When Alfonso R. Trujillo visits the affordable housing communities that he oversees as Director of Property Management for the César Chávez Foundation, he remembers his own childhood.  The son of immigrant farmworkers who came to the U.S. in 1972, Trujillo grew up in a Boyle Heights, Los Angeles Affordable Housing Complex. He recalls playing baseball with his friends in the street and the lack of laundry facilities – his mother would hang hand-washed clothes in the common area between apartments.  It was a safe place to call home, but there were none of the programs and services that are a priority for the Chávez Foundation, like the Si Se Puede Learning Centers (SSPLC) where kids can get help with homework and learn with their peers after school. “When I visit our SSPLC programs at our César Chávez Foundation affordable housing communities, I’m elated by it,” said Trujillo, who became the first member of his family to earn a post-secondary degree from Cal Poly Pomona. “I’m glad we’re able to give back.” He’s made supporting the families who live in Chávez Foundation’s communities a priority. Rather than outsourcing the running of laundry facilities to a third party vendor, it is now handled in house with profits going to the onsite SSPLC to supplement grant funding. The centers serve students from Kindergarten through sixth grade, and are a vital linchpin between school and home, especially for working parents. Founded by legendary farm worker activist César E. Chávez , the Chávez Foundation’s Housing and Economic Development Fund has developed or refurbished over 4,300 units of housing in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Portfolio size has grown from $16 million in 1992 to $328 million today. The Chávez Foundation is a Yardi client, using Yardi Voyager to manage its affordable portfolio. Sixty...

Some folks go to the gym or take an extra walk around the block when they are trying to stay fit and healthy. David Hull and Alex Lewis, employees in Yardi’s Raleigh office, decided they’d rather try to outrun some zombies. On a quest for improved physical fitness, the friends – who started their Yardi careers together back in January 2012, David as an associate applications specialist and Alex as a commercial account manager – decided to try a unique fun run trend that’s been sweeping the nation. Why just run when you can run with a zombie trying to chase you? Other obstacle-style events include even more dangerous challenges – the Spartan Beast, for example, features a fire pit jump, barbed wire crawl and electric fence. Participants must sign a waiver releasing liability in case of death to be able to race. Motivated in part by the popularity of the TV series The Walking Dead, zombie-themed events have sprung up all over the south, especially in and around Atlanta, where the dynamic drama is set and filmed. Involving obstacle courses, mud, and live zombies/volunteers, flag belt-wearing participants attempt to make it through the course, typically a journey of several miles, without getting “killed.” Make it back with at least one of your flags (out of three) and you’ve survived. Alex and David decided to take on the Raleigh Zombie Escape at Panic Point without doing much running at all. They’d been training for several months on the Insanity workout, a rigorous high-intensity interval training plan that stresses the whole body. It involved intense cardio but not much distance running. Nevertheless, David and Alex decided to go for it and recruited a few other Yardi Atlanta employees to join them. They also agreed to...

For Ryan Mitchell, the attraction of small-sized living hit home after a layoff. Despite an advanced degree and strong performance reviews, the Charlotte, N.C. man lost his job as a corporate recruiting consultant in 2008 due to the economic downturn, learning abruptly that “a job isn’t always a guaranteed thing, even if you’re a hard worker,” he said. The aftermath of the layoff led Mitchell not just to change his career path, but to reconsider how he’d live his life in the future. Now 27, the New Hampshire native works in non-profits, runs a successful blog, The Tiny Life, that focuses on small space living, and is about to custom build his own tiny house, which will be mobile. Immersing himself in the growing discussion and dialogue around living smaller and smarter has been eye-opening for Mitchell, and has revealed that he’s not the only one who wants to downsize. With a new job in the non-profit sector, he’s been saving up to build a house with a utility trailer as its foundation, so that in the future he can move anywhere for work if needed. He’s found that many of the visitors joining the discussion on The Tiny Life are retirees or soon to be retirees who are trying to figure out how to stretch their savings and retirement funds further. “Even if they have weathered the economic storm, they may have not saved enough, and life expectancy is so much longer now that money has to last longer. Retirees are trying to wrap their head around the question: ‘How am I going to have a good retirement with the money I have available and still have good quality of life?’” said Mitchell, whose highly-trafficked blog gets attention from around the world. One...

