The Future of Multifamily Asset Protection with Overwatch's Rhys Andersen
Multifamily property management is setting sail into uncharted territories and at the helm is cutting-edge technology. We're thrilled to bring you the latest episode of the Multifamily Innovation® Podcast, where the fusion of drone wizardry and property management meets. Join host Patrick Antrim as he delves into a stimulating conversation with Rhys Andersen, the visionary founder of OvrWatch, a pioneer in deploying drones for property inspections, asset protection, and comprehensive data collection.
In this episode:
Seeing Beyond the Horizon: The Drone Revolution in Multifamily Management - Rhys unfolds the story of how OvrWatch is dramatically altering the landscape of property inspections. Here's a sneak peek into the wealth of insights this talk provides:
Inception of Innovation: Discover the spark that led Rhys to blend his expertise in inspections with drone technology, crafting a new level of efficiency and precision in the multifamily industry.
The Power of 3D Modeling: Engage with the prospects of 3D models in property management; how a high-resolution virtual view can transform maintenance, documentation, and dispute resolution.
Disaster Management: Learn about the role of drones in mitigating the aftereffects of natural disasters, paving the way for a frictionless claims process with insurers.
Professional Drone Services in Property Complexity: As technology leaps forward, Rhys underlines the continued significance of professional services and how the complexity of properties influences drone service efficacy.
Marketers’ New Best Friend: Witness the surprising impact that drones are having on real estate marketing and the collection of granular data for property analysis.
AI's Role in Raising the Bar: Contemplate AI's transformative potential in real estate inspections - a conversation that spotlights image recognition models and enhancing the efficiency of property management systems.
Empowering Through Education: The importance of personnel training and standardization across organizations for optimal utilization of new technology.
A Vision for End-to-End Visibility: Rhys and Patrick discuss the pivotal importance of comprehensive visibility and easy platform collaboration with stakeholders in property management.
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/
All right, welcome back to another episode of the
00:00:02
Multifamily Innovation Podcast, as this episode is part of the
00:00:06
Meet the Sponsors series, and we'll be sitting down with Rhys
00:00:10
Anderson.
00:00:10
He's the founder of Overwatch, and he's got some exciting
00:00:13
opportunities to talk about.
00:00:15
And he'll be presenting at the multifamily innovation summit as
00:00:18
part of the multifamily innovation showcase.
00:00:21
And this is where for our multifamily innovation attendees
00:00:24
that are looking for the next, three to five business decisions
00:00:27
that are going to reshape the industry and maybe even the
00:00:30
world of how they work and how they create profitability and
00:00:33
efficiency when they're within their organization.
00:00:35
So we curate these talks.
00:00:37
And we look for companies that are making the needle move for
00:00:41
these multifamily companies.
00:00:42
And so at the innovation showcase we'll hear more in
00:00:46
depth about what Reese has built, how he's helping
00:00:49
multifamily companies and some of the opportunities that can be
00:00:51
leveraged by working with him and his teams.
00:00:54
But until then let's go right to a conversation with Reese.
00:00:57
Reese, welcome in.
00:00:59
How's it going?
00:01:00
Good.
00:01:00
You're here in our Scottsdale studio.
00:01:03
So your offices are here.
00:01:04
Are you in Arizona?
00:01:06
Yeah, we have a one in Tucson and we've got our one in Phoenix
00:01:10
as well too.
00:01:10
So we're central to Phoenix.
00:01:12
Awesome.
00:01:13
I we'll probably have you back in looking forward to your talk
00:01:15
coming up here at the Multifamily Innovation Summit.
00:01:18
And for those that haven't met you, tell us a little bit about
00:01:21
what you're working on, what you've built and a little bit
00:01:24
about your company.
00:01:25
Thank yeah, so we have come from a long history of doing a lot of
00:01:30
inspections and involved in the insurance world for a long time.
00:01:33
We wanted to figure out ways to make that a little bit more
00:01:37
efficient.
00:01:37
And I would say that we have gotten into the drone side of
00:01:40
things where drones make things a little bit more efficient as
00:01:42
far as getting general information.
00:01:44
And you can get a pretty good amount of detail if you know
00:01:48
what you're doing.
00:01:48
So what we've done is we've.
00:01:50
Leveraged our knowledge of that and our knowledge of,
00:01:53
inspections and what is required, what's needed in those
00:01:55
and basically built something to where we feel like can offer the
00:01:59
best possible combination of really as close as we can get to
00:02:02
an on a site or like the actual walking at visual inspection And
00:02:07
then, as close as we can to working with drones, because a
00:02:09
lot of people like working with drones.
00:02:10
It's a new thing.
00:02:11
A lot of people have everyone we talked to is like, Oh yeah, I
00:02:13
got a drone guy.
00:02:15
So we know it's all out there, but what we've done is taken a
00:02:17
lot of a lot of time to really hone in on how to do something
00:02:21
that nobody else really does with those.
00:02:23
So that's it's, we built this product or this service, this
00:02:26
company called Overwatch.
00:02:28
And We want to be people's Information, data asset
00:02:32
collection company and a protection system for them.
00:02:35
Yeah, the asset protection, you mentioned insurance.
00:02:37
I imagine there's all types of different inspections.
00:02:39
There's preventative stuff just as operators, property managers
00:02:42
that are, looking to be more efficient in what they do too,
00:02:46
as well, like asset managers today aren't walking properties
00:02:50
as much as they used to.
00:02:51
And, you have more of the founder based owner where.
00:02:55
They have internal teams and they're walking their properties
00:02:57
and having a, getting, trying to get on roofs and look at things.
00:03:00
And sometimes that can create problems as much as be
00:03:03
preventing ones.
00:03:04
Yeah.
00:03:04
And so I'm, with this trend of more.
