How Villa Serena Communities Significantly Increased NOI with Centralization and EliseAI

Villa Serena Communities is a regional property management company overseeing a diverse portfolio of market-rate apartment communities across Texas. In 2024, facing rising labor costs and evolving renter expectations, the team began rethinking its staffing model.

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Two persistent challenges stood in the way of efficiency:

• High onsite turnover, which made it costly and time-consuming to retrain staff
• Low lead engagement, especially after hours, despite strong effort from onsite teams

These pain points revealed a clear opportunity: by centralizing leasing operations and leveraging automation, Villa Serena could streamline costs while maintaining high-quality service.

Villa Serena first partnered with EliseAI to improve lead response and automate leasing conversations. But as the platform consistently captured and converted leads—without the need for constant onsite support—it unlocked something bigger: the confidence to centralize.

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In September 2024, Villa Serena launched centralized leasing and admin operations with EliseAI across 14 North Texas properties. As onsite team members left through natural attrition, Villa Serena chose not to backfill their roles. Instead, those responsibilities shifted to a centralized team, supported by EliseAI’s automation. This approach allowed Villa Serena to streamline staffing without disrupting operations, unlocking efficiency gains while maintaining leasing performance.

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To support this shift, Villa Serena restructured its staffing model across the 14 properties:

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When comparing January–April 2025 to the same period in 2024, the impact is clear:

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• Net Operating Income (NOI) has increased by $61 per unit per month, which translates to $731 per unit per year. Across the centralized portfolio, that’s more than $2.6 million in additional NOI each year
• Payroll was the primary driver of NOI gains, accounting for 43% of the increase—contributing $26 per unit per month ($312 annually), or $1.1M annually across 3,599 units, directly tied to centralization.‍
• Occupancy increased from 91% to 92% (+ 75 bps), signaling that leasing performance remained strong despite a leaner onsite footprint

Across 14 properties, these gains translated to significant margin expansion and operational leverage.

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When a community manager left Rockridge Park in June 2024, Villa Serena chose not to backfill—testing centralized support instead. Leasing stayed strong, and by September, Rockridge Park had fully centralized with no loss in performance, proving the model could work. Today, the property operates with 1 onsite leasing agent and a floating manager and collection specialist who also oversees four other properties. 

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The impact was substantial: 

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Breckenridge at Cityview followed Rockridge Park’s lead, centralizing leasing and admin operations in late 2024. The property previously operated with 5 full-time onsite staff (3 leasing agents, 1 assistant manager, and 1 manager). Today, it runs with just 1 onsite leasing agent, supported by 2 floating roles—a community manager and a collection specialist—plus Villa Serena’s 6-person central team, which now handles leasing calls, applications, work orders, and resident account questions across the portfolio.

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It too saw significant operational improvements and NOI increases:

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Here's the full playbook Villa Serena Communities used to centralize these communities:

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Villa Serena’s case shows how centralization and automation work hand-in-hand—reducing labor spend while maintaining performance. The company leased more efficiently, protected NOI, and supported its teams with fewer onsite resources.

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With strong early results, Villa Serena is now expanding centralized leasing across the rest of its portfolio and launching centralized maintenance operations. EliseAI continues to serve as the automation backbone powering this broader operational shift.