Fay Chester hasn’t always been a competitive athlete. Heck, she hasn’t always been an athlete.  A member of Yardi’s Professional Services Group in London, Fay told us she “was very much the person to avoid sports at school…but this situation changed and I realized taking up a sport and an interest outside of work was most needed, and have absolutely loved every minute of it.” With the encouragement of close friends, Fay joined a running club, the David Lloyd Redway Runners Club in Milton Keynes, UK.  Just a few weeks after joining, she participated in a Duathlon/Triathlon training run lead by Great Britain Ironman specialist Campbell Noon.  While Fay never had the intention of becoming a marathon runner, the thought of combining these three unique sports was interesting, so she decided to go for it. The three standard components of a triathlon are swimming, running, and cycling. Races range from a Sprint event (400m lake swim, 20K cycle, 5K run) to an Ironman (3.86km swim, 180km cycle, 42.2K run). Success demands some of the same dedicated focus that has aided Fay in her 11-year asset management/software career. While she hasn’t worked up to the challenging Ironman distance, this former sports avoider has already competed in a duathlon, which was a total of 4 miles running and 11.5 miles cycling. Then she moved on to her very first triathlon, “which was hell,” with a 750m swim, 10K cycle, and a 5K run. What was so hard about this specific triathlon? The cycling was off-road on a mountain bike! There were a few tumbles and spills (we won’t name names) but in the end Fay said she loved it. And that’s not the finish line of this athletic journey for Fay.  She plans another triathlon Sept....

As the owner and principal broker of a full service property management firm in Lafayette, Indiana, Jennie Kirby has insight into every sector of real estate in her Midwestern hometown. She and husband Aaron, associate broker, work with all types of real property at Kirby Property Management, from shopping centers to student apartments to single family homes to storage units and even fraternities. Their dedication to personalized service and client satisfaction has allowed them to grow their business quickly. And as a result of the hard work, last month the Kirby team was honored by the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce as the Small Business of the Month. Working with four employees, Jennie and Aaron Kirby manage 35 single family homes, three shopping centers, a self-storage facility and the Sigma Nu fraternity at Purdue University. They also handle leasing and sales for commercial and residential, and tenant advisement. What binds all these sectors together? A need for quality customer service, which is one of Kirby Property Management’s focal points. “Really helping people find a home or a location for their business, representing tenants in any way shape or form is my favorite thing. I love to see the reaction they get when they finally get the lease signed and there’s that sense of relief that it’s done and they can make that next step in their life and move forward, whether it be with a business or a residence. That’s really a refreshing thing for me,” Jennie Kirby said. Delving into so many different real estate sectors certainly has its challenges, especially when it comes to maintenance. “Nothing’s ever the same – every day it changes. We don’t know if we’re going to be hanging a picture for a residential tenant or fixing a...

Perhaps there’s something innately special about people named Clark that lends naturally toward a life of duality, not to mention innate problem-solving aptitude. Clark Kent, as we all know, was actually Superman. Yardi Systems Application Service Provider Specialist Clark LaForge also has an impressive out-of-work alter ego. While he does most of his crime fighting on the clock, keeping Yardi’s hosted clients up to current protocols, secure and perfectly load balanced, here are a few things that make Clark a particularly interesting member of the Yardi IT staff. -He was on the football field at Memorial Coliseum in Berkeley, Calif., during The Play, the famous Berkeley vs. Stanford band + gridiron mosh pit that was Cal’s five-leg lateral upset win over the Cardinal in 1982. What was a high school student from nearby El Cerrito doing on the field with the Cal band during the game? It was Clark’s job to make sure the marching band Bears stayed hydrated during the game. -Despite launching his own music career as a clarinet player, with talent that sent him to Europe with a teenage traveling wind symphony, he decided bass drum was his second favorite instrument, and ended up being named to the prestigious Cal State Honor Band as a drummer. That landed him back on the field at Memorial Coliseum, where the UC Berkeley band leader, charged with instructing the high school students, was perplexed as to why the bass drummer didn’t have exacting technical skill. -Even though he played classical music and show tunes in band, out of school Clark was listening to NWA, Ice-T and Too Short .. and DJ-ing with their beats, when he wasn’t on the floor busting out 80’s moves like the Smurf. Fast forward two decades and change, and...