00:03:07
More reliance on teams, storm events, all kinds of things that
00:03:12
happen around the country flying in and going to these places.
00:03:17
Sometimes they just don't often do those things.
00:03:19
They would just say let's rely on the the maintenance
00:03:22
technician to look up from ground and say do we have a
00:03:25
problem here?
00:03:26
So tell me.
00:03:27
What you're doing differently than just drones, because a lot
00:03:29
of people do have drones and they maybe could go buy one and
00:03:32
fly one, but really tell us a little bit about your background
00:03:35
and then how you're merging that with the software to really
00:03:38
create something compelling here.
00:03:39
Yeah.
00:03:40
We talk about a lot of times with our company, we go, Hey,
00:03:42
everybody gets PDF reported to death.
00:03:44
It's it's just, there's a.
00:03:45
Yeah, you could, you can choose not to go on site yourself.
00:03:48
You can say, Hey, so and so go take a look and let me know what
00:03:51
it looks like.
00:03:51
You can get five of your vendors out there, but if you're
00:03:55
actually able to see everything in, high quality imagery, or
00:03:58
data that you can actually look at, that's different than just a
00:04:01
PDF report.
00:04:02
That's what we wanted to accomplish.
00:04:03
Most of the time.
00:04:04
You know what?
00:04:05
The data that you're getting is all based on what angle they
00:04:07
took the photo of.
00:04:08
Whether or not they decided to take enough photos that day.
00:04:10
And you know how good they are with that or how close they got
00:04:13
or whatever.
00:04:13
So we just wanted to eliminate a lot of the gap between.
00:04:18
Needing those actionable insights and not having the
00:04:21
ability to actually see something.
00:04:23
So really simply, if I was like, Hey, go take a look at something
00:04:25
for me.
00:04:26
And then I, and I got my guy to go out there and do it.
00:04:28
A lot of times I'd be like, man, Hey, can we get the different
00:04:30
angle?
00:04:30
Or, I need you to go back out there.
00:04:31
I just couldn't see something.
00:04:32
What we've done is.
00:04:34
I really wanted to get an ability to see everything on the
00:04:37
property all in one space.
00:04:38
And when I initially learned about the fact that you could
00:04:41
create 3D models of properties By combining images.
00:04:45
My first immediate thought was how close can I get?
00:04:47
How high a resolution can I get?
00:04:49
And, why don't we do this on every single thing I've ever
00:04:52
done before?
00:04:52
Because I'm just, we've always needed to be out there and take
00:04:57
a look at things.
00:04:57
There's always somebody has to.
00:04:59
Get somebody who's at the top or somebody who manages it that
00:05:01
needs to know what's going on in a situation.
00:05:03
And yeah, most of the time your property is fine.
00:05:05
It's sitting there doing its thing all year round and nothing
00:05:08
ever happens and you never need to look right.
00:05:10
That's what a lot of people feel like in general.
00:05:13
But I think when when we've really, gotten deep with our
00:05:16
clients and when they have certain needs, we've realized
00:05:18
that by doing this, it eliminates the need for them to
00:05:21
fly out, eliminates the need for them to rely on vendors as much.
00:05:24
We created the ability to we were, what we I would say we
00:05:27
didn't create the ability, but the software that we use and the
00:05:30
way that we've put it all together we have really gotten
00:05:33
good at putting 3d models together with just thousands of
00:05:36
photos.
00:05:37
And so we do it all a specific way.
00:05:39
We do a combination of manual flight and automated flights,
00:05:43
and we do things to where you could push a button and get just
00:05:46
a simple model.
00:05:48
Or you could get somebody out there who knows what they're
00:05:49
doing and they would be able to fly the property and, get all
00:05:52
kinds of like specific areas and in points of interest and all
00:05:55
that stuff.
00:05:55
So we've taken PDFs reports, theoretically thrown them out
00:05:59
the window.
00:06:00
If if you could say that and basically just made it to where
00:06:04
you can look at a model and see anywhere you wanted to see on
00:06:07
that property at the condition at the time that model was
00:06:09
flown.
00:06:09
You know it exists out there in various forms What we've then
00:06:12
done is we've taken all the property management needs and
00:06:15
we've integrated a lot of that into You know that offering
00:06:18
which is okay, you know list all the different types of things
00:06:21
You have to inspect and then we can go and we can customize the
00:06:24
way that we offer You know that plan and stuff for people.
00:06:26
So So yeah, we have really just tried to make sure that If
00:06:31
somebody wanted to take a look at a property, whether it's
00:06:34
after a storm that happens or if it's somebody ran their car into
00:06:37
the side of the building or whatever it was you could
00:06:39
document that particular property and its exact condition
00:06:42
and reference that over and over again without having to scroll
00:06:45
down someone's PDF report or go look at a batch of photos.
00:06:49
And it's to a point where you can zoom in, look at something
00:06:52
in high detail within a couple, you could see, Good resolution,
00:06:55
every square inch of whatever you would want to see.
00:06:57
And it really just, you can't get that.
00:07:00
And this is 360 capability.
00:07:01
If you wanted to see every single part of whatever the
00:07:04
exterior of that particular, surfaces, we can get it.
00:07:07
It's not something you would normally do unless you could go
00:07:10
on a video even potentially, but then you're having to pause the
00:07:13
video and look at something you can't really.
00:07:16
Grab perspective.
00:07:16
You can't shift around and you can do all of that with what
00:07:19
we're offering.
00:07:19
So it's something that does not really exist in the property
00:07:22
management space or the multifamily space.
00:07:24
And we want to bring it to that.
00:07:26
I think it's the only way to do it and it's the best possible
00:07:29
way to manage a property, and it can be done over and over again.
00:07:32
Or on a yearly basis we do a lot of different things for our
00:07:34
clients.
