Large-Scale Efficiencies: Leveraging Technology for Asset Management panel.

LOS ANGELES—The multifamily sector is currently the fastest-growing in the country with investment hitting a record $43 billion in Q4 2015. Still, the multifamily sector has notably lagged in adopting many of the latest technological advances. Can the sector continue this resistance while the market activity remains strong? That was one of the key questions asked during the opening Multifamily Tech series yesterday at ALM's RealShare Apartments 2016.

In a panel titled “Large-Scale Efficiencies: Leveraging Technology for Asset Management,” moderator Justin Alanis, co-founder and CEO of Rentlytics, zeroed in on how to select and implement the right systems and the right practices for your business.

Panelist Brad Cribbins, president and COO of Alliance Residential, stressed the importance of communication between all the tech pieces of the puzzle. All of the components that tell you when something that is happening in your operation arena, whether it's property management systems, social media systems, screening platforms or survey systems, don't always talk to one another, Cribbins explained. “Working that communication out is a process.”

And the sooner that you start to put that process in place and that platform in place, the more successful you will be, said panelist Robert Finlay, CEO of R.J. Finlay & Co. He explained that while organizing your data in one spot isn't easy and is a long term process, it is one that “is great and essential for the survival of your business.”

Finlay explained that in the past, every month he would go through a stack of reports with his red marker. “Before I noticed what was wrong, it was already 30 to 45 days too late,” he said. “Step one was realizing that we had to make it easier.”

Finlay now has a list of priorities he can address. He has the issues, indicators to track and actually has a line-item list to go after. “You don't need to have crazy algorithms to be smarter.”

But figuring out systems that are able to communicate with each other is a hard task, Cribbins pointed out. “We are consistently upgrading our platforms and training our team. Every time the technology changes, we have to change those training dynamics so the struggle for us is how do we make the process easier.”

Another challenge, according to panelist Mike Ballard, partner of Ascent Multifamily Accounting, is that the technology is there, but people just aren't using it because they like doing what they have always done. “Getting people to change is a challenge.”

The trick to maximizing technology utilization, Ballard said, is done before you think it is done. “It is managing the process… one of the keys is getting rid of the paper. Put the leases online. Don't do purchase orders. Use the systems like they are meant to be used and you will benefit from it.”

Michael Roos, director of asset management at ColRich, isn't just trying to get away from paper. “We are looking at getting the real-time information. We want to look at what happened this morning now, on demand.”

Finlay added that “The ones that know it understand it and get it are going to be so much better off than those ones that don't.” He pointed out that “it is no longer about walking down the street and getting a 'feeling,' it is about showing the analytics behind it. Once you start seeing the divergence between the ones that are utilizing the data and the ones that aren't, that is when people will really change.”

Ballard added that every year that you don't automate is more expensive to not do it. “The sooner you make the investment, the better off you are.”

Check back with GlobeSt.com this afternoon for more from the two-day RealShare Apartments event.

Instant Insights /

Tech Platform Communication is Key in Asset Management

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