One of the first things that Jessica Fiur learned when she became online editor at Multi-Housing News was that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t your landlord’s charming Midwestern aunt and uncle. For the New York native, talented writer and pop culture aficionado, learning all about the world of real estate has been an eye-opening – and often humorous –  experience. As an apartment renter in New York, Jessica draws many of the stories she uses for her Multi-Housing News blog from personal experience or tales she hears from other renters. The city’s internationally known apartment market, famous for its limited supply, high demand, tiny spaces and sky-high prices, continues to prosper. “As a multifamily reporter, I’m happy they’re able to raise rents, but as a renter, it’s a little scary,” said Jessica, who recently helped her younger brother find a place in the city and drew blog insight from his challenges. “You pretty much have to be ready to sign if you like something, because someone else is coming up right behind you.” She also uses hot news topics, inspiration from movies, and her own life to inspire creative content about renting, property management, marketing and a host of other topics. A recent post on U.S. Olympian Ryan Lochte challenged apartment communities to think smart about protecting their community brand.  Another asked “Is your apartment like (the summer blockbuster film) ‘The Avengers’?” Sound like a stretch? Both posts offer solid logic and effective management ideas. “I love pop culture, so if I see a movie, even if the subject is not about apartments, there are universal themes. Since I like pop culture so much I always try to integrate it,” Jessica said. She picked up the journalism bug while studying at New York...

Need a refresher on your best practices for property management? Refocus on these two simple tips from Maria Stanton, Director of Operations for Property Management at Miller Valentine: Get your team on the same page, and focus together on your customers. They are lessons she learned as a young leasing manager for a high rise apartment community in Cleveland, and have been the foundation for a successful career in the property management industry. In her first multifamily experience, the then 21-year-old Stanton managed a staff of 40 people, and many of the employees were older than her. To make the community successful, she focused on building a strong team and working together cohesively to serve every resident – with 1,100 units, no easy task. “Understanding how your people can make or break the success of a community was one of the biggest lessons I learned. Getting that whole team together to accomplish the common goal was really important. You have to get everyone on the same page, understand their responsibilities and buy into the whole picture,” Stanton told us. What’s in the picture? Remembering that the customer comes first. “We sometimes get caught up in so many parts of our business that we can forget about the customer. It’s so important to maintain that understanding of what the customer wants.” Her early experiences in real estate helped hone that skill – while going to college, she simultaneously earned her real estate license and sold homes for a developer. After landing at the REIT-owned Cleveland high rise, Stanton became a community manager,  Sales and Marketing director, then Regional Operations manager before moving to her current role as Miller Valentine’s Director of Operations (she has been with the company for over six years). Today, she oversees...