00:07:34
Yeah, it sounds flexible.
00:07:35
I'd love to learn lean into what you're talking about with your
00:07:38
clients, what they're saying, how they're using it.
00:07:40
And but before I do that, when you showed me the demo that you
00:07:43
were doing, you were measuring like slopes on roofs and
00:07:48
distances, like even purchasing repairs and things like that,
00:07:52
getting to better quotes, maybe even things like that.
00:07:54
How is that something that would come out of this use?
00:07:56
Like what's the use case?
00:07:58
Yeah.
00:07:58
Yeah.
00:07:59
It's really hard to get into every use case.
00:08:00
That's a, that, that's why it's a very, there's, Hey, if we do a
00:08:03
model and it's really easy to say that, but that's something
00:08:05
that they're potentially somebody else could go and they
00:08:07
could get a model of a property or something.
00:08:09
But what we do is we then offer all kinds of other solutions in
00:08:12
order to manage the model or manage the data that you've got,
00:08:15
you can export the data to other softwares.
00:08:18
You can import other data and overlay.
00:08:20
So you can put your property, entire property overlays over
00:08:22
top of it, know where all the units are at.
00:08:24
The very simple tools that you mentioned are the, some of the
00:08:27
favorite ones that, but you can measure things and it's all very
00:08:30
accurate.
00:08:30
So it's, you're talking about when you get thousands of photos
00:08:33
and you triangulate all that data, you're able to get the the
00:08:36
most accurate, distance measuring compared to doing
00:08:39
something like satellite or look going on to Google and measuring
00:08:42
tool or something.
00:08:42
It's very accurate data.
00:08:44
So what that means is you can then.
00:08:46
Either measure in a line or you can measure area, you can
00:08:48
measure volume, you can do change over time there's all
00:08:51
kinds of stuff on the construction side of things,
00:08:53
which we don't get into too much in the multifamily, type of
00:08:56
discussion, unless somebody is building a property and then
00:08:59
we'll have that discussion and there's a whole entire other,
00:09:02
host of information options that we have for that.
00:09:04
But for very simply property management and monitoring and
00:09:07
maintaining things.
00:09:08
Okay.
00:09:09
You could double check, what, if a sub comes in or a vendor comes
00:09:12
in and says, Hey, I, I.
00:09:13
We're going to do this for you and it's 5, 000 square feet.
00:09:16
You could double check the area that needs to be done.
00:09:18
Then you could check it after it's done and say, Hey, this is
00:09:21
the area that you guys did versus what I measured.
00:09:23
And you guys only really did 3000 square feet.
00:09:26
How come you guys didn't do the rest or, Hey man, these guys are
00:09:29
great.
00:09:29
They did 6, 000 square feet and we actually like these guys.
00:09:32
So there's just a lot there's so many, there's very many basic
00:09:36
and simple ways to accomplish.
00:09:38
Some of the simple tools that are in there or using them.
00:09:40
It gets very complex after that, as far as there are many options
00:09:43
you could do.
00:09:44
We try to stick with some of the basics and that's, what you're
00:09:46
talking about with that.
00:09:47
And so with your, the customers that you have, like what are
00:09:50
they leaning into?
00:09:51
What are the, how are they enjoying it?
00:09:53
And then who's buying it in the organization?
00:09:55
Who's most interested in this?
00:09:57
So we do when people are in a lot, we do a lot with like event
00:10:01
based flights.
00:10:03
So while we are overwatch and we try to every customer that we
00:10:06
have, we try to get them to fly prior to an event.
00:10:09
That's a, just a major push from us, everything that we do, we
00:10:12
want to have a flight preconditioned type for sure.
00:10:14
Yeah.
00:10:15
Cause if you know what things existed like before.
00:10:18
I don't care what happens.
00:10:19
You could have, literally anything that happens when
00:10:21
you're involved in a dispute, whether it's a tenant dispute or
00:10:24
something like a whatever somebody again that causes an
00:10:27
issue at a property or it's a weather related event, the move
00:10:29
in inspection report, full resolution on everything.
00:10:34
And it's not just a few pictures of different angles and stuff
00:10:37
where, you can't see.
00:10:38
So that's, there's a lot of people who have pictures who
00:10:40
document really well.
00:10:41
There's a lot of multifamily management companies who do
00:10:44
really good job at organizing and presenting all or keeping
00:10:47
track of all their information.
00:10:48
But what we do is we try to get all of this information
00:10:51
beforehand.
00:10:52
That's our biggest push, but what a lot of we, the way we get
00:10:55
in with a lot of clients is because they have an event.
00:10:57
So then what we'll do is we'll fly after the event and we
00:11:00
document the conditions of the property.
00:11:02
And then what we can do is we can use that data to then
00:11:05
respond.
00:11:06
So you can fly after the work is done, or you can use that data
00:11:10
to present to insurance companies.
00:11:11
We've done that.
00:11:12
That's a huge.
00:11:14
We have insurance companies who really like the information
00:11:16
because they can send an adjuster out.
00:11:18
And again, it gets, it always gets back into this thing where
00:11:21
you got an adjuster who's on site, or you got a inspector
00:11:25
who's on site and those guys meet, they talk, but then they
00:11:28
have to talk to two other people.
00:11:29
And those people talk to other people and they, somebody's
00:11:31
making decisions based off that information, but that
00:11:34
information is based off of someone's report, someone's
00:11:36
photos, PDF photos, or, link to something, and while most of the
00:11:40
time, if it's very isolated incident, then yeah, you could
00:11:43
get a good idea of what needs to happen, but when there's larger
00:11:46
things that are involved or obscure things, sometimes it
00:11:49
happened it gets really difficult.
00:11:50
So for instance, there's like a, let's say a wind storm came
00:11:53
through or a microburst is, here in Arizona, but, it happens a
00:11:57
lot where there's tile that'll get blown off or tile that it
00:11:59
gets shifted or moved.
