Mercy Housing, Inc. and Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. collaborated on research to determine the impact of resident services on property performance in affordable family rental housing.

Study Results Demonstrate Cost Savings In Properties with Resident Services: The Mercy property performance research consists of a review of selected property performance data with obvious correlations with resident behavior in 36 properties totaling 1,787 units of family housing. Similar properties with resident services were compared to properties without services.

Initial findings demonstrated that services provided to families by resident services staff reduced property vacancy losses, legal fees and bad debts. In this case the differences were $225 per unit and $356 per unit in two recent consecutive years. While not completely definitive, the results demonstrate a robust correlation. ’

Vacancy Loss Per Unit
FY 2005: Properties with RS out-performed those without resident services by 24%.
FY 2006: Properties with RS out-performed those without resident services by 42%. ’

Cost of Legal Fees Per Unit
FY 2005: Properties with RS out-performed those without resident services by 40%.
FY 2006: Properties with RS out-performed those without resident services by 76%. ’

Cost of Bad Debt Per Unit
FY 2005: Properties with RS out-performed those without resident services by 44%.
FY 2006: Properties with RS out-performed those without resident services by 17%.