Both are impressive second moments of truth, and I am for it. My position: moments as a standing order are a tax against your onsite team. Call it debt overload. The interest payment almost always arrives as burnout and turnover.
Alexandr Wang deserves a fair hearing on this matter. The Scale AI founder said in September 2025 that he has never seen ordinary effort produce extraordinary results (VnExpress International, September 30, 2025). In a lease-up, the team that gives 200% takes the market. No doubt. I have watched it happen.
Now, the price you pay. Take a 200-unit community at 45 percent resident turnover. That is 90 move-outs. A 2023 Zego survey of 630 property managers, cited by Multifamily Dive, put the average turn at $3,872. Ninety turns cost $348,480.
Now burn out the team and lose ten more residents. Ten turns at $3,872 is $38,720 of lost net operating income (NOI), the money left after operating expenses. At a 5 percent cap rate, the rate that converts NOI into price, that is $774,400 of value. One overextended team, one lost year of goodwill, and the number shows up as a haircut to a sales price.
The people closest to the work leave first. National Apartment Association (NAA) data reported by Multifamily Dive showed onsite maintenance technicians turning over at 39.2 percent in 2021, against an industry average of 32.7 percent.
In my experience, the disposition example proves it. I led a market-timed portfolio disposition strategy from 23,000 units to 1,200 over 30 months, during the COVID epidemic. Every site and corporate team member knew their property was selling. We still needed performance to protect price. It wasn’t the bold ask that held those teams together. Leaders close to the front-line business did. Leaders who could narrow the focus of the 200% effort that made the biggest impact. They understood where and when to make tradeoffs.
So where does an operator point 200% effort? At the moments the resident feels: move-in day, the first service request, the renewal conversation. Everything else gets a 100%, delivered on time with quality in mind. Call it optimizing allocation of energy and resources, and the regional or property manager makes the call.
Go back to the technician at 4:30 on a Friday with eleven open work orders. Clear all eleven before the end of the workday, and you have a hero. Clear eleven every Friday for a year and you will post the technician’s job.
Understand the tax and understand the acceptable trade-offs.