00:12:01
And with this, we could see every single tile where it sits
00:12:04
at the current time and where it sat after the windstorm.
00:12:08
So we've had clients where we've flown the properties full,
00:12:10
perfect.
00:12:11
And you're seeing everything.
00:12:12
Yeah.
00:12:12
Like an inspector is just capturing whatever they choose
00:12:15
to capture at whatever angle they capture.
00:12:17
And you can.
00:12:18
But the key for that is that.
00:12:20
They are acting their reaction instead of, being proactive,
00:12:24
having the data beforehand.
00:12:25
So that's why we're overwatch.
00:12:27
We want to be proactive and we want to know what everything
00:12:29
looks like prior to shifted.
00:12:31
So while we can help people all the time after the fact it's a
00:12:34
more important.
00:12:34
And I think when people get involved with us, they start to
00:12:36
see the value once they have to deal with something.
00:12:39
So typically it'll go like.
00:12:41
Somebody gets a flight from us because they had an event, they
00:12:44
realize how valuable it is.
00:12:46
Then they fly all their properties and then they'll end
00:12:48
up, having, more flights or whatever we've done once.
00:12:50
But then at that point, then they can, they may have a base
00:12:52
to stand on and they know what their, all the conditions, their
00:12:55
properties look like after the fact.
00:12:56
But the title thing I was saying there, they there's we have
00:12:59
clients where we, windstorm affected every single tile.
00:13:03
And it's funny cause.
00:13:04
The tiles shift by an inch or, two inches and what'll happen is
00:13:08
insurance companies and again, they don't know it's not like
00:13:11
I'm not trying to say anything bad about insurance companies.
00:13:13
We're just talking about like the inspection process.
00:13:15
Yeah.
00:13:16
Whether or not that works effectively when you're only
00:13:18
looking at after the fact data, right?
00:13:20
Yeah.
00:13:20
So you're over, you're kind, you're look, you're comparing
00:13:22
that to the pre-flight Yeah.
00:13:24
Of the ads.
00:13:25
And if they don't have that, there's no way to say whether or
00:13:28
not that's wear and tear.
00:13:29
And so when you have people who are looking in at the insurance
00:13:32
adjuster and going why are you paying for this tile when it
00:13:34
looks like it's, maybe it was like that before.
00:13:36
It's really difficult for them to wanna, stick their neck out
00:13:39
there Yeah.
00:13:40
And pay for something that they aren't actually sure whether or
00:13:42
not it was affected by the wind.
00:13:44
When you have the model and you have have a complete
00:13:46
documentation of everything on the property, it just eliminates
00:13:48
all of that.
00:13:49
There's, really no need without naming prices.
00:13:51
Is it expensive to do the pre flight preventative way?
00:13:54
Nope.
00:13:54
And in fact we try to do it as cost effective as possible.
00:13:58
It's super expensive though.
00:14:00
If.
00:14:01
An event happens and you don't have that.
00:14:03
You're missing either.
00:14:03
You're leaving money on the table.
00:14:05
You're not getting recovery in the way you need it.
00:14:07
So it could be, we've had clients who, had 300, 000
00:14:10
denials, but we had the data beforehand.
00:14:13
So then they ended up getting approved, wow.
00:14:15
So there's, there's, there could be massive shifts.
00:14:17
And that's when they call and say, do this on all the
00:14:19
properties.
00:14:19
Yeah.
00:14:20
That's when they're like, okay, value's there for sure.
00:14:23
Let's go, but.
00:14:25
A lot of people don't know that they don't know, so you think
00:14:27
about drone and the presupposition is we have a
00:14:30
marketing team that do the drone or we have this, we do ads here
00:14:34
and they fly drones for us.
00:14:36
Very different than what you're talking about here.
00:14:38
Yeah.
00:14:38
And a lot of those There's a difference in skill level of
00:14:40
pilots too.
00:14:41
So it doesn't mean that pilot and the routes could potentially
00:14:44
learn what we do, but they don't, that we do very things
00:14:47
very specific to what our needs are.
00:14:49
So it's not just an automated flight.
00:14:51
That's probably something that if somebody did know about
00:14:54
models, they would say, Oh yeah, it's just an automated flight.
00:14:56
You can just push a button.
00:14:56
I can get this app.
00:14:57
It costs a lot, but I push a button and then the drone goes.
00:15:00
That's yes.
00:15:01
That's something that could be done, but the, from personal
00:15:03
experience there's a lot that you have to learn about and
00:15:06
yeah, professional services still exists.
00:15:08
Yeah.
00:15:08
And even though the technology is, and when you push a button,
00:15:11
the, it only sees what it can see at that particular angle.
00:15:15
So it's all limited based on the structure of the property and
00:15:19
how complex or not that is.
00:15:20
So sometimes that solution might work, but we try to keep the
00:15:22
prices low enough to where everybody should be able to pay
00:15:25
for everybody should be able to pay for, I don't care if you're,
00:15:27
low level we're an asset manager, it makes sense to do
00:15:31
those types of asset protection services, tell me a little bit
00:15:34
about how'd you come up with the idea, like what happened that
00:15:37
you decided we're going to focus on this.
00:15:40
I don't know.
00:15:40
So first off, drones are great because then you don't have to
00:15:43
get up on roofs or, and you can't, it's when you can't
00:15:46
access things.
00:15:46
So I come from a history of needing to get on roofs and
00:15:49
structures a lot.
00:15:50
When it came to drones, the first thing is people are like,
00:15:53
Hey, you can't see everything that you need to see.
00:15:55
And there's nothing that'll ever, you know take away when
00:15:58
I'm able to be on a roof and touch it myself, there's a lot
00:16:01
of the.
