Yardi announced today the acquisition of CommissionTrac, an Atlanta-based software company that provides revenue management software for commercial real estate companies, with a focus on commercial brokerages. Founded in 2015, CommissionTrac’s software is used by small and large brokerages to manage workflows, from tracking deal pipeline to invoicing clients to paying out commissions to individual brokers. The CommissionTrac team will continue to support their existing clients, while also integrating the platform into Yardi’s CommercialEdge suite. CommercialEdge is a recent addition to Yardi’s suite of products, focused on commercial brokers’ needs. “At CommissionTrac, we’ve spent years developing a product to streamline the operations of a brokerage, while also providing greater visibility to brokers about their commissions,” said Turner Levison, cofounder and CEO of CommissionTrac. “By joining Yardi’s CommercialEdge division, we are excited to accelerate our impact in the commercial real estate space.” “We’re very pleased to welcome the CommissionTrac team to the Yardi family,” said Arjun Rao, senior director of global solutions at Yardi. “The team has built a strong product that perfectly complements our CommercialEdge suite, especially our marketing and deal management products. We are excited to work together to continue to add value to the commercial real estate space.” CommercialEdge, powered by Yardi, consists of marketing and deal management products, as well as a flagship research product that provides extensive property, listing, transaction, ownership and debt information across all commercial real estate asset types. Clients can use the platform to uncover vital market data and insights, market their own listings, and manage deals to execution. About CommissionTrac CommissionTrac was founded on the belief that managing a commercial real estate brokerage should be easier. Our mission is to allow a brokerage of any size to have the tools they need to organize everything from...

Fifteen percent of Americans were 65 and older as of 2018. One study projects that the population of Americans 65 or older could reach 108 million in 2050. The 85-and-older population may increase at least fivefold in that time, to more than 6% percent of the citizenry. Some indicators of an aging population — and a few fun facts — are presented in the information below, which is drawn from a range of sources including the U.S. Census Bureau; the United Nations; Washington, D.C.-based population, health and environmental information source Population Reference Bureau; and Virginia law firm Mountain Empire Legal Services. 85 and up is the U.S.’s fastest-growing age group by percentage. By 2040, about one in five Americans will be 65 or older, up from about one in eight in 2000. Persons 65 and older are projected to outnumber children by 2034 for the first time in U.S. history. In 1960, those 65 and older comprised 4.9% of the global population. By 2050, they will account for 17%. More than 10,000 members of the baby boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964) turn 65 every day. As of 2018, 24% of men and about 16% of women 65 and older were in the labor force. About 65% of baby boomers say they plan to work past age 65. Five percent of people 65 and older in 1965 had completed at least a bachelor’s degree. Twenty-nine percent of that age group had done so by 2018. About 80% of seniors own a car and drive frequently. Nearly half of all adults 65 and older volunteer. Harland David Sanders (Col. Sanders) started Kentucky Fried Chicken when he was 65. May is Older Americans Month, so designated to appreciate and recognize senior citizens. August 21 is...

Editor’s note: The author is founder and CEO of Bellevue, Wash.-based Aegis Living, a national leader in senior assisted living and memory care that operates 32 communities in Washington, California and Nevada and has seven other communities in development. Interacting with our seniors at Aegis Living has taught me so much—not just about life and living, but also about how to live a long and happy life. One of the things I’ve learned from our “oracles”—which has been confirmed by research—is that having purpose in your life is critical to your health and longevity. I think of purpose as putting forth effort toward doing things that have meaning for you and having daily, doable micro-goals. For example, if gardening has become a passion for you, giving it a sense of purpose in your life would lead you to read gardening books, talk to neighbors about what they’re planting and share ideas and tips, speak to experts at nurseries, and move things around in your yard to improve and enhance their health and visual impact. A sense of purpose organizes your time, focus, and even relationships. People who have goals and work toward them also feel a sense of self-worth and fulfillment, which helps them maintain a positive outlook on life. I believe that finding a renewed sense of purpose is what takes people into thriving later in life. If you are bored with cooking after many years of doing it, find a new cooking style—or a completely new hobby or pursuit that excites you. Dedicating physical and mental effort Hidekichi Miyazaki, a Japanese father of four and grandfather of 10, was 105 years old in 2015 when he completed the 100-meter sprint in 42.22 seconds. He set a new Guinness world record in track and field as...

Yardi’s November Executive Briefing brought together a collection of industry leaders to discuss current trends and solutions to mitigate a year of unique challenges. As part of the session, Yardi senior vice president of global solutions, Rob Teel, provided an update on some of Yardi’s current initiatives and what trends are driving Yardi’s efforts moving forward. The company is underwriting a major tenant survey with BOMA which received over 3,000 responses. The survey responses will be revealed in the coming weeks and there will be upcoming webinars with BOMA to review and analyze the findings, such as the likelihood for commercial tenants to renew, factors driving their renewal decisions and factors driving office occupancy levels. Teel noted that some of the prevalent industry trends this year are topics he’s rarely had to deal with, such as concern over rent deferrals and concessions. Yardi’s response was to create a new product called Lease Manager, which helps landlords better manage tenant risk and overall portfolio health. In addition, with a focus on removing touchpoints, Yardi felt it was key to help clients eliminate paper from their day-to-day operations. To do so, there was a corporate initiative to promote products such as VendorCafe and CommercialCafe, which make it easy to electronically submit payments, vendor invoices, tenant invoices and any other documents which normally would have required mailing or submitting paperwork. The industrial, retail and office sectors have all been affected differently by the global pandemic. Industrial has become the “shining area of commercial,” Teel noted, thanks to a large spike in e-commerce growth and demand staying steady along with occupancy and rent. On the flip side, retail has naturally seen more challenges with less foot traffic, shutdowns varying by jurisdiction and higher vacancy rates. This has led...

Confidence in self storage remains high as the sector demonstrates ongoing strong street rate performance despite COVID-19’s continued impact across the U.S., reports the latest Yardi Matrix National Self Storage Monthly report. National street rates for standard 10×10 non-climate-controlled (NON CC) units increased 1.7% last month compared to November 2019. While year-over-year street rates nationwide for 10×10 climate-controlled (CC) units did not increase, the flat performance reflects an improvement over the first nine months of 2020. From October to November, national street rates for 10×10 NON CC units also saw an increase of 0.9%, while nationwide rates for similar-size CC units remained unchanged. Annual street rate performance was negative in only about 19% of the top markets tracked by Yardi Matrix for 10×10 NON CC units in November. Rates for this unit type were hit the hardest in Minneapolis, which saw a 3.5% decrease year-over-year. Experts caution that despite several months of rosy reports, there still could be challenges ahead. “While self storage has established itself as a strong performer in difficult market conditions, it could face a tough slog ahead as another round of COVID-related lockdowns and restrictions emerges this winter,” states the report. Nationwide, Yardi Matrix tracks a total of 2,136 self storage properties in various stages of development—comprising 590 under construction, 1,134 planned and 412 prospective properties. The national new-supply pipeline as a percent of existing inventory increased by a minor 0.1% month-over-month in November, and the share of existing properties in various stages of development accounts for 8.3% of existing inventory.  Yardi Matrix also maintains operational profiles for 26,351 completed self storage facilities across the United States, bringing the total data set to 28,487. Read all the highlights for self storage in the latest National Self Storage Monthly...

In 2017, only 5.2% of Americans consistently worked from home. This summer, more than 51% of employed Americans transitioned to remote work environments.  This means more time, tasks and responsibilities at home– and necessary updates to their renters insurance policies. Not sure if you need to update your policy? Check out the scenarios below to see if they apply to you. You have more frequent guests than usual Suzanne and her partner, Dave, are a blacksmiths who recently had to close their shop in the city. They hauled their equipment to the garage of Suzanne’s rental. The space is cramped and darker than they’re accustomed to, but things are working fine. Should Suzanne review her liability insurance policy? Yes! Her current liability coverage may be sufficient to cover most incidents in her rental house. Her coworker, however, will be in her rental more often than usual. The increased frequency of his visits along with using high-risk equipment in a less-than-ideal space may call for additional coverage. You have significantly more equipment or materials than usual Leanne is a professional bridesmaid. (Yes, they exist.) With limited access hours at her storage facility, she may have tens of thousands of dollars of wedding supplies or specialized equipment at her rental. Should Leanne review her personal property coverage? Yes! This is tricky, because while she did not pay for the items, they are her responsibility while in the unit. The cost of the items may exceed her typical renters insurance cost, warranting a policy update. Additionally, she will need to consider an actual cash value protection policy rather than replacement cost coverage. Actual cash value plans offer coverage up to items’ current market value. In contrast, replacement coverage replaces compromised items. This time-consuming process may be less...

