Artificial Intelligence was an important focus at the 2023 Apartmentalize conference. Utilizing AI will empower property management companies, but what is the difference between AI in operations? Augmented versus generative AI is used differently for specific tasks for property management. Let’s explore a synergistic approach that combines augmented and generative AI for enhanced customer experiences and drives operational efficiencies. Revolutionize property management with generative AI that emphasizes creative output in marketing efforts, including realistic property visualizations, creating virtual tours or personalized marketing content. For example, Fidelity vice president Sarah Hoffman recently spoke about how generative AI will improve efficiencies and creativity: “Generative AI can definitely take efficiency to the next level.” In contrast, augmented AI focuses on automation and data. The collaboration of both AIs can optimize property management workflows, reduce costs and improve productivity. Use AI in property management for leasing, lead nurturing and training employees. Generative AI can streamline resident communications and maintenance requests. ChatBots are being used at every turn for customer service and can also assist with leasing new residents. Most can even understand slang or misspelled words. A ChatBot will also help with lead nurturing by creating a heatmap so management can see what areas of the website prospects spend the most time on. ChatBots can answer more questions for maintenance requests so residents can say precisely what is needed for the work order. Use generative AI for marketing to furnish a vacant unit so a prospect has a better visual. Generative AI will also help collect pre-qualifications with an improved qualification rate. Save several hours in the office but remember that AI is here to help and not create more work. Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad. In a recent article by CNBC, generative AI is creating new cybersecurity threats. Generative AI is used to create more convincing scams with fake written content, digital content and documents. Do some research to avoid rising AI-based threats and consider an AI security tool. AI in leasing will also help with trends in the market, revenue and balancing supply and demand. Augmented AI is used for data analysis with a human touch. Augmented AI can be used for risk mitigation–facial recognition, and security. AI-powered surveillance systems and fraud detection algorithms ensure residents’ safe environments and property assets. Augmented AI will catch fraud early and identify potential risks or glitches. Send renewals easily and craft offers with data on market trends. Augmented AI can also help with marketing to predict demographics, location and movements. Use it for screening to allow more residents and acceptance rates. Student housing is already implementing AI and specialized technology, such as AI-powered surveillance systems, which is the evolution of technology for the multifamily sector and the type of business that should be embraced. “The new wave of renters are students, and students want to avoid talking to humans and prefer text, email and chats with more efficiencies,” said Connie Aldape, director of leasing centralization at Cushman and Wakefield. Augmented and generative AI can empower property managers by automating routine tasks, providing data-driven insights and enabling continuous learning through AI-driven training and knowledge-sharing platforms. Remember, AI will give support, but it will never replace humans entirely. Having that human touch will still be essential. Nobody can predict the future, but augmenting humans with AI will soon be a new...
Fur & Bytes
Unleashing Technology for Pets
Let technology do its work and have happy residents, less pet damage, plenty of renewals and profitability. Earlier this month, Apartmentalize highlighted the latest technology property owners and companies are embracing for their pet residents. Let’s explore these opportunities for innovation. Paws and Effect. Many property management companies are using the latest technology for their furry residents and seeing immense success. Starting with pet DNA testing, management can use these tests and know which poop is coming from which dog. With this knowledge, management can decide whether to issue warnings to pet owners or give them an extra monthly fee. This eliminates all un scooped pet waste around the property, ultimately leading to happier residents. Pet screening has also been implemented in some properties, giving prospective residents a quick survey that will track vaccination records and behavioral affidavits. Those who score a lower score must pay a high pet rent. Those with a high score can have zero to minimal pet rent. This allows property managers and owners to set high standards, eliminating the need for breed restrictions and allowing for more pet inclusivity. Those who offer no pet rent with high screening scores will be happy and likely renew their lease contracts. Plus, word-of-mouth marketing from grateful tenants will be significant. Another way to waive fees or pet rent is if those looking to be pet owners adopt a rescue dog or cat. Host a pet adoption day at the property. Those who adopt that day can get a discount or waived fees and rent. This not only helps the community for those pets in need but also shows that management cares and wants to see residents happy while living at the property, which will lead to retention and profitability. Oppawtunities to innovate....
