Walking the Walk: What We Learned from Being Property Managers for a Day

At UrbanMix, we’re all about building smarter tools for asset operations—but sometimes, the smartest thing we can do is get out of the office and into the field.As part of our latest SLR (Stabilized Lease Renewal) campaign, we decided to walk a mile in our customers’ shoes—literally. Our team took on a hands-on challenge: be a property manager for a day. That meant printing, stuffing, and mailing stabilized lease renewals the old-fashioned way—one envelope at a time.Spoiler alert: it was eye-opening (and yep, a little dusty).

Here’s the backstory: We wanted to send out snail mail to 500 building owners and property managers. Not your typical marketing mailer—we’re talking fully personalized lease templates, pre-filled with building details and placeholders for tenant names. We wanted to show that UrbanMix can handle lease renewals end-to-end. Yes, even the paperwork. Especially the paperwork.

We automated the entire lease renewal process—templates, riders (so many riders), legal clauses—and we can customize it based on each client’s existing workflow. Then we did the final step manually, just to feel the pain. Let’s just say: printing 70-page lease packets and stuffing envelopes for hours gave us serious respect for the site teams out there.

Why does it matter? Because if you're a property manager or owner and you got one of those letters from us—yep, that was really us. We were thinking of you. We wanted to give you the experience of a personalized email—but in real life. Because our goal is simple: take the manual load off your plate.

Now, let’s talk about the wild world of lease renewal compliance in NYC. If you manage rent-stabilized units, you already know it’s no joke. According to the NYC Rent Guidelines Board, lease renewal notices must be sent out by certified mail between 90 to 150 days before the lease ends. That lease packet? It can be up to 70 pages, depending on how many riders and disclosures are required. And if tenants don’t respond? You have to track that too.

Yes, we turned our living room into a mailroom.

500 personalized letters later... we really earned that coffee.

Trying not to lose count of the growing stack.

The Met Council on Housing outlines just how many specific documents you need to include and track. It’s a process full of legal nuance, deadlines, and paper cuts. So yeah—doing that for hundreds of tenants every month? It’s a lot.That’s why we’re here. We want to take that off your hands. We want to help you grow without growing your stress.

So yes, we walked the walk. We sent out 500 leases in one day. You probably don’t have to do quite that many in one go—but if you ever did, wouldn’t it be nice to know you had a system that could handle it?

From sorting paper stacks to sticking stamps, we got an up-close look at the challenges our customers face. Experiencing it firsthand gave us fresh appreciation for your work—and fresh ideas for how UrbanMix can make your life easier.

Our home for the day!

When the envelopes are ready and you're about to make friends at the post office.

Want to see what a day in the life of a property manager looked like for us? Check out the behind-the-scenes on our socials—and stay tuned for more ways we’re putting ourselves in your shoes to build better.

If you want to know more, we also collected all our insights in an Easy Lease Renewal Guide that you can download for free in this link.

Curious how UrbanMix can help with your lease renewals? Book a demo here 

Sources:

- NYC Rent Guidelines Board – Lease Renewal & Vacancy FAQ:

- Met Council on Housing – Rent-Stabilized Lease Renewals: