In this episode of the Multifamily Innovation® Podcast, host Patrick Antrim welcomes Briant Carcamo, co-CEO of Vizibly and a seasoned real estate professional. They discuss the importance of building financial expertise within employees and the role of technology in up-skilling and re-skilling individuals. Briant shares insights on how technology can help make employees smarter and improve the overall employee experience. Tune in to learn more about the cutting edge advancements in the multifamily real estate industry.
Apartment property managers can greatly benefit from the use of tools and technology, as they provide valuable data and insights to inform decision-making. This episode emphasizes the importance of translating data into actionable insights, which is the main purpose of implementing tools like business intelligence platforms or data analytics products. These tools enable property managers to analyze and understand various aspects of their business, including multifamily lead management, leasing funnels, and operational levers.
However, the multitude of tools available in the multifamily technology landscape can overwhelm multifamily property managers. With so many options, it can be challenging for them to determine which tools are most valuable and will yield the best results for their specific circumstances. This highlights the need for property managers to carefully evaluate their tech stack and prioritize the tools that truly make a difference for their organization.
Additionally, as multifamily owners face cashflow constraints, there may be tighter restrictions on technology spend. This further emphasizes the importance of property managers reevaluating their tech stack and focusing on tools that provide real value and contribute to the efficient and profitable operation of their properties.
Leveraging tools and technology empowers multifamily companies to make more informed decisions, anticipate potential issues, and take proactive measures to prevent problems. By utilizing data and predictive insights, apartment owners and operators can better manage day-to-day o
About the Multifamily Innovation® Council:
The Multifamily Innovation® Council is the executive level membership organization that makes a difference in your bottom line, drives a better experience for your employees, and allows you an experience that keeps demand strong for your company. The council is uniquely positioned to focus on the intersection of Leadership, Technology, AI, and Innovation.
The Multifamily Innovation® Council is for Multifamily Business leaders who want to unlock value inside their organization so they can create better experiences and drive profitability inside their company.
To learn more or to join, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com/council.
For more information and to engage with leaders shaping the future of multifamily innovation, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com/.
Connect:
Multifamily Innovation® Council: https://multifamilyinnovation.com/council/
Multifamily Innovation® & AI Summit: https://multifamilyinnovation.com/
Patrick Antrim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickantrim/
Welcome back to the multifamily innovation podcast.
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This is where we're bringing you the latest insights and
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strategies to help you succeed in the multifamily real estate
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industry.
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Listen today, I'm really thrilled to have in here, Brian
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Carcamo.
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He's the co CEO of Visibly.
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And also he's a seasoned real estate professional.
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He has a track record in revenue management, budgeting, business
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intelligence, and he's Operated and ran inside some of the
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largest real estate companies, including Steadfast and also
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Graystar and really excited to talk about today, really, this
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role that we have as leaders in building financial expertise
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within our employees, really upskilling them and in some
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cases reskilling them.
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And we're bringing in Brian because he's on the cutting edge
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of what's happening around technology.
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And then also the role in re skilling individuals.
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He's got some technology he's working on to making people
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smarter as we're surrounded by this infinite understanding of
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intelligence.
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So with that, Brian, welcome in.
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Thanks for having me on.
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Yeah.
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It's great to have you back.
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I know we talked about getting us out of Excel and that was fun
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because I You know, there's a lot of people that still have
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traditional ways of doing things, and it's been a great
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tool for many years, and you're doing some things that are
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giving on site managers and really everybody across the
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board, asset managers as well, a better day.
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Employee experience and helping us get out of extracting the
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data, but really looking and analyzing these things so we can
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make our businesses better.
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So with that, what I'd love to do is just talked talk about.
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We're living through this transformation right now and
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technology we all know is coming at us, but now it's here and I'd
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love to just talk about really data.
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In the role of property management and what playing out
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and the state of where we are.
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Yeah, great question.
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I think property managers that are able to translate data into
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actionable insights is really, I think, The big the big purpose
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of, implement something like a business intelligence platform
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or any other kind of data analytics products, right?
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That real estate owners and property managers have to look
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at today.
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The big challenge I think is that property managers are just
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inundated with so many different tools in the tech stack.
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And it could be really hard to see the forest through the
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trees, in some respect and knowing where the operational
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levers that are going to yield.
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the best results for a certain circumstance at the property.
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So I think when we look at sort of the technology landscape we
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see that there's certainly a lot of services that will optimize
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different pieces of your business whether that's CRM for
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lead management, and your leasing funnel or, analytics
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products that give you trend analysis, but we haven't really
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seen something that.
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It's a little bit more high level and lets you think about
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strategically, how do you come up with plans for the properties
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and then how the teams go and execute against those plans, and
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that's the space that we try to play in.
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Yeah, and how has data, the data has to be there first you're
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getting the data, and how is that impacting the actual role.
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Do you believe of individuals?
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Yeah, the data integrations is such a big pain point.
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I think for the industry, because we have to go reconcile
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all of this.