How have sales teams adjusted to reduced face-to-face consultations during the pandemic? How do clients stay connected with leads? What product offerings will Yardi focus on in 2021? Richard Nix, senior director of senior living sales for Yardi, covers these topics and more. Below are excerpts from an interview that was published in Senior Housing News. Q.: You’ve spent your career in technology with a lot of time in the senior space and you’ve been with Yardi since 2014. What lessons do you draw from most frequently in your current role? A.: The main lesson is to always talk to people. A lot of folks like to communicate using technology, such as emails and text, but there’s nothing like getting on the phone with people and really learning their issues— especially now that we’re not seeing them at client meetings and at conferences — and to see what is really driving them and what issues are pertaining to them right now. The other key point is teamwork. The Yardi culture is all about teamwork. We have a great team, and we work to solve problems together for our clients. Q.: One of the early outcomes of the pandemic was the increase in technology adoption, including among sales and marketing teams. What are the most important ways that you’re seeing technology augment the diminished in-person sales calls in 2020? A: Salespeople depend on technology for handling many client requests. Since face-to-face meetings have been hard to arrange during the pandemic, continual contact with clients by other means became critical. In terms of specific technologies, the use of the video meetings has been a shift. This is a personal thing, but I like to put the camera on myself at the beginning of a video call....

Have you ever heard the saying that attitude is everything? How we choose to respond to a situation impacts our outlook, our possibilities and the responses of those around us. During tough times, one young woman in Raleigh constantly recommits to her positive attitude. Her decision to do so has positively impacted the entire community. Meet Victoria Meet Victoria Polston, activity and wellness director at Spring Arbor of Raleigh, an HH Hunt Senior Living community. Victoria is like many employees in assisted living communities: compassionate, patient and heavily caffeinated. She also exemplifies personality traits that have become indispensable during the pandemic: creativity, grit and optimism. As cities issued quarantine mandates in the spring, Polston faced a community of seniors who were more isolated from their loved ones than ever before. Excursions and visitors were no longer an option. Some seniors couldn’t understand the severity of the pandemic or their vulnerability. They were hurt, depressed and confused that their loved ones were no longer coming to visit. Polston got creative with engaging activities for her residents. “My goal is to make the lives of residents fun, active and worth living,” says Polston. “When I do something, I like to go all out.” Fun for every season In the warmer months, Polston offered seniors hula dancing and a luau, fake tattoos, a Mardi Gras party and a butterfly exhibit. She even coordinated a farmer’s market on the premises to replace an excursion that residents missed. As the weather cooled down, the activities continued indoors. Seniors made gourmet truffles, and danced during a neon glow stick party. They customized their shirts with glow-in-the-dark paint and donned glowing necklaces and bracelets. “I filled our activity room with black lights and all my residents were so excited when they...

Yardi continuously strives to make its property management software more valuable to operators of senior living communities. As new features are incorporated into the Yardi Senior Living Suite, the upgrades are documented, compiled into manuals and made available to clients. Recent upgrades and plug-ins include: Yardi Voyager Senior Housing: You can track monthly fee deferral requests, recovery schedules and generate payment plan agreements for signature with the Deferral Plan functionality. Community Analytics and Senior Financial Analytics reports are easier to use. Watch the video overview Yardi Senior CRM: Check out an enhanced user interface that includes a new dashboard with optimized graphical reporting, several new KPIs and goal tracking, and a redesigned prospect profile that includes a new activity feed view and streamlined navigation among prospects. We also added specific approver roles to the leasing workflow and a new Past Due Activities report that provides real-time data on overdue activities. Watch the video overview Yardi EHR and Yardi eMAR: EHR: Service plans can now be signed digitally. The Clinical Move-In workflow lets clinical teams move residents into EHR without impacting the financial Move-In process. There’s also a new Shower/Laundry/Housekeeping Schedule report that covers seven days of upcoming tasks. eMAR: Quantity tracking is enhanced, as is the ability to perform blind counts of controlled substances and identify discrepancies. You can set up the Order Change report to run nightly and send automatically to the pharmacy in a password-protected email attachment. Watch the video overview You can also join a webinar to gain even more insight into our comprehensive solution for senior living...