Take an average sized apartment  and reduce it by 90 percent. Could you live there? With all the buzz in the news lately about micro-sized apartment living – particularly in markets like New York and San Francisco, where space is limited and renters will pay top dollar for even a closet-sized space to call home – we wanted to get the inside scoop. Literally, what is it really like to live in a teeny, tiny, itsy bitsy apartment? Is it sustainable? Does it drive you crazy? So we found Genevieve Shuler, who calls herself the Small Space Savant, to get our questions answered. For the last eight years, she’s called a 105 square foot “studio” in New York’s Greenwich Village her home sweet, albeit very small, home. Genevieve is a regular gal who like most of us owns a few extra pairs of shoes and loves her cat. She’s managed to make her micro living situation work with a few creative adaptations, like washing her dishes in the shower. Read on to find out more about how she functions in her pint-sized apartment. It’s inspiring insight for simplifying your life. She’s become a creative organization expert, even helping her friends and strangers create solutions for their own small spaces.  TBS: What adaptations have you made to your life to make life in such a small space viable? GS: The biggest adaptation I’ve made in my life to make my small space work, is doing my dishes in the shower! I don’t have a kitchen sink, and my bathroom sink is too small to be practical for washing dishes, so my mother came up with the idea for me to do them in the shower. I have a corner shower caddy rack with those triangle...

Linda McFarland’s work at Yardi’s Amsterdam office has been a homecoming of sorts. The Netherlands native lived for eight years in the U.S., where she worked in property management and met her husband, before coming home to Holland nearly four years ago. A world traveler, Linda has an adventurous spirit that drew her to live abroad in Playa del Carmen on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as a college student, and to move to the U.S. shortly afterwards. Settling in the Atlanta area, she entered the Ritz-Carlton hospitality management program and worked in the hotel industry for several years, meeting her husband Robert in the process.  Then she moved on to an assistant property manager position in midtown Atlanta, entering a new industry that she thoroughly enjoyed. As part of her work for First Communities, she was a Yardi Systems user. After their first child was born four years ago, Linda and Robert decided that if they ever wanted to live in the Netherlands, it was time to make a move. They didn’t want to be settled in Georgia and then uproot their family, so they made plans for a trans-Atlantic relocation. Before leaving the U.S., Linda noticed an opportunity for an office manager position at Yardi Systems’ Amsterdam office, and jumped at the chance. She was familiar with Yardi from her work in property management, and just the sort of “international, growing, dynamic” company that she wanted to work for. Yardi’s Amsterdam office serves primarily European commercial real estate clients. Linda has recently taken on some marketing responsibilities in addition to her tasks in human resources and the front office, and says she loves the variety of her job. She starts every day with an hour-long run from the family’s Amsterdam home to the beach....

When he was 14, Yves Hajjar’s father gave him a gift that would influence the course of his life. It was a used personal computer, and along with the remote control airplanes he loved to fly as a kid, it soon consumed Yves’ free time. With the guidance of a computer engineer mentor in his hometown of Lyon, France, he learned not to be afraid to take the PC apart, put it back together, and replace any parts that he broke in the process. Most of his friends didn’t yet have PC’s , so he was lucky to have hands-on experience with one. Soon, he made an interesting discovery. “I quickly realized while poking around the files on the computer that everything was written in English. ‘Print’ means something in English – it means nothing in French. That made me want to come to the U.S.,” said Yves, now a development team lead for Yardi Systems. Based in San Diego, Calif, Yves is part of the Realtown team. Yardi Systems acquired Realtown in 2011. Four years after his dad bought him the used PC, Yves came to the U.S. to attend college at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, which had an exchange program with a French university. He struggled at first with the transition to a completely new culture, but received a terrific education. The UMass Dartmouth computer engineering program put students together in groups and emphasized problem solving as a learning exercise. Students’ desks faced each other instead of the front of the room. “We were troubleshooting issues, and learning how to fix problems as a team instead of with a teacher,” Yves recalled. The skills he developed, and one significant moment involving a special girl, were the highlights of his undergraduate...