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And I think that we ended up just asking a lot from onsite
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team members and regional managers, especially I certainly
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have a lot of sympathy for the regional manager role because
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they have to go play.
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Both an on site manager when you have an open position, right?
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And motivate the teams to make sure that they're executing in a
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proper way, but then we also ask them to be our market and data
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analysts on the ground, right?
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For the corporate team members, because they're, on the front
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lines, right?
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For the ones that have to answer all these questions.
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So I think what we're seeing a lot is just a lot of pressure,
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especially at the regional manager level to have all the
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answers and in a third party context, like that's incredibly
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important.
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Because asset managers have to feel confident, right?
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In the team that's managing the properties.
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And with 30 days notice, that can be really challenging for
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third party property managers to manage.
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No, you bring up a great point.
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And talk to me about what are you seeing?
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The companies that are getting this right?
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How are they equipping these regionals and even the onsite
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teams with the tools that can allow them to.
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Do this in a more competitive way.
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What do you, what are you seeing?
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Yeah, that's a really that's the thing that I've been thinking a
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lot about today is how to third party managers stay competitive
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in this market environment.
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Certainly we're seeing a lot of really large property managers
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consolidate acquire more portfolios and they get even
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larger and larger.
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So then what do you do if you have a, 5, 000, 7, 000 third
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party management company, what's your competitive advantage?
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And certainly, I think that a really obvious place would be to
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have a lower cost structure, right?
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And margins are already pretty tight, I think, at the property
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management level.
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So I think having ways to scale up the staff so that one
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regional manager, for example, can increase, by 30 40% their
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unit count is going to be one way in which probably in the
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next 18 months, a third party manager can really transfer and
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communicate those benefits to.
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Right there, their clients or prospective clients so they can
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be more competitive.
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So I think having a skill set that helps the less people do a
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lot more is going to be incredibly important, I think in
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this cycle.
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Yeah, that's a, it's a competitive advantage right
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there.
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Talking about upskilling and reskilling.
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The upskilling really is, you have got somebody in a current
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role, same job, maybe doing something new.
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And, part of our innovation council meetings.
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We talked about this actually this morning around.
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How the mindset that's required and the expectation of who, how
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is learning and development evolving with all these new
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tools and technologies.
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What are we expecting from people?
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But what are we expected, to communicate in terms of even the
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job descriptions and the roles and it came out that, there's
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This idea that it's just, it's like a living and breathing
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document, the job description itself is just constantly
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evolving and changing and employees are being, there are
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companies that are doing a great job of or with the mindset of,
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expecting always to be agile, right?
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Expecting to.
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Try and adapt to something new and that's going to be a
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competitive advantage as an individual.
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And then you have the reskilling, which is outside of
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that.
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It's Hey what's different about this job and how can we take
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somebody that we know is great?
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We like the way that they think and get them to apply those
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characteristics and values into another role or a changing role.
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You're really attacking this budget process where People have
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had a familiar process with how to approach it how to evaluate
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what's needed and even how to look forward at what we will
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need in the pro formas.
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How do you see that role changing, knowing the tools that
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even the tools you've created comes together, right?
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Yeah, that's a really interesting question.
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I guess the way that I think about the North Star here for
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what do you do when there's an issue at the property where you
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have to be, we have to execute on some strategy, it's really
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about trying to be as proactive as possible.
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And certainly when we talked to property managers, they would
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all wish that they could be less reactive when there's
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operational issues that show up.
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And I think a lot of asset managers were also agree.
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That they wish that the property managers had a crystal ball, or
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be able to predict when there's going to be an operational
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issue, come up with a game plan, right?
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And then prevent it from happening, potentially.
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So if you see your availability diving off a cliff, you don't
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want to, to actually take on the vacancy, you want to be able to
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do things.
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six, eight weeks before that happens, right?
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So that the blow isn't as impactful, or maybe you just
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avoid it altogether.
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So I think that's really the impetus of all the technology.
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That's really what it's supposed to do for the property managers,
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right?
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Who have to go and manage the day to day operations.
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And I think what's happening today is that because the tools
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don't give you enough of a predictive insight, right?
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Into what's going to happen in the next Six to eight weeks,
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then it can be really challenging to do that.
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And building this in house is just impossible, for the teams.
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And so how does this layer into re skilling, right?
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It's like the skills that we need the property managers to
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have is to really be market experts, understand sort of the
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dynamics of the property.
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And it requires, I think this.
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blend between quantitative and qualitative skills, right?
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Certainly we've hired a lot on the qualitative side to produce
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a great customer service on the properties and things like that.
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But now I think the bigger opportunity is how do we marry
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That expertise that a lot of folks have developed over many
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years and then put that together with quantitative rigor, right?
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So that they can do things that like, that could be super human,
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right?
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Like really understanding, Hey, all these leading indicators are
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pointing me in one direction.
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We should change course today, or maybe it's the opposite.
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We should double down right on the things that we're doing.
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Yeah.
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Can we lean into that a little more too?
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Like, how does that play out?
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You're a property manager, you're focused on experience and
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being that market expert and really having that local
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understanding so you can report up the things that are
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happening.
