Peter Lohmann covers four property management updates: HUD is tightening emotional support animal rules to crack down on fraud, Rentvine launched AI agents that actually do work inside the platform, Chick-fil-A's new home services brand Acru could compete with property managers, and a Harris Poll of 500 landlords shows 75% plan to use AI when hiring their next manager.
HUD just moved to narrow the definition of an assistance animal. Rentvine rolled out AI agents that actually do the work instead of just answering questions. The 2026 PM Trends Report is available to download for free. And Chick-fil-A, yes, the well-known chicken sandwich franchise, is getting into home services. If you don't know me, I'm Peter Lohmann. I write a twice-weekly newsletter for over 20,000 property managers, host a property management podcast, and run a 750-door management company in Columbus, Ohio. Let's dive into this week's news. First up, the New York New York Times reported that HUD issued an internal memo telling its Fair Housing Office to stop recognizing emotional support animals, or ESAs, as a disability accommodation effective immediately. This sent some shockwaves through the industry this week. The memo tells the staff to apply a much stricter definition of service animal when they're reviewing accommodation requests. The memo basically frames ESAs as a loophole. It says, quote, An entire industry has emerged to convert pets into emotional support animals, and honestly, that's not entirely wrong. The fraud problem here is very real. You've got online ESA mills selling letters for $150 to $200 or more with little to no actual clinical evaluation, and the number of registered ESAs doubled between 2015 and 2019. Now here's what we don't know. As of right now, there's no official public guidance. This memo was completely internal. However, John Bradford over there at PetScreen Training, a lot of you know him, put out a video over the holiday weekend confirming that his team is working directly with HUD and fair housing experts to figure out what this actually means for property managers. At the same time, disability rights groups are mobilizing, so it's possible we'll see an industry uptick in appeals and lawsuits. One thing that's really important to understand here: the Fair Housing Act is unchanged. That would take an act of Congress. The memo only applies to how HUD handles complaints going forward, so this isn't a green light to stop honoring ESAs under the current structure. My read— it's all speculation at point. If this holds up, it could be a meaningful shift, and it would take some of the hardest judgment off of our plates as property managers. I, I really look forward to that, and I hope that's what happens, but it's a pretty big if. It could also get reversed in court. It could get watered down when HUD actually publishes their guidance. It could even create new exposure under state laws that haven't moved an inch yet. Hello, California. We're probably 6 to 12 months out from really knowing where this is going to land. So for now, we're not changing anything at my property management company. I encourage you to do the same until the dust settles. Next up, some Property management software news. At their user conference in Tampa a couple weeks ago, Rentvine announced that they're the first property management and accounting platform to adopt an MCP. That's Model Context Protocol. Those of you using AI every day already know what I'm talking about, but in plain English, MCP is a secure connection between your AI tools and your live Rentvine data. So you can just jump into Claude or ChatGPT and ask something like, which owners haven't been paid this month? And get an accurate real-time answer pulled straight from your Rentvine data. Love that. But the bigger reveal was something they're calling ProSkills. This is an agent workforce built right into the platform. This is a lot like some of the other AI products we've been hearing announced where a lot of AI tools are mostly just answering questions. ProSkills actually does the work, drafting communications, triaging, maintenance, etc., all inside the same permissions and trust accounting standards you rely on. So I love this from Rentvine. They're moving in a positive direction here. Excited to see this. And they're already famous for their open API. It looks like they're really leaning into that advantage. Their president, Jonathan Ewan, had a good line for it. Property managers don't need more dashboards, they need more hands. Very true. This is the second major software story in the last few weeks pointing in the exact same direction. LeadSimple recently launched Assist, and now this from Rentvine. The whole industry is moving from chatbots that answer questions to agents that do the work. Thank goodness. I'm watching this very closely because the platforms that get governed trust account safe agent labor right are going to change what it costs to run a property management company. Fingers crossed. And now for my favorite story of the week. You've been waiting for it. Chick-fil-A. Yes, Chick-fil-A. Is getting into home services, and they even have a message for property managers. So it's a brand new brand called Acru, A-C-R-E-W, or Acru. I don't know actually how you pronounce it. It's run through Red Wagon Ventures, which is a subsidiary of the Chick-fil-A Corporation. They're doing handyman and home maintenance work, drywall, leaks and clogs. This is all in Atlanta for right now. They'll handle things like mounting your TV, fixture replacement, caulking, pressure washing. So a lot of handyman stuff, not HVAC, not major plumbing, just the basics. And it's the full Chick-fil-A treatment, of course. My pleasure. They call their people crew members. They put a heavy focus on clear communication, being on time, polite, high attention to detail. You get the idea. It's the whole Chick-fil-A service playbook applied to home repair. So it's a local owner model, kind of like the restaurant operators. And right now, like I said, it's only in Atlanta, which makes sense because that's where Chick-fil-A is headquartered. They've already got a dedicated page for property managers. This blew me away. Think about what's actually broken in home service. It's consistency in communication. The contractor doesn't show up, doesn't call you back, leaves the job half done. We've all experienced that. But Chick-fil-A is famous for getting this right. So if they can deliver this reliably at scale, I think this is something we need to pay attention to both as a vendor that we could potentially use, at least those of you in Atlanta for right now, and also maybe even as a competitor for the maintenance side of our business. This is a big if, uh, it's only one market so far, but Out of all the brands that could potentially get this right, it would probably be Chick-fil-A. One last thing before I let you go. The 2026 PM Trends Report is officially live. It's free. We don't even email gate it. Just go to PMTrends.com. This is kind of like our gift to the industry. We want to see this get into the hands of operators. Jordan Whaler and I commissioned Harris Poll. These are the same folks who do presidential polling to survey 500 small landlords about what they actually think of property managers. These owners are genuinely hard to reach and even harder to understand. So we wanted to bring some real data into it. The webinar recording is out now and we walk through all of the findings, even bringing in data from our partners ShowMojo, ProfitCoach, and PropertyMeld. Just to give you a taste of what's in there, 86% of single-unit owners have no intention of buying another property. Think about that. Owners think repair costs are up 15% since COVID when they're actually up 42%, almost 3 times what owners think. And 75% of landlords plan to use AI to find their next property manager. Mind blown. There's a ton more where that came from. Go grab it, share it with your team, share it with your friends. Links in the description, or just go to pmtrends.com. That's the news for this week. Thanks for watching.