While the industrial sector shows strong occupancy and rent performances, office and retail face a host of challenges including deferrals, concessions, spiraling vacancy rates and, of course, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. How can commercial real estate companies not just adjust, but thrive in today’s environment? A recent Executive Briefing hosted by Yardi, invited Tom Sheraden, chief technology officer for the QuadReal Property Group, one of Canada’s largest asset managers, to describe how his team used advanced property management software to successfully adapt to the rapidly changing environment. A major advantage for QuadReal was a company culture that embraces not just accepting change but owning it. “Our workforce embodies a deep personal drive to make things work better and to own change, not just accept it,” Sheraden said. A versatile technology platform capable of handling the breadth of QuadReal’s real estate activities also helped make the global real estate investor, operator and developer fully equipped to press ahead with major projects. Through Yardi Elevate, QuadReal can manage the deal pipeline, visualize portfolio health, easily view space availability, analyze risk, complete accurate budgeting and manage construction projects from a single connected solution. “A lot of companies would have taken their foot off the gas. But thanks to our culture of accepting changing technology, we were able to spend our time on forward-looking opportunities versus just surviving,” noted Sheraden, who also paid tribute to staff members whose duties required them to remain onsite throughout the pandemic. Prior to adopting its asset management system, for example, obtaining full operational and financial data typically required a separate business intelligence platform. But Yardi helped QuadReal shift that responsibility to the people with the deepest knowledge of the business. “Our strategy is to empower those analysts with great data, great tools...

Full-service real estate company LBA Realty is continuing its portfolio-wide partnership with Yardi Pulse® as the company implements a Smart Building Program to enhance their sustainability strategy. LBA and Yardi® conducted an initial proof of concept pilot at a single property. In January 2019, LBA Realty adopted a phased approach to roll out Meter Insights and Fault Detection to eleven office properties in four different states. Leveraging pulse modular capability, these initial solutions provide real-time electrical meter monitoring and analytics, as well as HVAC fault detection and diagnostics. This allows the LBA engineering team and Yardi’s consulting services to identify hidden performance issues including extended run time, overlap in HVAC mode conditions and an inefficient sequence of operations. LBA now receives timely and accurate energy use data for 5.9M square feet of their office properties. Year-to-date, the program has resulted in energy use reduction of 16.2M kWh, which equates to savings at $0.32 per square foot. After gathering quantifiable results, LBA is now entering the second phase of implementation, Pulse Building Optimization. “With Pulse Building Optimization representing our artificial intelligence software, we look forward to realizing our vision of bringing intelligent buildings to life,” said Perry Schonfeld, principal and chief operating officer of LBA. “It is exciting to see the progress LBA Realty has made with a phased approach to implementation and the value of their incremental steps. We foresee continued success of LBA’s energy platform and growth of the Yardi-LBA partnership,” said Akshai Rao, vice president at Yardi. Download a brochure to learn more about the Yardi Pulse...

Due to unique challenges this year, the 2020 Realcomm | IBcon Conference changed to a new hybrid format with two days of virtual sessions followed by a day of in-person sessions. As part of the virtual event, Yardi president and founder Anant Yardi participated in the opening session panel, as well as a thought leadership discussion with other industry software providers. Mr. Yardi’s vision for the future of the commercial real estate industry was optimistic, while stating the importance of businesses adapting to a new normal. In the opening session, “#COVID.RE.Economy.Technology.NewNormal,” he reflected on the difference between gathering 2,500 people in one venue at the last Realcomm conference in June 2019, versus a virtual environment over two full days of content in October 2020. “I yearn for those times when we were able to be face to face,” he stated. “But we understand change, we recalibrate and navigate that change.” Property owners and managers are likely to have some concern over whether tenants will need their space at the end of the lease, but enterprise corporations such as Microsoft and Exxon are leading the way on hybrid work models, which may be the new normal. Workers could access the office at some points during the week for team collaboration and then continue to function normally from remote environments, be it at home or a shared coworking location. For those companies seeking more space, often satellite offices, Mr. Yardi sees a trend where clients search available sublease space or sections of coworking offices to bring workers back into a collaborative environment. A significant challenge for the future of the office sector is occupancy levels. While a majority of tenants have managed to successfully pay rent and offices are slowly beginning to reopen, capacity restrictions and...