Save Money, Drive Efficiency
See how with Aspire
Staying competitive in the property management industry requires comprehensive employee training programs. However, developing and administering training can be costly. Streamline training processes and reduce expenses with an advanced learning management system (LMS) from Yardi Aspire. Read on to see how Yardi Aspire, with its customizable training content and advanced features, empowers property management organizations to save money, enhance efficiency and improve employee performance. Reducing turnover costs Comprehensive training plays a crucial role in retaining talent. Studies show that employees who receive job skills and career development training are two times more likely to stay with an organization. Without formal training, turnover rates increase. In the property management industry, where turnover rates reached 26% in 2023, replacing one employee costs approximately 1.5x their annual salary. By providing comprehensive training through Aspire, companies help employees gain new skills that are vital to operational success, increasing employee productivity, promoting innovation, creating higher morale and reducing turnover. Efficient compliance training Compliance training is essential for property management organizations to avoid fines, legal issues and reputational damage. Aspire offers unlimited access to comprehensive training modules on topics such as harassment prevention, fair housing laws and workplace safety. These modules help companies ensure their properties are safe and welcoming. By using the customizable compliance content in Aspire, companies can avoid the cost and hassle of purchasing off-the-shelf external training that could run $125 to $200 per person per year. Customizable content from Aspire allows organizations to incorporate their policies and procedures, providing targeted and cost-effective training within their centralized learning environment. Savings in training development Aspire clients can take advantage of hundreds of engaging courses for training on Yardi software, industry knowledge, regulatory compliance, safety, professional skills and more. Developing a single elearning course with moderate engagement typically takes a minimum of 74 hours. With Aspire, clients who use just 25% of the Aspire catalog save an impressive 22,200 hours in training development time over the first two years. This time savings translates to a significant reduction in costs, as it would take a full-time instructional designer over 11.5 years to produce the same content included in Aspire. Streamlining live training management Managing live training events involves various tasks such as setup, registration management, attendance tracking and reporting. Aspire integrates with leading online meeting and webinar providers, automating event setup, calendar synchronization and attendance tracking. This integration reduces administration time by 75%, saving clients approximately 9,600 hours during the first two years. Additionally, clients can leverage Yardi’s expertise by integrating over 2,400 free webinars into Aspire, expanding training options without the need for additional trainers or internal resources. Efficient training administration Manually assigning training courses to employees can be time consuming, especially when dealing with a large workforce. Efficient user data imports and automated training assignment rules from Aspire allow clients to configure the system to import user data from HRIS or payroll systems. This automation eliminates the need for administrators to manage user accounts and training assignments manually. The time saved by using Aspire’s automations allows trainers and administrators to focus on more strategic projects. Optimizing on-the-job training Relying on individualized onboarding without a dedicated training team can be costly and lead to knowledge and skill gaps. A mentorship module from Aspire helps strike the right balance between trainer involvement and learning autonomy. By providing structured, independent learning activities to deliver knowledge and basic skills, senior employees can spend more time evaluating and fine-tuning skills for better results. This approach reduces senior employees time spent with new hires by up to 50%, allowing a company that hires one to two employees per month to regain 4.5 months of productive work time from their most experienced staff. What’s next? Yardi Aspire offers a comprehensive learning management solution for leading property management companies, enabling them to optimize training development and administration. With customizable training content, advanced features and integrations, organizations can significantly reduce operational expenses,...
