Heimstaden Uses AI to Change Residential Property Management
Heimstaden is bringing artificial intelligence into its residential property management operations. The European housing operator is using AI to improve several stages of the rental process, including property pricing, advertising and the review of rental listings.
The decision to work with OpenAI was made in June 2025. Heimstaden had considered different platforms before selecting OpenAI. Its aim was to give employees access to new tools and examine how everyday business processes could be handled differently.
AI enters the rental process
One area receiving attention is the period when a rental property becomes vacant. Before a home can be offered to a new tenant, several tasks need to be completed. These tasks involve appraising the price on the market, providing the right photos, publishing advertisements and making sure they meet the needs of the market.
Heimstaden has implemented the aid of Artificial Intelligence in order to accomplish these tasks more effectively. The company uses AI tools for pricing suggestions that help the letting departments to assess rental prices.
AI software is also used for creating descriptions for apartments and processing photos for advertisements. Agents can check advertisements against Heimstaden's quality standards and receive market feedback generated with AI. This gives letting teams information they can use when making changes to listings and rental prices.
Lower costs for property advertising
The financial impact is already visible in the Netherlands. Heimstaden says the cost of producing a virtually staged property image has dropped from approximately €50 to less than €0.10.
The reduction is more than 99%. The company estimates that this could generate annual savings of €130,000 in the Dutch market alone.
Employees still review and approve decisions. AI supports the work, but responsibility for the final decisions remains with the people managing the rental process.
A wider AI strategy
Heimstaden's strategy expands beyond the adoption of single tools. Chief Digital Officer Nikolaj Brammer pointed out the three pillars of the company's AI strategy: employee training and provision of necessary tools, establishment of transformational office supported by champions of AI and enhancement of property management systems and data models.
These three pillars affect the process of renting properties. Staff members are trained to develop the property listings, while the head office is focused on improving pricing and approaches to advertising and property listing assessment. The company also aims to make the information about its properties more available for the tools of AI applied in these activities.
According to co-CEO Helge Krogsbøl, the main aim of the company is still to provide people with homes, but the means of achieving this goal are changing.
In this way, for Heimstaden, the move towards the use of AI technologies in property management is not limited to merely cutting costs and time related to creating advertisements. It also implies transformation of the interaction between the various segments of the renting process.