What is lead attribution and how can it help senior living community operators get the most out of their marketing spend? Lead attribution is the process of determining how leads from a Facebook page, Google ad, directory listing or other source become associated with a property. Understanding all sources that a prospect touches on the path to becoming a resident can help property managers determine how to allocate their marketing money and staff resources most efficiently. RentCafe Senior CRM illuminates lead attribution with a “lead journey” feature that shows how many prospects who became residents spent time on the Facebook page or follow a Google ad to the website. The lead attribution report, another element of the solution, analyzes data to reveal, among other things, the organization’s top sources for prospects. Other reports illustrate the top and bottom sources for resident conversions. The system assigns scores for each source using attribution models that split prospects across the sources in their journey and includes prospects who submitted an inquiry and toured the community. Yardi Senior CRM scores all sources that contributed to a prospect’s inquiry, with full drilldown to the score’s elements. Marketing managers might want more nuanced source information than just “property website” from a lead that comes into RentCafe Senior CRM from a website. What’s of greater value to them is the site the visitor was on when they clicked the link that brought them to their site. RentCafe Senior CRM tracks the true source of a lead journey when a prospect submit information from the “Contact us” of “Schedule a tour” page of a Yardi-hosted website. With these data and analytics, which include each marketing touchpoint that contributed to a lease and not just the first source that generated the lead, sales...

Yardi has been building Yardi EHR, a full service electronic health record solution for senior living, for the better part of a decade. Client feedback and ongoing development give rise to regular product enhancements. Here’s a sampling of recent upgrades. Clinical move-in Users can now execute a clinical move-in process that includes adding global contacts, allergies, diagnosis, orders from a library, and schedule assessments.  This new feature allows a facility to perform a financial move-in prior to the resident physically arriving in the building or vice versa.  Clinical staff can move a resident in and the billing staff can complete the financial move-in when they return. A new KPI shows a resident’s pending move-in status, allowing the facility to easily monitor resident move-in activities. Medication tracking Recent enhancements allow counting of controlled substances between shifts, check-in of medications delivered to the community and documentation of medications disposed of. Facilities can also update the quantity of medication on hand when new deliveries arrive. Digital care plan signatures New functionality enables digital signing of service plans. Five new KPIs monitor the signing status. Continuity of care document interface (CCDA) Facilities can now create, send and receive CCDA documentation using the KNO2 interface. The CCDA document sends and receives data elements in a standard format. Information exchanged includes advanced directives, allergies, adverse reactions, medications and social history. The CCDA user interface lets you search for documents by a date range or create a new document. Shower/housekeeping/laundry schedule A new report assists staff with weekly shower, laundry and housekeeping schedules. Filters allow for multiple schedules to be displayed and is viewable in a list or calendar view. The list view can also display task details. Simple wounds The wound module has been streamlined and enhanced for assisted living...

Like property and investment management technology, satellite imagery capabilities and applications are constantly evolving. The Balance Sheet revisits a topic we first explored in 2017. How can satellite imagery help improve business performance? The benefits can start with simple counting, as when Swiss investor UBS Investment Research started using space-based data to determine the population of Walmart parking lots about 10 years ago. The retail giant’s quarterly sales could be estimated from the number of cars entering and leaving the lots over periods of time. UBS thus was “one of the first financial institutions to leverage satellite imagery to gain useful investment insights,” notes Valerie Hernandez, writing in banking, finance and world affairs analysis publication International Banker in June 2020. Other satellite imagery providers now count attendance at McDonald’s, Costco, Starbucks, Whole Foods and other retailers. In the decade following UBS’s breakthrough, satellite technology evolved from a passive eye-in-the-sky to a predictor of corporate profits and a key analysis tool for the investment community. Data collected encompasses everything from solar-panel installations, sawmills’ lumber inventories, the number of cars produced at an auto plant and the mining of metals – all key metrics of business performance. In fact, Hernandez says, “whether it’s counting cars in a retailer’s parking lot as a measure of sales activity, tracking ships across the seas, monitoring crops or scanning the activity at oil rigs, refineries and ports, satellite imagery is proving incredibly useful as a way to measure levels of industrial activity that may not necessarily be possible to determine at ground level.” UC Berkeley law professor Frank Partnoy, writing in The Atlantic, recounts the derailment of a train carrying iron ore in Australia in November 2018: “Iron-ore prices soared on the news that the supply of a resource used...