw the possibility of Stoneweg US falling short of its goal to demonstrate transparency and leadership related to resident social engagement and management.
“The foundation of our investment strategy is providing high-quality, affordable apartments to the American workforce; the value of our investments is a function of the individual leases with each of the residents that call our communities home,” Thomas explains. “[But] we lacked insight into nearly 70% of our locations for one reason or another.”
While some communities were conducting resident satisfaction surveys, there was no consistency. For asset managers, this lack of consistency in survey methods meant the insights they did have were disorganized and provided no valid measure of comparison for communities, types of communities, managers, and regions.
Although Stoneweg US did utilize a few ad-hoc survey forms, they lacked a comprehensive tool for goal setting, accountability, and analyzing trends, as well as an industry benchmark to measure performance.
Thomas adds, “If you lack a benchmark, your KPIs are unilateral, which diminishes the ability to create accountability for the outcomes.” So with a clear vision for change, he set out to find a solution.
Solution
Since Stoneweg US relies on third-party managers for day-to-day operations, Thomas was initially concerned about finding a solution that would function across various locations and over different property management technology platforms.
However, in exploring options, Thomas quickly realized that Grace Hill's KingsleySurveys provided the desired functionality and the tools and benchmarks he needed to measure resident satisfaction across their portfolio.
One of Thomas’s goals for this process was to find a robust solution that could be applied with minimal disruption. And three things, in particular, helped KingleySurveys stand above the competition:
• Reputation: KingsleySurveys maintains an excellent reputation in the real estate market – particularly in the multifamily investment vertical.
• Expertise: For over 35 years, KingsleySurveys has delivered actionable insights with resident experience and satisfaction
• Employee Buy-In: Many of Stoneweg’s properties were already using KingsleySurveys successfully with their residents.
With the added benefit of self-paced online training for onsite teams, property supervisors, and asset managers — combined with exemplary support and a short learning curve for implementation and understanding — Thomas felt confident he was on the verge of having the comprehensive, data-driven insights he needed to act.
FAVORITE FEATURE: WORD CLOUD
“We use the word-cloud feature in our internal communications and with investors. It illustrates resident sentiment in a more relatable and tangible way. 'When the words 'location, quiet, and staff' show up frequently in resident descriptions of our communities, that is an important indicator we are investing in apartment communities in the right locations and choosing the right people to operate them."
- Thomas Stanchak, Director of Sustainability
Results
Taking care of residents is an essential measure for Stoneweg US. For them, it goes well beyond lip service; it’s a metric that matters and drives daily decision-making.
With surveys now applied consistently and comprehensively across their portfolio, resident satisfaction has become an essential part of their investment strategy and a tactical piece of their business practice.
Post-implementation, they’ve experienced many positive results, most notably significant growth in NOI and investment valuations.
As Thomas adds, “It’s one thing to say in your investment thesis that resident experience is an important part of the business strategy, but it’s another thing to measure, manage, and transparently report the results of resident sentiment with your investors.”
Additionally, two data points, in particular, have provided enormous value: Overall Satisfaction Score and Net Promoter Score (NPS). Both are now routinely tracked KPIs.
- Overall Satisfaction Score: Stoneweg US includes this in weekly reporting from property managers to asset managers and leverages the results to improve, set goals, and reward improvement.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): In conjunction with the Overall Satisfaction Score, NPS is an additional data point that provides unique insight into which communities need to improve the quality of service offered to residents.
Thomas notes, “We believe when our work moves the trend of these scores up, it supports our goal of a high-quality living experience and will deliver the full value for our investors.”
Added benefit and impact:
- Overall satisfaction and NPS scores published each month internally; trending results communicated company-wide to deepen understanding of investments.
- Survey data shared with investors to demonstrate results, promote transparency, and deliver insight related to the management of Stoneweg’s business model.
- KingsleySurveys app and portal provide on-the-spot insight with the ability to capture “contact requests”; provides visibility into community concerns and the ability to address and rectify situations promptly.
With the KingsleySurveys survey solution applied to their business practice, Stoneweg US now has enhanced visibility into their portfolio with an effective bottom-up and top-down accountability tool to measure and manage resident sentiment and understand property performance.
Thomas understands that measuring what matters makes all the difference, and Grace Hill’s KingsleySurveys provided him the platform to do just that.
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