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But how are you making people?
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smarter, right?
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Like with these tools, what, what can they experience that
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allows them to create more value for themselves as employees,
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which ultimately makes the companies win.
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And when the companies win, everybody wins.
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So what are the things that you're seeing people lean into
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as a result of knowing these types of.
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Predictive.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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That's a good question.
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So just to give you an example, one of the things that we're
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researching a lot right now is how do we help increase the
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number of renewals that that you get out of property right now.
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Renewals are, I think, are an especially important topic very
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timely because it's a really great way to shore up cash
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reserves.
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If you can increase your retention ratio you can decrease
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the leasing costs necessary to replace that tenant.
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And certainly there's folks that already live at the property,
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right?
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So it makes a lot of sense that you'd want to close the back
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door.
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As they call it, the other benefit to increasing the
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renewals is that especially in a declining rent environment,
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right?
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That lost the lease gap between the renewal pricing and your new
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lease pricing is a lot less.
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And a lot of folks see that as easy money, right?
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That they can increase the cashflow.
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So it makes a lot of sense why you'd want to increase the
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renewals.
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The problem is, where do you focus?
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And there's so many expirations that happen every day at a
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portfolio level, right?
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It's hundreds, maybe thousands of expirations that are
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occurring.
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And so one of the things that we're looking at is, Hey, are
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there leading indicators that show us renewal intent, for
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these prospects so that, the teams can decide, Hey, maybe I
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really like renewals.
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And then other ones.
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We just expect them that maybe they won't renew and an
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interesting nugget here is like when we look at something like
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work order submitted within the first 45 days of moving, we see
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renewal ratios really drop off.
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And I think it's it matches what a lot of folks on the property
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management side already know, right?
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Which is that the renewal really starts at moving, right?
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Folks that have a great moving experience, right?
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Love the community that, that can be really helpful, right?
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For keeping someone a resident of your community, for many
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years to come.
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And when that's, when that experience is negative, right?
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You already start on the wrong foot.
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And so that's an example of how we are able to really pair our,
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models that read all this information from the property
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management system and then give the onsite team members these
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nuggets of information so that they can really prioritize the
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time and efforts that they spend on the property.
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Yeah, that's interesting.
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Can you lean into sort of the needle movers?
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I mentioned renewals already on that, but having this data and
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having the data, not only having it, but having the ability to
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make a decision from it is really, I think, where it's
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powerful, right?
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But what are those needle movers that now that this data is
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organized that really make a difference at a property?
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Yeah.
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So I think it really starts at the strategic plan level, it
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really begins with a communicating between asset
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management and ownership, property management executives
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director levels, these, what are the needs of the portfolio and
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the property.
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Properties that are going through a refinance or that have
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debt maturities that are coming up are just going to have very
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different cash flow constraints and needs than, your lease of
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property that you just acquired that you're trying to stabilize.
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And so I think having a place where you can create really
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quickly and efficiently financial projections, not in
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like in a time your 10 year time span, but what's going to happen
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in the next 90 days, from a cash perspective, how is that going
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to feed into the budget that I wrote a year ago, right?
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And what are other exogenous factors that I've seen down the
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pike that I might want to do something about today?
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So I think that's really where that layer begins.
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And, Visibly certainly offers tools to help you do that in an
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efficient way.
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Then the next layer is how do you communicate that to the long
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line of associates down the path, right?
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So you've got the marketing team that has to do something about
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leads, and conversions and your marketing spend.
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You've got the directors the corporate services, call it your
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revenue managers have to go translate this into a pricing
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strategy settings and revenue management potentially.
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And then you've got the regional.
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So then have to work with onsite teams week after week.
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And right now this is so disconnected.
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Like we really just see this as a fundamental sort of problem in
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the operating model.
00:14:18
of, the owner property manager relationship, right?
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And so we are building a platform that allows you to not
00:14:27
just create financial projections and folks like me
00:14:29
can certainly sit around and look at models all day, and find
00:14:32
the ways that we want to execute on, but how do we then create
00:14:36
that into like tasks, right?
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Like the to do list of things that I need to get done in the
00:14:41
next 90 days.
00:14:42
to go and execute on the strategy.
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And so I think that's really where we're hoping that
00:14:47
something like AI, which has already been adopted in many
00:14:50
different organizations, industries, business functions
00:14:54
how that, that will have a potential for being able to
00:14:57
streamline that communication piece a lot more efficiently.
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And we've got a couple of things in the works that are going to
00:15:02
be coming up where we use AI for that.
00:15:05
Yeah.
00:15:05
And we get very trapped into.
00:15:08
Not trapped is probably the wrong word, but we define job
00:15:12
roles and processes based off of manual processes, and I love how
00:15:18
you're using technology to really establish what we already
00:15:22
know to be true, which is that proactive scenario of what's
00:15:26
going to happen in the next 90 days.
00:15:28
Can we lean into that?
00:15:29
How does that work?
00:15:31
What with the tool visibly?
00:15:34
looks at 90 days, like what can I expect out of that?