00:16:02
The old guys that'll harass you about that.
00:16:03
And I fully agree.
00:16:05
There's there's not going to be anything that takes that roof
00:16:08
whisperers expertise away.
00:16:10
But when I realized all the information that I needed was.
00:16:15
As far as, or at least a majority of it was ready and
00:16:17
available for, estimating or for combating, different insurance
00:16:20
needs or whatever, all the list of things that I needed.
00:16:24
That's when I realized I could capture that with the drones.
00:16:26
That's when I was like, you know what?
00:16:29
I started doing it actually without realizing that, this is
00:16:31
when the modeling side of things wasn't even available.
00:16:34
So this is, years back.
00:16:35
So I started doing it in a way where I was taking photos in the
00:16:38
same way that you would actually now create a model, but I was
00:16:41
taking photos in a way that I knew that I captured every
00:16:43
single angle.
00:16:44
So that was my thought process is I was like, I'm so tired of
00:16:48
there being a dispute based on something that's Hey, we can't
00:16:51
see this.
00:16:51
Therefore we're not going to.
00:16:53
Approve it as an insurance company or Hey, we didn't know
00:16:56
about this, therefore we didn't touch it, like from a contractor
00:16:59
vendor side of things.
00:17:00
There's just a lot of stuff that happens when people can claim
00:17:02
they didn't know something existed.
00:17:04
But if you have every single photo of every part of the
00:17:07
property, there's, you have all the power of the data, so it's.
00:17:10
That's I think, where, when I realized that you could then
00:17:13
take all of those photos and do it the same way that I was doing
00:17:15
it, but then create 3D models of it all and display it in a way
00:17:18
that everybody else can jump on and collaborate and coordinate
00:17:21
and track and monitor and comment and all that stuff.
00:17:24
That's where I said, yeah, this will be what I'm doing, going
00:17:28
forward.
00:17:28
And I'm going to build on this and, make it even better than
00:17:30
what it exists or what, options were available at the time.
00:17:33
So yeah, I would say probably the need to not want to have to
00:17:36
get on every single roof when you don't necessarily need to be
00:17:37
up there.
00:17:38
Or in July in Arizona.
00:17:40
When it's 115 in Arizona, yeah, that's a, it's a, it's
00:17:43
definitely a benefit.
00:17:44
So yeah.
00:17:45
But yeah.
00:17:45
What markets can you go to?
00:17:47
Is this a regional?
00:17:48
Can you go national?
00:17:50
Yeah, we can go national.
00:17:51
It depends.
00:17:52
There's probably remote access areas that are more difficult to
00:17:55
get to.
00:17:55
But we access networks of different pilots that we can
00:17:58
talk to and we teach them how to train it.
00:18:00
We have training modules they go through and learn about how we
00:18:03
fly things.
00:18:03
We already, clients anywhere in Florida, North Carolina, and we
00:18:06
already fly, pretty much all over the country.
00:18:08
There's certain areas we don't fly as much, but yeah, as as we
00:18:11
grow though, it just gets.
00:18:12
We're almost in, every state as we're growing and as people have
00:18:15
properties and ownership groups that have properties all over
00:18:18
the country again we really try not to fly one property at a
00:18:22
time for people.
00:18:22
We want you, we really want to capture whatever you own all at
00:18:26
one time so that you have that, data set.
00:18:27
But at the same time, if it makes sense, we'll go and do it,
00:18:30
it's not a, we have that capability and knowledge of how
00:18:33
to, access different assets all over the country.
00:18:35
Sure.
00:18:35
So strategic for sure.
00:18:37
Thank you.
00:18:38
What are clients saying inside these meetings or even let's go
00:18:41
back, let's back it up before they become a client in the
00:18:44
prospects.
00:18:45
You're presenting this to him from two people.
00:18:47
What are they leaning into?
00:18:49
What questions are they asking about, in the sales process?
00:18:52
Not to divert the question.
00:18:54
I'll, we'll go through that at all or for sure.
00:18:56
But First thing is like most of the time, anytime we pop that
00:18:58
model up and we show them their property, they're like, holy
00:19:01
crap, this is awesome.
00:19:03
This is, there's always a show don't sell.
00:19:05
Yeah.
00:19:06
And it's I know exactly the couple of different things I do
00:19:10
and there's always a wow moment that comes in.
00:19:12
And it's, it makes me like smile or laugh every single time,
00:19:15
because there's always just this moment when people are like,
00:19:17
this is so cool.
00:19:18
I didn't even know this was possible.
00:19:19
That's the reaction we want out of people because we want them
00:19:21
to see, I want them to be, interested, a little nerdy about
00:19:25
it and get excited about what they're looking at, because
00:19:28
there is so much information that people don't realize.
00:19:31
Every time I talk to clients, they have some new reason why
00:19:33
they like that particular data set or they like the model.
00:19:37
And it, sometimes it makes me laugh.
00:19:38
I'm like, I had no idea that, this person wanted it, would
00:19:41
need it for that particular need, So that's like the first
00:19:44
things that start to happen in a call.
00:19:46
And then aside from that, there's usually a lot of this is
00:19:48
something I can do or is I have a drone pilot or whatever, but
00:19:51
for the most part when people get into it, they want to know
00:19:53
what they can do with that information.
00:19:55
So while they see the model, we will then go deeper into, this
00:19:59
is a model.
00:20:00
It's, it looks like a video game ish.
00:20:02
It's very clear and high resolution, but it's, it reminds
00:20:06
people of that.
00:20:06
But when you get deeper into what that information is, and
00:20:09
that every single part of that structure is a photo that was
00:20:12
taken somewhere, then we show them, we usually will click
00:20:15
something that'll show them like where every single photo was
00:20:17
taken.