Keys to ESG
Stay Ahead of the Curve
Note: This article is adapted from an interview with Joe Consolo, Yardi’s industry principal for energy, that was published in PERE magazine. “ESG [environmental, social and governance] performance is becoming a key concern and differentiator for many real estate players,” PwC and the Urban Land Institute declared in their joint Emerging Trends in Real Estate survey report in 2022. Establishing ESG priorities to meet changing compliance and investor expectations complicates the already complex business of property management – but in today’s environment, property owners need to avoid the consequences of ESG obsolescence that can alienate investors and tenants and invite regulatory penalties. That’s why enhancing ESG performance with improved operations, technology and tenant behavior is critical to sustaining asset value. Obsolescence risks investor hesitancy Back when ESG factors weighed less heavily on property management, buildings become obsolescent because their design or amenities become outdated, causing the properties to lose market value. External factors such as the location or local job loss often also came into play. But in this era, failure to comply with energy efficiency standards and other ESG standards rank among the key drivers of property obsolescence – and real estate investment decisions. With laws governing environmental and construction standards “only becoming more stringent, there is a significant risk for the future if you barely meet those standards today,” Consolo says. Tech bolsters compliance Fortunately, property managers can undertake a number of initiatives to prevent ESG obsolescence and maintain attractiveness to investors and tenants. They include such relatively simple sustainable processes as encouraging tenants to recycle and switch off their lights at day’s end. Preventative equipment maintenance, such as changing filters, upgraded air handlers and other equipment and dealing promptly with equipment failure, also helps maintain peak ESG performance. Other actions that...
Embracing Bots
For Property Maintenance
Being a property owner can be a laborious job. Summer is fast approaching, so lawn care is a top priority. Unless you have the budget for a lawn care and landscaping service, Artificial Intelligence in recent years has made some remarkable robots. Here are some robots to use this summer to make yard work easier. First, to start with the lawn itself. If owning a large property and needing assistance maintaining the grass but hired help is not working out, have no fear. Imagine mowing the lawn was as easy as clicking a few buttons on your phone. This is a reality with robot lawnmowers that work the same as robot vacuum cleaners for the interior. Robot lawnmowers are unique because they learn the environment using a smart map or GPS. It mows like people, navigating the yard and cutting efficiently in straight back-and-forth lines. If the battery runs low, the robot will return to the docking station, charge automatically, then return to finish the lawn. Have total control over where the robot goes so that it will stay on course and out of the neighbor’s properties or in garden beds. Of course, there are some downsides to lawn mower robots, especially for those living in hilly, sloped land, so keep that in mind. There are a plethora of robot lawnmowers to choose from now but read reviews and choose one that would be best suited for your property lawn care needs. No green thumb is required to have an impeccable exterior with flowers and native plants for the bees and butterflies. Move over garden gnomes because the Hexa all-terrain robot is here. Again, it is easy to control all from a smartphone. It can walk, climb, take photos and videos, ramp up security,...
Loan Visibility
Yardi Debt Manager
Property owners routinely borrow money to purchase additional real estate assets. But, as with any loan, executing the loan information elements, including covenants, amortization schedules, collateral and critical dates, is a complicated business. The level of difficulty largely depends on the technology involved. Some borrowers go low-tech, tracking their information manually with separate spreadsheets and accountants for each property and loan. That approach, however, is time-consuming, error-prone and risky due to the amount of data transfer and multiple system access involved. When manual processes dominate, it’s hard to execute loan tracking obligations, much less gain a clear view of loan status across a portfolio. Debt Manager: Less Risk, More Transparency So what’s an easier, more efficient way to track debt and gain full visibility? Many property owners are aggregating all their debt information in a single technology platform, eliminating the need for multiple spreadsheets, additional accounting staff and disparate data. With no data transfers and a single source of the truth, they can quickly identify key information such as covenant compliance requirements, upcoming debt obligations and principal interest payments for the next month, quarter or any other timeframe. Yardi Debt Manager eliminates the risks involved in manual loan tracking processes and delivers transparency to all users, including executives and key stakeholders. It’s a comprehensive system for borrowers and lenders that centralizes loan data, eliminates spreadsheets and automates loan calculations. Another key advantage of Debt Manager is its ability to tie debt information to the general ledger, effortlessly generating it into financial statements, and seamlessly incorporating debt payments into AP and AR payment processing. All users have visibility into loans, from a high-level summary view to payment history and the lowest level–details about a given loan. Uniland Development Company is a full-service commercial real estate...