00:15:37
How does that actually work?
00:15:38
Yeah, that's a good question.
00:15:40
So what we have with a platform we call Decision Studio is we
00:15:45
have a place for folks to create what we call action plans.
00:15:49
So essentially it's a financial model.
00:15:51
Where you go specify goals for different KPIs when it came to
00:15:57
establishing the list, we've got about 12 or 13 of them that you
00:16:00
can specify.
00:16:02
We wanted to pick the ones that, have that move the needle the
00:16:05
most when you have some operational issue.
00:16:07
And these are all things that everyone already knows, right?
00:16:09
What do I want my make ready days?
00:16:11
to be right.
00:16:12
What do I want my renewal ratio to be?
00:16:14
How many leads am I expecting those conversion rates, right?
00:16:17
So it targets different pieces of the business where you want
00:16:20
visibility on.
00:16:21
And then our financial model will then create an occupancy, a
00:16:24
rent trade out and an NOI target.
00:16:27
That you want to hit after a certain time period.
00:16:29
So this is different than I would say, like traditional,
00:16:32
business intelligence products where you're looking at trend
00:16:34
analysis in the past.
00:16:36
These are all like forward looking projections.
00:16:39
And then basically what happens is every day through the
00:16:41
integrations, right?
00:16:42
We sync that up to the actuals and the property management
00:16:44
system.
00:16:45
And then we give the team's recommendations that we're in.
00:16:48
They're falling short.
00:16:49
So maybe it's, you need to get two more renewals.
00:16:52
Then what you're expecting or you need more leads and
00:16:55
communicate with your marketing team on, more marketing spend
00:16:59
we're creating a new operating system.
00:17:01
Especially I think at the regional manager level that
00:17:04
helps them be that liaison between the onsite teams that
00:17:07
have to go and manage the tasks and then also corporate services
00:17:11
and corporate team members that devise the operating strategies.
00:17:15
It's interesting you mentioned about these recommendations.
00:17:18
How do those come in the form of alerts, emails, dashboard?
00:17:21
Obviously people just need to probably get on a demo and
00:17:23
figure it out, visually show that stuff, but talk, talk us
00:17:27
through, like, how do these recommendations come?
00:17:29
Because as third party managers in the market that we're going
00:17:32
into, I remember, I would imagine there's some turnover.
00:17:37
situations where a new team is brought in because they have to
00:17:40
go from where they are to where they need to be.
00:17:43
And that 90 day sprint may be real critical to the business.
00:17:47
How does, how do those recommendations play out?
00:17:50
Yeah.
00:17:50
So we serve them up in, in many different ways.
00:17:52
One thing that we find really effective are going to be
00:17:55
narrative executive style explanations that do a lot of
00:17:59
this analysis for you.
00:18:00
So folks don't have to go and interpret.
00:18:02
A ton of charts and graphs and data and really get that
00:18:05
information laid out for them like I don't know if you use
00:18:07
like chat GPT when you ask it a question and how it just
00:18:10
produces, like magic, the summary so we've got a similar
00:18:14
concept in our platform.
00:18:16
Yeah, that's great.
00:18:17
And, It's interesting because that could be a way that you're
00:18:21
helping somebody, somebody identify a variance or a
00:18:25
situation or recommendation and then explain it in such a way
00:18:28
that it makes sense for the person that needs to hear it
00:18:32
because we often talk about things in a way that we want to
00:18:36
hear things.
00:18:36
But so being that you're in the, financial mindset and you have
00:18:40
this amazing background in the analyst side of things, but also
00:18:44
this collision with an incredible development team
00:18:48
around technology.
00:18:50
Do you find that having those two things together help
00:18:54
operators communicate in these recommendations better, or is it
00:18:58
just making them repurpose the amount of time that they spend
00:19:03
doing the thing?
00:19:04
Yeah, our goal is to do both, right?
00:19:06
The main goal here is to improve operating margins at both the
00:19:11
property level right through their decision making, but then
00:19:14
also the time they spent right on various manual tasks.
00:19:18
Today, a lot of managers will have weekly meetings, they copy
00:19:22
and paste into Word documents, right?
00:19:24
They manage their tasks through a variety of platforms, whether
00:19:28
that's in Microsoft Office, through email and chat.
00:19:31
We need one place.
00:19:32
Where everyone goes in and keeps track of all the tasks that need
00:19:36
to get accomplished.
00:19:37
And, one, one nice playbook we've been able to see is how,
00:19:40
software development works, they, they work on things like
00:19:43
sprints and and JIRA tickets, where they really have like full
00:19:46
transparency and visibility into what everyone's doing on this
00:19:50
every single day.
00:19:51
And I think we can probably take a lot of lessons from those
00:19:53
kinds of engineering cultures as to how we can get property
00:19:56
management to be more transparent about their day to
00:19:59
day tasks.
00:20:00
Yeah, I think when we build communities, we get into that
00:20:03
mindset, the timelines, the construction meetings, the
00:20:06
coordination of all the disciplines and it's that
00:20:08
startup experience and we get into management.