00:20:18
That's another wow moment for them where they realize that
00:20:20
there's.
00:20:21
It's just, there's a host of different photos have to be
00:20:23
taken in order to accomplish getting that, but then the fact
00:20:26
that they have access to all of that is usually when they start
00:20:28
to go, Oh then could I do this?
00:20:29
And can I take photos of that?
00:20:31
And can you guys get me this?
00:20:32
So once we go through our first couple few, click in here and
00:20:36
show them the 3d model, then show them how it works.
00:20:38
That's usually when their minds go and they start asking all
00:20:41
the, What can you do in this particular situation type of
00:20:44
questions?
00:20:44
So I love your journey to we, we talk a lot on the innovation
00:20:48
council around bilinguals.
00:20:50
And what I mean by that is people understand real estate,
00:20:53
the fundamentals of real estate, but also the technology and the
00:20:56
technology alone is not enough.
00:20:58
It's, when the technology is brought into the organization
00:21:01
and it makes the process better and business gets better, more
00:21:03
profitable, healthier and better employee experience.
00:21:07
Less risk, less injuries, people going on roofs revenues, 300,
00:21:10
000 savings in that pre flight that you mentioned about a
00:21:14
client is incredible in terms of financial value.
00:21:18
And but I love how they you've got the physical world of the
00:21:21
real estate, the roofs and the property condition and all that
00:21:23
stuff.
00:21:23
But you're using this technology to, make the process better and
00:21:27
that's what's really interesting.
00:21:28
That's why I wanted to get to know a little bit more about
00:21:31
what you guys are working on.
00:21:32
Are you more what's, what got you here is a lot of the real
00:21:37
estate fundamentals and the being on the roofs and stuff
00:21:39
like that.
00:21:39
Do you see this as more technology driven in the future?
00:21:42
Like where it's Where do you take it from here?
00:21:46
So getting a lot of that client feedback and different data
00:21:50
insights.
00:21:51
I think, you could track the way the world is going and you could
00:21:53
say, I could give you the basic answers, yeah, we're going to
00:21:55
integrate AI, which we are, and there's we're, how many photos
00:21:59
we capture on a regular basis.
00:22:01
This, we have a lot of data that comes in and goes out.
00:22:04
If there was anybody that were able to train AI models on image
00:22:07
recognition, we're one of them that could, they could put a lot
00:22:09
of that data set together and do you need to recognize HVAC
00:22:13
systems on a roof and have that actually tagged within the model
00:22:17
and then that gets labeled and then all the data that you, all
00:22:20
of the HVAC work that you do on those systems all gets then
00:22:24
tracked within there, stuff like that is where we're going, where
00:22:26
we want people to be able to.
00:22:29
That model is just a, almost a shell or the starting point.
00:22:32
And then all the AI tools or the other technology that comes into
00:22:35
play would then, support that and build it and make it better.
00:22:38
So we want that to be the foundation.
00:22:41
There's things right now we're integrating we're talking about
00:22:44
integrating and we've got some things that are moving forward
00:22:46
with I'm trying not to, we'll say too much, but there's some
00:22:49
we do, we also, we can do a lot with interior, but the interior,
00:22:52
a lot of times right now is limited to, how effectively, how
00:22:54
fast you can do it and how capable and all that.
00:22:57
So we would like to be able to combine an interior property
00:23:00
management system with an exterior property management
00:23:03
system, which is what we are.
00:23:04
So we're working on some pretty cool stuff with that.
00:23:07
And I think it'll work out really well.
00:23:08
Yeah, you showed me that just going through the interior
00:23:11
hallways, not necessarily the inside the units and stuff like
00:23:14
that, but that was pretty compelling from a walkability
00:23:17
standpoint.
00:23:18
Sounds exciting.
00:23:19
And I start to think about training.
00:23:21
Is anybody think about this, like just training employees,
00:23:24
this is the equipment, this is how the, these things should be
00:23:27
laid out or are the.
00:23:29
Yeah.
00:23:29
As far as like the employee training organizations we work
00:23:32
with.
00:23:32
Yeah.
00:23:33
We haven't done a ton with that, but I've, everybody I've talked
00:23:35
to, I've said, Hey.
00:23:36
The goal here is to get your entire portfolio done so that
00:23:39
then everyone who works within your organization accesses the
00:23:42
same folder that has every single property in it or
00:23:45
whatever they're shared with.
00:23:47
But then they're all working off the same stuff all the time.
00:23:49
So then that way you can train these guys on, what needs to be
00:23:52
done on the properties.
00:23:53
You can set up different tasks in the way that they manage
00:23:55
things.
00:23:56
All of the coordination and collaboration should be done
00:23:58
through this particular, Offering, at least that's what
00:24:01
we would like, because then at that point Monitoring,
00:24:04
collecting we actually can hand 360 cams to the to the tenants
00:24:08
and, or not the tenants, the on site, managers and stuff.
00:24:12
But we can hand stuff like that to them where they can capture
00:24:14
their own data and that's, what's cool is when, with that
00:24:16
training that you're talking about, you train them on how to
00:24:18
collect data, they can collect all that data.
00:24:21
Somebody calls in, say I have a leak, my or my.
00:24:24
Interior, there's a problem or whatever, they can collect all
00:24:26
the data and then they can upload that data directly to the
00:24:29
map.
00:24:30
It'll, you can post exactly where it is on the map, track
00:24:33
that issue or track what happened there.
00:24:35
And then of course monitor what goes on with that particular,
00:24:38
situation.
00:24:38
So there's, once you get the data.
00:24:41
Other people can still contribute to it.
00:24:43
And I think that's where a lot of the training you're talking
00:24:45
about, comes into play, understanding them,
00:24:47
understanding how to do that, gets better visibility among the
00:24:50
whole organization.