Subscriptions as a Service...
Business Model Evolves
The subscription economy is here to stay. What does this mean for businesses and consumers? A successful strategy is for companies and consumers to subscribe to services rather than buy products. Let’s explore how subscription services are quickly evolving. Subscription business model concepts. The pandemic accelerated the growth of the subscriber model at a rapid rate. Those businesses that are not implementing this could miss out or lose to their competitors. Once companies or consumers shift to subscriptions, they rarely convert back. It’s a transformational change that is happening throughout the economy. Companies implementing this model correctly can predict revenue and profitability with much more accuracy and targeted focus. Businesses are upgrading to subscription models to ensure they do not lose out on the benefits of an ongoing consumer experience. In a high visibility example like Microsoft 365, consumers can reap the benefits of the software with a piecemeal monthly or annual fee instead of shelling out thousands of dollars every few years. Cancellations are the biggest threat to the subscription model. However, embracing cancellations can lead to greater consumer retention and increase business transparency. Moreover, by surveying those who cancel, business leaders can find a depth of data to help shift their approach to renewals and consumer loyalty. To retain consumers, businesses must create an experience that speaks for itself. Consumers can get a product anywhere but stay loyal for the expertise and community feel a brand provides. While it is essential to plan for new subscribers, it is just as important to focus on retaining current ones. Businesses should focus on how to build long-term, sustainable relationships with consumers focused on what they want with complete transparency. Utilize tactics that create meaningful connections with subscribers. Surveys, social media engagement, and listening to...
Less Risky Business
With Yardi Debt Manager
Financing the acquisition of real estate assets can maximize your returns. However, borrowing money not only puts liability on your balance sheets; it can also come with extra headaches and tedious tasks for you and your team, including tracking amortization and payment schedules, meeting covenants, and tracking collateral and critical dates. Executing all these obligations accurately is necessary to minimize risk throughout the duration of a loan. Consider a loan-to-value covenant, for example, a lender-imposed restriction that compares the value of a property to the loan’s value. Borrowers need to monitor this figure because falling property valuation could potentially trigger additional financial costs that can further reduce the asset’s return to investors. Another common covenant is the debt service coverage ratio, the ratio of NOI to the debt service amount. This figure indicates whether the property generates sufficient net operating income to meet each month’s debt payment, revealing the borrower’s likelihood of exceeding the thresholds and potentially falling into default. This covenant, too, requires close monitoring based on the current forecasts in place at the properties. Discovering you have breached a covenant as it occurs is far too late in the game to correct it. Having some visibility into forward-looking information is a key aspect of risk reduction. But tracking loan information using manual data entry and transfers among multiple software systems is time-consuming, inefficient and prone to error. As a result, many borrowers are turning to new technology solutions that provide full visibility to reduce risks and drive informed decision-making. And that’s why Yardi Debt Manager is gaining traction among real estate borrowers. This solution eliminates the risks involved in manual loan tracking processes and delivers transparency to all users, including executives and key stakeholders. It centralizes loan data, provides a comprehensive system...