00:20:11
It's becomes reactionary in many cases because of the customers
00:20:15
and stuff.
00:20:15
But I love that the tools helping people, accelerate their
00:20:19
career and understanding financial literacy around
00:20:23
investment vehicles that we're putting together here.
00:20:27
Do you feel that when you're in these conversations with
00:20:30
operators, third party or developers, whoever they may be,
00:20:34
what's motivating them right now?
00:20:35
Clearly it's efficiency and those things, but are you
00:20:38
hearing anything around like we want to make life better for the
00:20:41
employee, the budget process?
00:20:43
What are you leaning into when you're in these conversations?
00:20:46
Yeah, I think it really depends on the level or the role.
00:20:50
Certainly what we hear a lot from executives and folks on the
00:20:54
business development side, acquisitions, where they're
00:20:58
taking big haircuts on valuation, valuations right now,
00:21:01
through the interest rate environment.
00:21:03
And an operating environment.
00:21:05
I think these next 12 to 18 months are just going to be so
00:21:08
critical for these firms, right?
00:21:10
Multifamily conventional multifamily portfolios to really
00:21:13
understand where they need to double down on strategy and also
00:21:16
where they need to pivot.
00:21:17
For both sort of an individual property standpoint, and then
00:21:20
also for the portfolio as a whole, I think, especially on
00:21:23
the third party management side, I think a lot about what the
00:21:27
next, 12 to 18 months are going to be for them, because it's
00:21:30
going to be a place where either the bigger get bigger, and they
00:21:33
go to through acquisition and consolidation.
00:21:35
And so the mid market has to develop just a really strong
00:21:39
message to be able to.
00:21:41
Attract those dollars and those clients.
00:21:43
And I think for them it's really about how do we how do we double
00:21:47
down on an executing strategy, for these portfolios.
00:21:50
And so my sense is that this next more competitive
00:21:53
environment, it's like someone eats your lunch or you get to
00:21:56
grow and have a really tremendous period of growth,
00:22:00
these next couple of months.
00:22:02
Yeah, and for the companies that you're helping, talk to me about
00:22:05
that profile size of the company owner managed, third party, take
00:22:09
me through the type of clients that you're, really wanting to
00:22:13
help right now.
00:22:14
Yeah, we work a lot with mid market companies, between five
00:22:18
and 15, 000 units.
00:22:20
Those seem to be folks that, are really stretched thin at the
00:22:24
corporate office and they need to do the most with what they
00:22:27
have, from a people's standpoint, but then also from a
00:22:29
right technology and data standpoint.
00:22:32
I think some of the structural things that are happening right
00:22:34
in the market is that.
00:22:35
As owners face cashflow constraints, right?
00:22:38
A lot of technology spend, could start getting tighter and, a lot
00:22:42
of these businesses depend on pass through expenses to be able
00:22:45
to justify these costs, to run efficiently and profitably, I
00:22:49
think on the property management side, and so I think rethinking
00:22:53
your tech stack, what's really valuable, what are the things
00:22:56
that we can let go, what are going to things that really
00:22:58
moves the needle from an organizational standpoint, I
00:23:01
think it's going to be incredibly important for them
00:23:03
to.
00:23:03
Focus on that.
00:23:04
And that's where I think we can be a great partner to folks in
00:23:07
that space, though.
00:23:09
We are also, talking to and potentially working with, really
00:23:12
large operators, for them.
00:23:14
This is just the margin business, right?
00:23:16
It's you move the needle on average days taken by one or two
00:23:19
days, and there's millions of dollars in portfolio value
00:23:23
because of the scale that they're able to implement.
00:23:25
Yeah, we're really excited about, getting different use
00:23:27
cases for property managers and also owner managed portfolios.
00:23:31
Yes, and maybe this is interesting and maybe this is
00:23:35
something we come back to but I would love to understand the
00:23:39
culture of learning how this impacts roles in that having
00:23:46
better intelligence around the decisions I need to make and
00:23:50
then explain like how this will impact the way people even train
00:23:54
people on process, right?
00:23:56
Are you thinking through the, I know you spend a lot of time
00:23:59
with onsite regionals and executives, but are you thinking
00:24:02
through those as an impact organizations?
00:24:06
Yeah, I really think about how we can layer in analytics layers
00:24:10
at each level so that they can understand financial modeling or
00:24:14
financial performance management, at the on site
00:24:17
level, the regional level and above without actually adding
00:24:22
human bodies to it without actually increasing your staff
00:24:25
count at the, property management or owner managed
00:24:27
level.
00:24:28
Okay.
00:24:28
And so we think that, technology like the ones that we develop is
00:24:31
going to help in the long term save on all of those costs for
00:24:34
folks to not just level up their skills and understand how these
00:24:37
KPIs actually influence the financial performance that leads
00:24:41
to better decisions, but also how do they are able to scale up
00:24:45
the team to manage more properties with less folks.
00:24:48
And, today that there's so much talk about centralization and
00:24:50
changing up those staffing models.
