The hardware and software that make remote management work.
Remote management is only as good as the infrastructure underneath it. We built ours in-house to run our own facilities, which is why it is built for reliability and low operating cost rather than for a sales demonstration.
The control unit we build ourselves
Every property we manage licenses a purpose-built control unit — the piece of equipment that makes a facility remotely operable. We call it the brains of the property.
Once it is in, a tenant can be granted access, restricted or released without anyone driving to the site.
We designed it ourselves because the commercial alternatives were expensive to buy and expensive to keep running across a portfolio of our size. Because we build and install our own equipment rather than reselling somebody else’s, the owners we manage for get that infrastructure at a materially lower cost than assembling an equivalent system from vendors — and when it needs service, the people who made it are the people who fix it.
Access control and cameras
Four things have to be true for a property to be genuinely secure without anybody standing on it.
Per-tenant access
Every tenant gets their own gate credential rather than sharing a site-wide code. That produces an access log tied to individuals — useful for security and for resolving disputes about who was on the property and when.
Access tied to account status
Because access control and the facility management system are integrated, a delinquent account can have site access restricted as part of the collections process — and restored the moment the account is current.
Cameras monitored centrally
We specify, install and manage camera systems ourselves rather than sending you to a security vendor. Feeds are available to our operations team, and coverage is specified to what we require on properties we own.
Gate and operator service
Our facilities team services gates, operators, doors, springs and access hardware directly. When something fails, the people fixing it work for the same company managing the property, which removes an entire layer of finger-pointing.
Gate, cameras and the management system are one connected platform, not three that somebody has to reconcile.
Facility management software
The FMS is the command center: tenancies, rates, payments, delinquency, reporting and the online rental experience all sit in it.
Ours is integrated with the access control and camera infrastructure, which is the part that matters. A management company running software and hardware as separate systems has to bridge them with human process — someone has to notice a delinquency and then go and change the gate. When they are connected, that happens as a rule rather than as a task.
Owners get visibility into the same system, so the numbers you see are the numbers we are working from.
The reporting platform behind it
Behind the reporting sits a data platform we built — a single place where operating data from every property on the platform is consolidated, from gate activity to rent rolls to search performance.
It matters for a practical reason. Numbers scattered across a management system, an access-control system and an accounting package cannot be compared, and reporting assembled by hand from three sources is slow and wrong often enough to matter. Consolidating them means a figure is calculated once, the same way, for every property.
It is also what makes comparison possible. When we tell you an expense line looks high or a unit type looks underpriced, that judgment comes from the operating data of a portfolio of comparable properties rather than from an impression. Your property gets the benefit of that from the month it joins.
The in-house call center
Technology captures the inquiry. People close it.
Arborstone runs its own call center, with live coverage seven days a week and extended hours, plus after-hours capture so inquiries arriving overnight are followed up rather than lost. We use automation where it genuinely helps — routing, capture, reminders and payment prompts — but we deliberately maintain human access for every customer, because a prospective tenant with a question about unit sizes converts when somebody answers it.
The team handles leasing, payments, collections calls and tenant questions across the portfolio. That concentration is what makes the economics work: a single property could never justify staffing this, but a portfolio of 60+ properties can.
What gets installed when you join
Bringing a property onto the platform involves a defined set of setup work, scoped to what the facility already has. A property with modern gate hardware and decent cameras needs less than one starting from nothing.
- Control unit installation, configuration and licensing
- Gate and access control integration, and camera system installation or integration
- A property page built into the Arborstone website, and migration onto our facility management platform
- An interior sign package covering access instructions, wayfinding and online payment
- Exterior and marquee signage, quoted separately and paid up front — it varies enormously by property and is not part of the amortized setup
Setup costs are typically amortized across the first year of the agreement rather than charged as a lump sum. The exception is exterior and marquee signage, which is quoted separately and paid up front rather than amortized. We will scope and price all of it for your property before you commit.
Who owns what, and what you are left with
A fair question to ask any manager who is proposing to install equipment on your property.
The equipment on your site
Setup and installation are scoped and priced for your property before you commit, and what is installed, what it costs and what happens to it at the end of the agreement is set out in writing rather than discovered later. To be explicit about the main item: the control unit and its related proprietary equipment remain Arborstone property. It does not stay with the property when the agreement ends — we remove it, regardless of any setup or amortization charges already paid.
Your data
The tenant records, financial history and operating data for your property belong to the property. Books, vouchers and files are available to you or your accountant on reasonable notice, during the agreement and at the end of it.
Your tenants
They are the property's customers. If the arrangement ends, the tenancy records and contact information go with the property.
The platform itself
The software, the call center and the central monitoring are ours and stay ours. That is what you are renting rather than buying, and it is why it costs a fraction of building an equivalent yourself.
We put this on the website rather than leaving it for the contract because it is the sort of thing an owner should ask about, and a manager who is vague about it is telling you something.
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