Every Resident, Every Building: What the Evidence Says About Connectivity and NOI

A resident signing a lease in a garden-style community built in 1994 and a resident moving into a tower that opened last spring have more in common than their buildings suggest. Both will work from home some days. Both will stream, game, and video-call in the evening. Both will expect the smart lock, the package locker, and the thermostat to simply work. Neither will care what is inside the walls.

That is the core challenge facing multifamily owners today. Resident expectations for connectivity no longer vary by building age, class, or construction type. The infrastructure behind them does.

Connectivity is now a baseline, not an amenity

Large operators now say so directly. AvalonBay frames connectivity as essential infrastructure on par with power and water, and says residents expect to be online from move-in day. Residents do not experience internet as an amenity they choose; they experience it as a utility they assume, and notice it only when it fails.

That makes connectivity a financial question as much as an operational one. Multifamily operators are now reporting what meeting that expectation is worth in their own results.

What the evidence consistently shows

Across operator results, renter research, and Maravedis market data, four findings hold up consistently.

Operators are investing in the buildings they already own. MAA is retrofitting community-wide Wi-Fi into its existing communities, with 23 projects started in 2025 and more planned for 2026.[1] Management has sized that first wave at about $5 million of NOI once fully rolled out.[2] AvalonBay, which operated managed Wi-Fi in 31 communities as of October 2025 with 15 more contracted, links it to leasing velocity, operational efficiency, and resident loyalty, all key drivers of NOI.[3]

Day one matters most. Operators report that connectivity live from move-in day sets the tone for the whole residency. That favors wall-to-wall coverage and consistent service over headline speed tiers.

The opportunity is largest where good service is scarce. Older properties with weak connectivity are where the upside should be biggest.

Weak connectivity reaches prospects through reviews. In a 2026 Apartments.com survey of nearly 27,000 renters, 96% said online reviews are important to their decision.[4] A poor connectivity experience is a leasing risk, not just a missed upside.

Where the NOI comes from

Connectivity reaches NOI through several levers at once: retention, because connectivity complaints drive non-renewals and every avoided turnover saves make-ready cost, vacancy loss, and leasing effort; rent and ancillary income, through technology packages and residents' willingness to pay for a ready-to-use connection; lease-up, because day-one service removes friction at move-in; operating expense, through fewer complaint calls and the smart building systems a property-wide network enables; and reputation, as connectivity complaints surface in the online reviews prospects read before they tour.

That is why even small gains matter. They carry real weight in multifamily valuation: as an illustration, an extra $100 of NOI per unit per year on a 300-unit property is $30,000 of NOI, or roughly $600,000 of asset value at a 5% cap rate.[5]

Different buildings, same resident

The scarcity findings point directly to the existing stock. Maravedis research shows that multifamily starts fell to their lowest quarterly level since 2012 at the end of 2025, after a construction wave that delivered more than 528,000 units that year.[6] With new supply slowing, growth in managed connectivity must come from existing buildings. Across the 26.9 million U.S. rental units in buildings of five or more units, Maravedis finds managed Wi-Fi adoption highest in large properties under five years old and far lower in smaller, older ones[7]: the buildings where residents are least likely to have great connectivity today, and where the evidence says improvement should pay back most.

Older properties carry real constraints: detached buildings, aging coax or copper wiring, thick walls and outdoor spaces residents expect to use. New properties face a different set of demands: density, high expectations from day one, and building systems (access control, leak detection, energy management, self-guided tours) that need a property-wide network live before the first move-in.

Why scalability is the real question

Most owners and operators do not manage one building. They manage portfolios that mix vintages, classes, and construction types. When each property runs on a different platform, the resident experience fragments: different management tools, different support processes, and service quality that depends on which building a resident lives in.

A single platform that can serve all conditions changes that. On older properties, it means using existing coax or copper where running new fiber is not practical, while still delivering managed, property-wide Wi-Fi. On new builds, it means fiber-rich infrastructure designed for density and the building systems that ride on it. Across every property, it means one operational view, one support model and a consistent experience for every resident. With managed Wi-Fi agreements typically running 7 to 10 years[8], that consistency has to hold through a full decade of technology change.

Older wiring no longer has to mean a lesser resident experience. Partners such as Positron Access Solutions use G.hn technology to deliver fiber-like gigabit speeds over a building’s existing coax or copper, managed alongside the rest of the network. On a Maravedis practitioner panel in June, a full structured rewire was put at roughly $700 to $1,100 per unit; reusing existing wiring cuts that cost nearly in half, with installs averaging about 45 minutes per unit.[9] For the older buildings where the upside is greatest, that changes the economics of upgrading, so no building has to be left behind.

For managed service providers, this is where the opportunity comes from. Owners with mixed portfolios want a partner who can deliver the same resident experience in a 30-year-old garden community and in a new high-rise, under one contract and one support model. MSPs that can do that win portfolios. MSPs that can serve only one building type win individual properties.

Residents who are well served stay

The evidence is consistent. Residents expect connectivity that just works in every building; the value of delivering it is highest where it is missing today, and the levers it moves (renewals, rent, lease-up, operating cost, and reputation) are the ones that drive NOI. Owners who deliver it consistently across their portfolio, regardless of each property’s age or wiring, will see it in the numbers that matter most: residents who stay.

Join the conversation

We will take this discussion further on October 29 in the webinar "The MDU Opportunity for MSPs: Where the Growth Is and What It Takes to Win." I will open with market data on where the units are and where growth is concentrated. Gayla Harris, Corporate Vice President, MSP Segment, and Andy Dunn, Regional Vice President, MDU, both of Calix, will then discuss what property owners evaluate when they choose a connectivity partner, and how MSPs are moving from selling connectivity to delivering smart property services.

Register for the webinar

For MSPs looking to deliver that consistent experience across every building type, Calix SmartMDU provides a single platform for managed connectivity in multifamily properties, from garden-style retrofits to new high-rises. Learn more about Calix SmartMDU for MSPs.

Sources

Apartments.com, “How Renters Decide: Top Considerations in 2026” (July 2026)

AvalonBay Communities, “Building Smarter Communities: Kaylon Ross Shares Lessons from AVB’s Managed WiFi Journey” (October 2025)

MAA, Q3 2025 and Q4 2025 earnings calls (October 2025 and February 2026)

Maravedis Research, “From Legacy to High-Performance: Boosting Connectivity in Brownfield MDUs,” webinar (June 2026)

Maravedis Research, Multifamily Rental Connectivity Market Analysis in the United States 2026-2031