00:24:52
So I think it'll be really interesting to see the
00:24:54
technology landscape that emerges in this next year.
00:24:58
Yeah we're living through it right now.
00:24:59
And that's the re skilling part around the role moving or target
00:25:03
moving in many cases.
00:25:05
And a lot of that, I think depends on how the organization
00:25:08
is structured, right?
00:25:09
How large the organization is.
00:25:11
And it's a lot to take on right now.
00:25:13
The.
00:25:15
This idea of where to focus.
00:25:18
I love that because there's so much coming at these
00:25:21
organizations.
00:25:23
Everyone's trying to create their competitive advantage.
00:25:25
We all know what's about people.
00:25:27
These tools are making our people smarter, which is
00:25:30
exciting.
00:25:31
And I love how you're offboarding a little bit of the
00:25:35
the training in some cases to a true partnership where your
00:25:40
product and technology solution is, Not only making your
00:25:44
business financially better, but your people better.
00:25:47
I think that's exciting to watch, and it'll be interesting
00:25:50
how other brands, take on that role as well.
00:25:53
We're in more of an expert's economy, where instead of, the
00:25:56
property manager that knows it all, right?
00:25:59
can now rely on industry partners that bring them a
00:26:06
collection of brilliance from other organizations and, layer
00:26:09
that into the tools that they develop, making that company
00:26:14
better.
00:26:14
And that's exciting for me.
00:26:17
Yeah, certainly.
00:26:18
The interesting thing we'll also see will also be to see how
00:26:23
these technology initiatives color like improved operating
00:26:27
margins, whether that's in having more people manage.
00:26:31
Sorry, less people manage more properties or, how, however, it
00:26:35
is that.
00:26:35
It plays out at the property P& L level, whether we're going to
00:26:38
actually see those reflected in valuations, right?
00:26:41
If you've got partners that have a track record of operating
00:26:44
really efficiently with improved operating margins, are those
00:26:48
things that, a seller would be or a buyer would be able to
00:26:51
underwrite?
00:26:51
For the next portfolio in picking a property manager,
00:26:55
right?
00:26:56
And even all the assumptions that end up in Excel
00:26:59
spreadsheets at the lender level in many cases, right?
00:27:02
All those assumptions being tested.
00:27:04
And I think people need to see the proof and the results from
00:27:10
the efforts.
00:27:11
And I love that's the analytics part that you're talking about.
00:27:14
There's the data is there, right?
00:27:16
Like it'll reflect on that.
00:27:18
What what are you excited about?
00:27:19
There's certainly challenges in the industry and you're
00:27:22
developing tools to help people deal with those.
00:27:25
Where do you get excited?
00:27:27
Yeah, I the things that really motivate me now are going to be
00:27:30
all of these developments that we're seeing with AI.
00:27:34
Certainly we saw a big explosion of all the chatbots leasing
00:27:38
agents, and just how close it can be to feeling like you're
00:27:42
talking to an actual human, right?
00:27:44
And how can we translate that into a more analytical
00:27:48
environment, basically, financial business applications
00:27:52
for the use of AI.
00:27:53
That's the things that were really motivated.
00:27:54
Yeah.
00:27:55
In exploring because we see that there's a really great
00:27:58
opportunity for analytics to be layered into so many decisions
00:28:03
that folks are making today in their property operations.
00:28:06
And we just need, I think maybe a different medium for
00:28:09
translating that data into those actions that downside teams can
00:28:13
go and take.
00:28:14
So we're really excited about, I think the admin of AI, the
00:28:17
adoption that we're seeing in the industry and new solutions
00:28:20
and tools that will come from it.
00:28:22
Yeah, and you've been inside these organizations yourself.
00:28:25
So it's easier to understand those things as a customer.
00:28:29
And what I would love to think, now we're talking about re
00:28:33
skilling individuals buyers of like solutions like yours.
00:28:39
Are being purchased from many different departments, not just
00:28:43
marketing, and it's around, you think like smart home
00:28:48
technology, right?
00:28:49
Where at first it became an amenity, like this is nice.
00:28:53
It's a marketing thing, right?
00:28:55
Like you can unlock your doors and, and so in many cases
00:28:59
earlier on marketers were evaluating that technology and
00:29:01
then, then it's, then now it's the efficiency and operations
00:29:06
looking at things from leak detection and things like that,
00:29:08
that become CFO conversations, right?
00:29:12
And so with a tool like yours what's, I would just take me
00:29:17
through if you were inside a real estate company like you
00:29:19
were, and you're evaluating stuff right now, there's a lot
00:29:23
to focus on.
00:29:24
There's a lot to decide.
00:29:25
Like, how do you prioritize and how do you what are the
00:29:29
questions you should be asking somebody when you're evaluating
00:29:33
something like this, because what I'd love the takeaway in
00:29:36
your answer to be is that listener who's maybe a regional,
00:29:41
maybe a VP, wherever they are, their level of they're upscaling
00:29:46
their due diligence.
00:29:48
Because if you don't build something, it's hard to evaluate
00:29:50
it.
