Most property management companies in the Raleigh market can tell you they’re the best. Very few can prove it with independent, data-driven verification from an organization that has been measuring consumer satisfaction across North America for over 35 years. For the second consecutive year, MoveZen Property Management has earned the Consumer Choice Award in Raleigh, and we think the methodology behind this recognition matters as much as the award itself.
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Why This Award Is Different From the Others
If you’ve spent any time searching for a property manager online, you’ve encountered the endless “Top 10” lists from sites like Expertise.com and PropertyManagement.com. We’ve written extensively about why those lists are unreliable. When we changed our company name from Victory Property Management to MoveZen, those sites couldn’t be bothered to update our name for nearly a year despite dozens of requests. They scrape data off Google, slap a badge on it, and call it a curated recommendation. No due diligence, no consumer research, no accountability.
The Consumer Choice Award operates in a completely different universe. Established in 1987, CCA is the only award organization in North America that uses statistically supported, independent market research to determine its winners. Their four-step selection process is worth understanding because it explains why this recognition carries real weight.
How the Consumer Choice Award Actually Works
CCA partners with Advanced Symbolics International (ASI), a leading North American AI-driven market research firm. ASI uses a proprietary artificial intelligence tool called Polly to gather and analyze consumer sentiment data across an entire geographic market. This is not a popularity contest or a pay-to-play directory. The process works in four stages.
First, CCA identifies the business categories that matter most to consumers in each city. These categories are standardized across all CCA markets but account for regional variations. Second, ASI’s AI tool builds a complete universe of accounts within each business category for the geographic territory. Every qualifying business in the market is identified, not just the ones that submit applications or pay for listings. Third, CCA vets that universe of companies to ensure no legal or ethical issues would disqualify a candidate. Finally, market insights are integrated with the AI-driven consumer analysis to rank all companies and award Top-Ranked Service Provider status.
The critical distinction: Consumer Choice Award recipients are not selected by a panel of judges, and companies cannot buy their way onto the list. Winners are chosen by the communities they serve, verified through independent research. With only one winner per category per city, there is no participation trophy. You either earned it or you didn’t.
Compare that to Inc. Magazine’s process for their Inc. 5000 Regionals list, which we also earned. That recognition required our CPA to sign off on verified financial data. Both of these awards demand rigorous, independent validation. That’s what separates legitimate recognition from the gatekeeper toll-collector sites that dominate Google’s increasingly unreliable search results.
What Nearly 20 Years in the Trenches Actually Teaches You
We launched this company with a philosophy that seemed obvious to us but apparently remains radical in our industry: property management should center on people, not just properties. Nearly two decades later, the math has proven us right. Our average owner sees revenue of roughly $20,000 a year on about $2,000 in repair costs, and those numbers compound beautifully over time for owners who stay disciplined and trust the process.
But the real story behind this award is what happened between 2020 and now. While many property management firms chased volume and resorted to widespread evictions to stabilize revenues, we went the opposite direction. We actually reduced our total properties under management to focus intensely on quality. Our eviction count during the pandemic years? Fewer than 20 residents from a portfolio of nearly 1,000 homes. Excessive application fees remained off-limits even when the market was white-hot, and competitors were capitalizing on desperate demand.
That strategy cost us in the short term. It earned us the Inc. 5000 Regionals recognition, thousands of 5-star reviews across almost two decades and nearly 10 major metros, and now back-to-back Consumer Choice Awards. The lesson is one we’ve been preaching for years: quality compounds. Cut corners, and you’ll eventually pay for it. Invest in doing things right, and the returns accelerate over time, for owners and residents alike.
How We Measure Success Differently
The property management industry has always been obsessed with doors under management. More doors, more revenue, more growth. We understand the logic, and we used to operate that way. But the post-COVID housing market exposed a hard truth: volume without quality is a liability, not an asset. One bad resident placement can cost an owner $10,000 or more when you factor in eviction costs, damages, lost rent, and turnover expenses. One vacant property sitting on the market at an overpriced rate costs $60 to $100 per day in lost income. Those numbers add up far faster than most landlords realize.