00:24:51
At that point, somebody at the top can go, okay, I want to look
00:24:54
at this property.
00:24:55
Let me zoom into this particular area.
00:24:56
There's an issue here.
00:24:57
I click on it.
00:24:58
They see all the photos that pop up.
00:24:59
They see the communication that comes in based on that.
00:25:02
And they get to see where, as long as everybody's, filling out
00:25:04
the information, there's a.
00:25:06
There's a status update there as well.
00:25:08
So there's a lot that can be done on that side.
00:25:10
I think with the multifamily industry, when we work with a
00:25:13
lot of different industries, but at the multifamily industry,
00:25:15
that's a huge thing, but it would require organizations to
00:25:20
understand why this is important for them and then to get their
00:25:23
people on board.
00:25:24
If there was something that I think is difficult, a lot of
00:25:25
times that's, I think that's a lot of times something that is
00:25:28
difficult is to get an organization to say, yeah, we're
00:25:31
going to take the leap and, we'll do something new and, but
00:25:34
if there was, a way to manage things more effectively or look
00:25:38
at things in a way that can't ever.
00:25:40
Be achieved, in any other way, this is it.
00:25:43
And so if there were times to migrate and to do something like
00:25:47
that that's where I'm always pushing in the nicest way, but
00:25:49
I'm like, Hey.
00:25:50
This is a great time to, to make a change like that because I
00:25:52
think your people will understand they'll love it.
00:25:55
And most of the time they're the ones that are the cheerleaders
00:25:57
for us.
00:25:58
The onsite people, cause they have never been able to do
00:26:00
anything like this before.
00:26:01
And it's something that makes them feel part of something
00:26:03
great and, fun and Effective, yeah, your timing has never been
00:26:07
better as well.
00:26:08
And, I start to think about the third party managers that take
00:26:11
care of real estate for investors and the value just in
00:26:14
the reporting of making decisions on getting quicker
00:26:18
decisions and then demonstrating, if you had the
00:26:20
pre flight, like here's condition now, this occurred,
00:26:24
here's condition, we need this approval and by the way, we can
00:26:27
verify the quote and the bid and all that stuff from measurements
00:26:31
and you're, it's.
00:26:32
It's really a value add for the third party manager that may be
00:26:37
even managing on behalf of clients as well, I think, for
00:26:40
sure.
00:26:40
And then there's, due diligence inspections that happen a lot.
00:26:43
We do those a lot as well and we do them just, there's different
00:26:48
tasks require different solutions.
00:26:49
So we do those just slightly differently, but we use a lot of
00:26:52
our same techniques that we would do to document a property.
00:26:54
We just do it in a.
00:26:56
A way that captures more data and takes a little bit more
00:26:58
time, but it's, I would say it's a fifth of the price, if not
00:27:01
more than what you get from doing requiring people to go out
00:27:05
there and so quicker, a lot of that, where sometimes we'll do
00:27:08
it for the people who want, who are hired to do the due
00:27:12
diligence inspections.
00:27:13
And they like it cause they can go and do a quick inspection,
00:27:16
get their data, but then they use all of our data as the data
00:27:19
that gets displayed to the client.
00:27:20
And then the client gets access to it.
00:27:22
It's if you're buying a property even or looking at potentially
00:27:26
buying something it's When do you ever get an opportunity to
00:27:29
get a full ex yeah and doing those measurements and doing the
00:27:33
proforma around the capital improvements that may be
00:27:36
required if they do acquire the asset and it gives you a
00:27:39
headstart on all that without dropping into the market and
00:27:42
doing that manually.
00:27:43
Pretty fascinating.
00:27:44
I know we'll have a lot more to talk about here.
00:27:46
At the summit we have the innovation showcase.
00:27:48
Hopefully you'll be able to visually.
00:27:51
Give people a better look inside of this.
00:27:53
And if you're not already It's we'll put all the links to your
00:27:56
website and, how to get in touch with you and the show notes
00:28:00
multifamilyinnovation.
00:28:01
com.
00:28:02
Just click on podcasts.
00:28:03
You can view all that any, we're coming up on the end of our time
00:28:06
together, but is there any questions I should have asked
00:28:09
anything that I missed?
00:28:10
This is new for a lot of our listeners.
00:28:12
How do you even think about.
00:28:15
Evaluating something like this, what advice would you give to a
00:28:18
listener that's thinking this was interesting and yeah, I want
00:28:21
more proficiency, one more profitability.
00:28:23
I want to be able to take care of the real estate and know the
00:28:25
asset better, and then potentially mitigate any risk
00:28:28
around any problems that may come in the future.
00:28:31
How should I even go about evaluating something like this?
00:28:35
Yeah, I think, what I would, some of the basic simple
00:28:38
questions we like to ask and prompt people with is just what
00:28:41
kind of issues do you run into in your management?
00:28:44
So that's always different for the different groups.
00:28:47
You have, totally different Needs, for sure, different
00:28:50
organizations of different sizes and everything.
00:28:53
The larger the organizations, the more they just want access
00:28:55
to all the data.
00:28:56
So the smaller the organizations, the more they
00:28:58
might want high quality data.
00:29:00
So we can fly something that gives you, you could zoom in,
00:29:04
super close to see.
00:29:06
Every single granule on a shingle.
00:29:08
So we can get that detailed.
00:29:11
Whereas with some of the larger organizations, we can just fly
00:29:14
it all as quickly as possible and get, a general basis or
00:29:17
standpoint on everything to where then they go, okay on
00:29:19
these properties, we have these issues clearly.
00:29:21
So let's fly these on a more detailed level.
00:29:23
So I think just taking a look at what you do, what you're.
00:29:27
Organization is like in what kind of, problems you run into
00:29:31
how would having complete visibility on your property
00:29:34
potentially help you?