00:29:51
And you're building this stuff.
00:29:53
So like, how do you help people make good decisions around this
00:29:59
technology, but also many others?
00:30:02
Yeah, that's a really great question.
00:30:04
One of the things that I love asking folks that I talked to
00:30:07
that are in leadership positions are what are your top priorities
00:30:11
today when you look at the operating environment over the
00:30:14
next year, is this shifting to an occupancy focused strategy
00:30:18
where you need to increase cash.
00:30:20
Are you thinking about how you're going to optimize your
00:30:23
leasing folks?
00:30:24
And one of the things that are really relevant today is how do
00:30:28
we transfer a lot of the successful operating strategies
00:30:31
that worked in the past to the onsite team members who have
00:30:34
never really lived through a market cycle, that's going down
00:30:39
and, you get a variety of answers, but ultimately I think
00:30:42
what we try to funnel this.
00:30:44
So how do create that strategy and then what are the action
00:30:47
items that you do every single day, to help make sure that the
00:30:51
teams are on track.
00:30:52
So I think if you're someone that's evaluating, a new way to
00:30:56
run your multifamily operations, I would think about where all
00:31:00
those manual friction points that are preventing you from.
00:31:04
taking action today.
00:31:05
Does that mean that you have to schedule, three meetings with
00:31:08
your marketing, asset management and your VP, before you go and
00:31:12
talk to the property manager or, when there's a problem on site,
00:31:15
like how many more meetings are you having, with the teams, just
00:31:18
to give you an example, when we were operating at at my previous
00:31:20
company, Whenever we had availability, over 10%, for
00:31:24
example, it's like there goes 4x the call volume, now there's
00:31:28
like a weekly pricing call, then there's a CapEx call, then
00:31:31
there's a financial call, then there's a leasing call.
00:31:33
And that's just a ton of work, for all these folks to get
00:31:36
together on a regular basis.
00:31:38
At scale, nearly impossible, right?
00:31:40
To be able to focus on all these properties.
00:31:42
So I would try to be introspective about what are all
00:31:45
the things that we do when we need to address one operational
00:31:48
issue.
00:31:49
And can we do that a lot more efficiently?
00:31:52
That's powerful analytics in those meetings.
00:31:54
What's the cost of that meeting, right?
00:31:57
What's the cost of that that conference call.
00:32:00
So now you're thinking through that.
00:32:02
Let's talk about because you're implementing this now with
00:32:05
companies.
00:32:06
What?
00:32:07
What if for it to go?
00:32:09
What has to be true, right?
00:32:13
You're bringing in a new technology.
00:32:15
A lot of people will.
00:32:17
Will not take action because they perceive it to be either a
00:32:21
lot of work or I've got to retrain the workforce Or I'm
00:32:26
gonna get pushback from accounting or systems admin,
00:32:29
take me through the tested assumptions that you've seen
00:32:33
through like in when you Adopt and bring this inside an
00:32:37
organization.
00:32:38
Yeah, I think certainly the best implementations are ones where
00:32:43
you've got strong alignment between the folks that are
00:32:46
operating right and the folks that are in charge of
00:32:50
implementing the technology.
00:32:52
So strong connection between I.
00:32:53
T.
00:32:54
And then the users will be implementing the technology is
00:32:57
incredibly important, right?
00:32:59
And then I think another piece that's really important is that
00:33:01
feedback cycle, what are things that could be better in the tool
00:33:05
and really dedicating some time to think about your operational
00:33:09
processes, where are the points that you think are going to be
00:33:11
really great for automation, what are the meetings that we
00:33:14
can eliminate if we had a certain feature set, and then
00:33:17
working with your software providers, your vendors who are
00:33:20
keenly interested in making solutions that are incredibly
00:33:22
valuable for the system.
00:33:24
I think I think what happens a lot is that folks, get into
00:33:27
their day to day operating they're reactive, they're trying
00:33:30
to fight some fires and they don't use their vendors in the
00:33:34
most efficient way.
00:33:35
We're here to serve the industry that are really valuable for
00:33:38
everyone.
00:33:39
Yeah.
00:33:40
That's interesting.
00:33:40
And I always think through how do you build a product today?
00:33:43
You have different.
00:33:45
Structures of real estate longer term focus, shorter term focus,
00:33:50
third party operators, developers, asset classes, all
00:33:54
kinds of different things and you end up with so many
00:33:57
customizations as you get in there that feedback loop I would
00:34:00
imagine is incredibly valuable as you establish those
00:34:04
relationships with new customers where It's not just off the
00:34:08
shelf, right?
00:34:09
Like you're going in there with the intention to make their
00:34:11
business better.
00:34:13
And interesting.
00:34:14
And I think another big piece is going to be being able from a
00:34:18
data provider standpoint or a software provider standpoint to
00:34:21
be able to bring in data from a lot of different sources.
00:34:23
I think traditionally we've been locked into a certain tech
00:34:27
stacks, from the large property management systems, but there
00:34:30
definitely seems to be a renewed interest in, best of breed being
00:34:34
able to be more kind of property management system, agnostic and
00:34:38
implement tools that I think are going to be really innovative
00:34:41
and transformative.