We measure success by the owner who calls us first when considering a new investment, because the last one worked out so well. By the resident who renews year after year because we actually listen and respond. By the referrals that drive our growth organically, without paying a dime to gatekeeper websites. When you make mom-and-pop landlords genuinely wealthy through obsessive attention to long-term results with minimal headaches, they get really happy and start telling everyone they know. Their friends hear about real mathematical results and wealth outcomes, and they couldn’t care less what Expertise.com has to say about it.
The Win-Win That Powers Everything
We are building a new model in the single-family property management industry. One where the benefits of reputation are dramatically larger than the costs they entail. After unprecedented upheaval in our industry, our company needed a guiding light, and the resident satisfaction philosophy that has underpinned our culture from our founding proved to be exactly the right compass nearly two decades later.
This is a win-win that, if adopted across the country, would dramatically benefit both landlords and residents. Take our move-in packages as a small example. We bulk order chair pads, command-type strips, bumpers, cable hiders, felt booties, and Hercules Hooks in large quantities. Items that are extremely expensive in one-off amounts become affordable at scale. Every item in that package benefits both the owner (protecting floors, walls, and finishes) and the resident (making their new home feel welcoming from day one). We absorb the costs better through volume purchasing. That’s a metaphor for our entire model.
Our proactive maintenance approach follows the same logic. We deliver air filters, spray for pests, and treat lawns through our operations division. It’s extremely costly, but it protects the home, keeps residents happy, and prevents the kind of deferred maintenance disasters that destroy Net Operating Income over time. We’re not just taking great care of residents. We’re innovating new ways to communicate so that they know when we’re taking care of them, which is far from a given in this industry.
What This Award Validates About Our Approach
We have never been a one-size-fits-all operation. From traditional rental management to our Custom Home Services, we tailor our approach because every property and every owner has different needs and risk tolerances. We cover all major North Carolina metros and have expanded into South Carolina, giving us the broadest regional coverage of any non-franchise company in the area. That geographic breadth, combined with deep local knowledge in each market, means we understand the micro-trends and neighborhood dynamics that national algorithms completely miss.
Transparent communication has always been central to how we operate. You never wonder what’s happening with your property. But transparency is more than just keeping owners informed. We admit our mistakes rather than hide them. Market conditions sometimes deteriorate, and we deliver those uncomfortable truths rather than sugarcoating reality. Owners often want to hear their property is worth more than the data supports—we show them the numbers anyway. That honesty is what builds the kind of trust that earns repeat Consumer Choice Awards.
Why This Matters Now More Than Ever
The rental property management landscape continues to get more complex and risky every year. Wall Street and private equity are consolidating the industry. The FED’s ongoing targeting of housing and shelter inflation puts sustained pressure on rents. Fraud in the application process has evolved from laughable to terrifyingly sophisticated, with AI-generated documents that look indistinguishable from legitimate records. One misstep can offset years of profits.
In this environment, the margin for error for mom-and-pop investors is razor-thin. The competition is knowledgeable, fierce, and deep-pocketed. Choosing a property manager based on a gatekeeper website’s uncurated list, or worse, on who charges the lowest management fee, is a recipe for financial pain. A company charging 5% that delivers 30% more vacancy and maintenance costs will obliterate any fee savings within the first year.
That’s why independent, consumer-driven recognition like the Consumer Choice Award matters. It validates what our owners already know from their bottom-line results: the system works.
Thank You, Raleigh
This award belongs to our community. Every owner who trusted us with their investment. Every resident who made one of our managed properties their home. Every team member who shows up with dedication in an industry that tests your patience daily. The feedback you share shapes how we operate. The trust you place in us drives us to improve. And the referrals you send our way are the single most powerful validation we receive.
Though not perfect, our commitment to integrity has safeguarded our reputation when few in our industry can claim the same. That is only possible through the immense effort and continuous investment our team puts into every aspect of the property management process. We feel we are emerging nearly untouchable by our competitors in the results we deliver for our owners, because we are always responsive to change and relentless about quality.
As we celebrate this 2026 recognition, we’re already focused on what comes next. The property management industry evolves constantly, and we evolve with it. We remain committed to reinvesting earnings in the research, development, and innovation that continue to separate us from the competition. Here’s to the next 20 years of delivering real, measurable results for the people who trust us with their most significant investments.