00:29:35
And, there's different options as far as something that is a
00:29:38
quick and easy flight.
00:29:40
But, I would say if you were looking at it and you have to
00:29:42
deal with different subs, you have to deal with different
00:29:43
vendors.
00:29:44
There's just so many things that people don't realize that affect
00:29:47
them.
00:29:48
And we're on that.
00:29:49
We I've come from that side of things where every time you have
00:29:52
to do an improvement on a property, everybody should have
00:29:54
to do that.
00:29:56
You can cross check everything that gets bid to you.
00:29:59
You can, and when you're getting three bids, that's what a lot of
00:30:01
people are doing is they're saying, I want to know three
00:30:04
different opinions on what, what needs to be done here.
00:30:06
Sure, but have your own opinion, too, and have your own data for
00:30:10
for whatever the cost is, I'm guaranteed you're going to be
00:30:13
able to save at least that or more by being able to then talk
00:30:17
with that vendor or person or that estimator in a more
00:30:20
effective way and say, Hey, based on what I'm seeing here, I
00:30:23
don't really believe that we should be doing this.
00:30:25
Why don't we migrate or why don't we shift this just a
00:30:27
little bit?
00:30:28
You can save me this money here.
00:30:29
And instead I'd like to actually, Do more of it over
00:30:32
here in this area, there's just a lot of like perspective that
00:30:35
it gave that you gain.
00:30:36
And I can't tell you many times we, we see people's estimates
00:30:39
that don't have any photos attached, They don't have they
00:30:41
might be great.
00:30:42
They might be exactly what you need, but Unless you have your
00:30:45
own personal confidence and again, even if you're going out
00:30:48
on site and you're like I go out on site, I get up on the roofs
00:30:50
all the time myself, I'm a very involved owner and we're a
00:30:53
smaller organization, even those guys to then have that at your
00:30:56
fingertips, if anything, you have the easiest way to, to work
00:30:59
and collaborate with those types of people to make sure that
00:31:01
they're effective and then.
00:31:03
Potentially fly it again after it, if it's a larger improvement
00:31:05
and then you can double check what happened and, things make
00:31:08
sure things are done correctly.
00:31:09
So I guess the kind of, Yeah.
00:31:11
I don't know if this is answering the question to go
00:31:13
along that path.
00:31:14
I just think a lot of times people end up saying, I don't
00:31:18
know if I need this or something.
00:31:19
And I would say you really have to consider what things you run
00:31:23
into pay attention to, I think we think about all the different
00:31:26
things in ways that, that might be able to alleviate a concern
00:31:29
or problem that people run into.
00:31:30
But by doing that and paying attention to what your, style of
00:31:34
management or what type of like organization you are, we can
00:31:36
then cater and figure out what might help you the most, so
00:31:39
these are big ticket decisions too, I think.
00:31:42
And for asset management and understanding.
00:31:45
The larger expenses you mentioned the three bids.
00:31:47
Yeah we're looking at comparison bids, but they're all maybe not
00:31:50
getting on top of the, there's situations that there, they may
00:31:53
have a different angle or different cost structure to
00:31:55
that.
00:31:56
But I liked that idea of having your own opinion, what you
00:31:58
mentioned, that was really fascinating to me.
00:31:59
And that's just not something most people have been accustomed
00:32:03
to because they haven't had the opportunity.
00:32:04
The technology wasn't there to do that.
00:32:07
And really excited to see, and it's overwatch, it's OVR watch,
00:32:11
right?
00:32:11
That's pretty interesting technology you've put together
00:32:14
here.
00:32:14
Exciting to get the momentum in the industry and looking forward
00:32:18
to spending some more time at the Multifamily Innovation
00:32:21
Summit.
00:32:22
I know our attendees will enjoy.
00:32:24
A lot of them are going there to take back to the business,
00:32:27
something that's going to move the needle, make an impact.
00:32:30
And I certainly think financially that this is one of
00:32:32
those tools.
00:32:33
Yep.
00:32:33
We want to keep it simple for people in the beginning.
00:32:36
And, as you grow to understand what's going on with what we do
00:32:39
and how it can help and how we're going to be your backup,
00:32:41
your overwatch with all of your data and your information then
00:32:44
we, grow together and figure out what we could do for you,
00:32:46
awesome.
00:32:47
Thanks for coming in.
00:32:48
Yeah.
00:32:48
Appreciate you having me on.
00:32:49
Yeah.
00:32:49
Thanks.
00:32:50
Awesome.
00:32:50
All right.
00:32:51
If you're not already following the podcast, make sure to
00:32:54
subscribe, rate, and review.
00:32:55
Give us a follow, give us a click, wherever that may be,
00:32:58
wherever you enjoy your podcasts.
00:33:00
More to come at the Multifamily Innovation Summit.
00:33:03
See you guys soon.
Related Episodes
Larry Gorman on the Future of Multifamily Operations
Unlock the secrets to transforming the multifamily housing sector with us as we chat with Larry Gorman, the visionary president of LeaseHawk. Discover how innovations like self-guided tours and centralized leasing offices have not only revolutionized operational efficiency but also set a new standar...
Transforming Multifamily Financial Performance with Michael Bowman
Unlock the secrets to transforming financial performance and compliance in the multifamily industry with insights from Michael Bowman, the visionary CEO and founder of Resident Radius. Discover how Michael's journey from an operator to a supplier partner has informed the creation of innovative cash ...
Building Stronger Communities with Flexible Rent Solutions and Higher Resident Satisfaction
In this episode of the Multifamily Innovation® Podcast, host Patrick Antrim, Chairman of the Multifamily Innovation® Council, sits down with Brad Robins, Principal Product Evangelist at Flex. Flex, a financial tech innovator and official partner of the Multifamily Innovation® & AI Summit, offers...