Mindy Sharp is the type of property manager who does it all. From lease-ups to balance sheets to carrying the maintenance pager, the Ohio-based property professional tackles all aspects of multifamily life at Ashton Glen, a picturesque townhome and apartment community in southern Dayton.  When she’s not marketing units or touring with prospects, she finds time to handle social media and even have tea parties with young residents. Her grasp of the local rental market and knowledge of her own property is so strong that Mindy manages to rent up to 25 percent of her vacancies sight unseen. “That’s the Mom skill in me,” says the former teacher and mother of two grown kids. “It’s just listening and finding out what they want. I know this property; I know this entire Dayton market like the back of my hand. Once I know what it is that (the prospect) wants, I can assure them that they’ll be taken care of.” Despite challenging times for the Dayton area apartment market due to the economic downturn, Mindy has kept Ashton Glen close to full occupancy at all times. The community has military families among their resident base, so deployments often contribute to leasing turnover. She’s especially proud that two of the deploying families made plans to return home to Ashton Glen once they return stateside. “Home to them means not just the United States, but also this apartment community. Wow. And one of these families is actually paying rent on their apartment while absent. This says it all,” she wrote on her blog, where she is brutally honest about the ins and outs of daily property management. Some days, there are more outs than ins. When we talked with Mindy last week, she was on duty as...

How did a professional artist end up with a passion for affordable housing documentation? Karin Nelson’s work at Yardi‘s headquarters  in Santa Barbara, Calif. is vastly different from her past life as a wood sculptor. It’s also allowed her the chance to pursue a personal passion – an affinity for music that turned her into a performing artist. Karin plays the flute, an instrument she took up 10 years ago. She started her Yardi career in 1999. Her work requires her to make sure that Yardi’s software is up to date with all government standards and protocols for documentation, a task that entails dealing with near-constant change. “If we aren’t adding features, then the government is changing their rules,” she says. Change is something that she is really good at. After all, she made a successful transition from artist to compliance expert and from someone who was afraid to perform to an accomplished flautist. “I hate to perform, but I love to practice,” Karin said. Overcoming her fear, she plays the flute in chamber music performances in her hometown of Santa Barbara and often performs in conjunction with her twin sister Maren Henle, a violinist who also works at Yardi Systems in the Professional Services Group. Karin’s coworkers have seen her perform at the company’s annual Children’s Day. Employees are invited to bring their kids to work, and a highlight is enjoying the music performed by Karin, Maren, and other colleagues. One thing that Karin no longer has time for with her busy schedule is sculpting – she says that after dedicating her life full time to art for ten years, pursuing it as a hobby wouldn’t be same. But the better life balance she has thanks to Yardi has enabled her to find...

Never underestimate the value of early work experience. Kim Mathews of Unified Property Group was first introduced to property management in high school at the age of 17, with a job working for a commercial firm. Not long after college graduation, she found her calling – property management accounting – and has stuck with it ever since. “I love the variety in property management,” said Mathews, echoing the words of so many fellow industry employees. She’s come up through the ranks from a property accountant to her current role as Chief Financial Officer at Unified Property Group.  In between she held a variety of roles including Financial Manager, Controller,and  Asset Manager. Along the way, she’s had the chance to work in all of the housing sectors Unified Property Group manages, including senior, commercial, multifamily, and affordable. One of the verticals she’s found most interesting has been senior housing, where Mathews observed that there’s a trend toward older residents with more pronounced medical issues who are more likely to need assisted care. “Our primary focus has been independent living,” so this has prompted a new initiative at one of Unified Property Group’s Independence Village properties, she said. “We’re starting out by adding memory care and assisted living at one of our properties and (if it is successful), we plan on expending that to all of our offerings.” Unified Property Group manages about 100 properties with 12000 units, with 40 percent of the portfolio made up by affordable tax credit housing. One of Mathews’ current initiatives is moving Unified Property Group towards paperless offices at its properties. Yardi PayScan and CheckScan are among the products helping that effort. “We’re trying to get everything automated with latest technology to find efficiencies and make sure we have best practices...