00:34:43
Yeah.
00:34:43
And I think it's really taken advantage of that.
00:34:47
Deploying it like you mentioned in case use cases where it's
00:34:51
analytics for different levels of the organization at different
00:34:55
points in the decision making that allow people to get out in
00:34:59
front of issues more than being in reaction mode in so many
00:35:03
cases.
00:35:03
And the technology is there and right.
00:35:06
So we have mindsets that need shaped around what's possible
00:35:13
because historically we do look at Benchmarks.
00:35:16
We look at what's been done before, and we take a more
00:35:19
linear approach to things.
00:35:22
But I brought you on here to talk about really upskilling and
00:35:26
reskilling employees at every level because It feels like it's
00:35:32
an exciting time for companies that just want to send you a
00:35:36
message on LinkedIn and say, Hey, man, I listened to that
00:35:38
podcast.
00:35:38
What do you think I should do about this?
00:35:40
That, that's pretty cool.
00:35:42
Where you do something, you listen to a podcast, it's free.
00:35:45
You get to meet Brian.
00:35:48
Send them a message and you ask my question, privately, just one
00:35:52
on one and all of a sudden they're walking into a meeting
00:35:56
with more value, better questions and ultimately you
00:35:59
don't even know, but the organization at the highest
00:36:02
level is serving the investor LPs that are teachers, fire,
00:36:06
just real community members in the world that we live and
00:36:09
you're playing a big part of that.
00:36:11
So I think it's an exciting time to be yeah.
00:36:15
At the position where, this asset class, even though it's
00:36:20
one of the most safest and most secure in that regard, it's also
00:36:26
an opportunity to really reshape it for what it can be, because I
00:36:29
think we're at a point where we don't even know what's possible,
00:36:33
unless we let go of what's been before we can take on of what
00:36:37
can be.
00:36:39
Yeah.
00:36:39
And I guess what I would also posit, the listeners here would
00:36:42
be as you think about the next two years, three years, four
00:36:46
years, like we took our company from about 5000 units, 30, 000
00:36:50
units in a really short period of time and Just scaling up the
00:36:54
resources to be able to go do that, correctly was incredibly
00:36:57
challenging, so so it's also important to take, I think, a
00:36:59
longer view of, hey, if we double the portfolio, in the
00:37:03
next two years, what does that really mean for us
00:37:07
organizationally?
00:37:07
What does our tech stack look like now?
00:37:09
And so this could be a really great opportunity, I think, to
00:37:12
start thinking about those pieces and see whether there's
00:37:15
going to be, additional technology that will help you
00:37:17
just really leverage tremendous growth, because, as During
00:37:20
periods of downturns, sometimes that's when the best companies
00:37:24
are made, that's really when folks really double down on
00:37:26
operational excellence.
00:37:28
And, that can mean tremendous value, I think, for both
00:37:30
investors and all the employees that work at the community.
00:37:34
Absolutely.
00:37:34
People operate sometimes scared.
00:37:37
And if you can play offense, speak, right?
00:37:39
And really look at being part of the solution.
00:37:43
Anybody can identify a problem.
00:37:44
It's those that can figure out how to make something get better
00:37:48
is where the opportunities lay.
00:37:51
Listen, we're coming up on the end of our time together.
00:37:53
What I'd love to do is leave it open to you.
00:37:56
For any final thoughts that you may find the viewers or
00:38:00
listeners would find valuable anything you want to leave us
00:38:02
with.
00:38:03
Yeah, I started a blog series on our website where we're going to
00:38:07
be talking about ways to make multifamily.
00:38:10
property management companies owners more profitable and
00:38:13
successful and just sharing some thoughts on, topics related to
00:38:17
business, structural kind of economic things that everyone's
00:38:20
realizing, but then also nitty gritty of kind of practical
00:38:23
things you can do today.
00:38:25
We'd love to have anyone follow that conversation, comment and
00:38:28
chat with us.
00:38:29
It's something that we're just interested in exploring.
00:38:32
That's great.
00:38:32
And when you share that and teach that, it's it's
00:38:35
interesting because you do get a lot of value when others get
00:38:38
better from your contribution.
00:38:40
So we'll definitely put a link to those to the blog post and
00:38:44
the blog series, I should say in the show notes.
00:38:47
If you want to follow along you can follow us on social media,
00:38:50
on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, wherever you.
00:38:52
Enjoy your conversations, follow us on those platforms and we'll
00:38:57
put a link in the show notes.
00:38:58
You go to multifamily innovation.com, click on podcast
00:39:01
and you'll get an opportunity to connect with Bryant and also
00:39:05
follow his blog series.
00:39:06
So with that, Bryant, I really appreciate you coming on.
00:39:08
It's always been a pleasure and we're looking forward to
00:39:11
tracking your success, following what you guys are doing to make
00:39:14
multifamily better.
00:39:16
We'll see you guys in the next one.