There probably aren’t too many people out there who can say they met their significant other at a Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference. Robert and Deidre Podlesnik are among them. The Podlesniks happened to be in the same line for dinner at the Doubletree in Santa Barbara, Calif. back in 2001. He was a consultant, and she worked for a Yardi client.  Fast forward 11 years, and they have two kids, ages 6 and 3, and live and both work for Yardi in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Robert is the Director of Canadian Operations for the Professional Services Group, which handles software implementations for Voyager International clients. With a background in on-site property management, he finds his work to be a little less dramatic than condo operations, where he literally put out fires (in a condominium building hallway) and was twice threatened with fisticuffs by residents. “People get emotional with their homes. With that, you have to be able to manage those emotions and keep these people in check. I think I was able to carry those experiences into the Yardi world, where you’re dealing with clients who get emotional about their software implementations. I’ve learned over the years – no matter what situation you’re in, you can brainstorm a solution. Keep an open mind, be calm about it, and work toward the end goal.” Robert heads up a team of 10 consultants and project managers in the Canadian office, who handle standard service and full service implementations. Yardi’s software has been customized to meet the specific needs of specific Canadian market niches, including Canadian social housing, which is similar to the affordable vertical in the U.S. market. Yardi Voyager International makes multifamily property management easier for companies around the world. He loves the variety of...

With dual expertise in Human Resources and Information Technology, Carrie A. Traeger of Property Management, Inc. (PMI), is well-equipped to make smart business analysis decisions. Pennsylvania-based PMI, specializing in commercial, residential, manufactured housing and homeowner association management, has 225 employees and is predominantly a third-party, fee-based management firm. PMI manages 5.4 million square feet of commercial office space, 80 homeowner’s associations (6000 units), 14 manufactured home communities (1400 units) and 45 residential communities (4000 units), all in Pennsylvania. The company has made a name for itself with professionalism and proven results for holders and investors, and has recently seen tremendous growth in its commercial sector. We recently had the opportunity to gain Traeger’s insight on trending topics in HR and IT, a combination she calls “a fun umbrella,” as well as best business practices.  A member of PMI’s team since 1994, she is active in the Society for Human Resource Management and the Human Resource Professionals of Central Pennsylvania. Traeger holds a MBA and accounting degree from Pennsylvania State University. In her free time, she serves as director of the PMI Charitable Foundation, which  provides funds to not-for-profit organizations from programs which seek to enhance human dignity for those who are economically, educationally, and emotionally challenged. Traeger is also  a member of her Church Finance Committee and as a leader in the Awana Program (children’s program). Many thanks to Carrie Traeger for agreeing to answer these questions for us. TBS: How do you manage dual oversight of IT and HR? CAT: My daily focus is on PMI’s mission statement. Our mission statement is to “provide superior property management services which exceed the expectations of customers and clients by focusing on prompt service, reliability, dedication, teamwork, education, training and innovation.” Almost every one of the...

Dena Xifaras started her professional life as an international management consultant, work that involved international travel to oversee decidedly for-profit projects. But she’s found her true calling back home in Massachusetts, where Xifaras has built a successful career in multiple roles for Boston-based Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH), a national non-profit and Yardi affordable housing client that focuses on rehabilitating properties and retaining their affordable status. She’s worked in development and financing, restructuring troubled properties, as a systems development lead, and was recently named Vice President of POAH’s Asset Management division. Xifaras is also an attorney, and earned her law degree in night courses from Suffolk University while working full time. Making the transition from her former life at Accenture to the nonprofit sector has been immensely rewarding for the former globetrotter. “I didn’t even realize until I had switched how meaningful it would be to me to do something (professionally) that contributed to society,” Xifaras told us in a recent interview. A lifelong volunteer and athlete with boundless energy, her passion for improving the lives of affordable housing residents was confirmed by her very first POAH project. The project was in Narragansett, Rhode Island, an affluent coastal town where housing is often out of reach for median-level wage earners. The work brought Xifaras in touch with some of the residents of the small affordable housing community POAH was redeveloping, among them a firefighter, and teacher and a nurses’ aide. “These were great contributing members of society who otherwise could not live in the town where they worked,” she said. “The idea that they could live in rental housing, stay in the community, have a four minute commute, and have their children go to school with the same kids that that they were teaching...