AI Advancements
With Practical Applications
Artificial Intelligence is becoming far more than just a viral sensation. AI is becoming a technology that any business or person can leverage to revolutionize their work and day-to-day activities. Let’s explore some of the latest mind-blowing AI tools beyond Chat GPT. Similar to Chat GPT, Dall-E 2 will transform text prompts into computer graphics. It can combine concepts, attributes, and styles. This will eliminate the long waits for graphic designers to get images back and produce quicker turnaround times. The hope is that Dall-E 2 will empower people to express themselves creatively. The creators of Dall-E 2 hope that this will help them understand how advanced AI systems see and understand the human world, which is critical for creating AI that benefits humanity. Lumen5 is an AI-powered video creation tool that enables anyone to easily create education, marketing, or business video content using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Lumen5 makes it easier than building a slide show deck on PowerPoint. It can turn blog posts into videos or Zoom recordings into captivating clips. Looka is a tool that makes it easy to brand your business by using AI to create unique and distinctive logos that convey the company’s style and messaging. Bring your brand to life by building brand identity and creating hundreds of branded marketing materials. Looka is not just logos, either. Customize the design of business cards, social profiles, email signatures, and more. Murf is a text-to-speech engine that makes it simple to create natural-sounding synthetic vocal recordings in 15 languages from over 120 voices and dialects. Murf’s AI voices do not sound monotonous and robotic. Murf’s advanced AI algorithms catch the right tone and pick up on every punctuation and exclamation mark from the human voice. This output can easily be...
Tenant Portal Convenience...
5 key features
Convenience is a key factor when providing online solutions to your tenants. But if they have to log into one platform to make a payment, another platform to submit work orders and a third – or fourth – to review documents and share sales data, are you offering them true convenience? What about maximizing convenience for your own staff? CommercialCafe combines the five key features necessary for a truly convenient tenant portal, for both tenants and staff: Payments In addition to reviewing and paying invoices through a secure online portal, tenants can select which open charges they are paying. Your accounting team no longer has to guess where payments are being applied and saves time not processing physical checks. Work orders Tenants can submit service requests, including photos, and, upon completion of work, provide feedback via automated survey. Technicians receive work orders automatically on their mobile phones, decreasing response times and miscommunication. Notifications Automated SMS, push notifications and emails streamline and enhance communications, whether notifying tenants about available lease documentation to view or sharing details about property events. COI management Prospective and current tenants can upload insurance certificates, allowing property teams to view documentation that ensures property requirements are met and tenants are compliant. Sales data Retail tenants can upload sales figures and documentation that support the percentage rent calculations carried out by accounting teams, increase time savings and accuracy. In addition to these features, CommercialCafe offers another layer of convenience through its seamless integration with other Yardi solutions, including Yardi Voyager, Lease Manager, Facility Manager and the Procure to Pay suite. To learn more about the full benefits of CommercialCafe, join a webinar...
Webinar Recap
IoT and Better Building Management
Building occupancy is unpredictable and costs property owners and managers time and money. Without technology that delivers reliable analytics to make sense of trends, resources are likely wasted. That’s where smart tech and the Internet of Things (IoT) comes in. In the recent BOMA Buildings webinar, “Practical Ways to use Data Analytics and IoT to Manage Your Properties,” attendees learned how data analytics can be a powerful tool to improve building efficiency and reduce operational costs. The expert hosts delivered practical tips on how to use data to manage properties and: Save costs Increase visibility Improve efficiency and productivity Property management pain points The webinar attendees expressed greatest interest in learning about saving money and avoiding costs for the buildings they manage. When asked via poll to identify their biggest pain points, they chose repairs and maintenance as their primary concern (at almost 44%), followed by building tech (IoT) upgrades (37%). With regard to the importance of collecting data, 38% responded, “to learn how to make buildings more sustainable (smart lighting, HVAC),” followed by 33% saying it was important for “gaining insight into property enhancement needs (repairs, upgrades).” The majority (almost 67%) said they currently collect data from any sort of IoT-connected device from HVAC systems. 61% responded that they haven’t yet used data analytics from any IoT-connected devices to save time or avoid costs in any of their properties, while 38% said yes, they collect data for the purpose of saving money. Tips from IoT experts The webinar hosts focused on the key benefits of data including helping property managers create standards and processes, improve visibility and productivity and save costs. Tip 1: use data to create goals and processes Connected building tech delivers data across locations and enables you to compare analytics from equipment and systems in multiple locations. You can leverage the data gathered to create new standards and goals for underperforming buildings and make adjustments to improve processes and efficiency to meet those goals. Tip 2: use data to avoid downtime Smart building tech gives you near real-time data so you can manage equipment alerts, make proactive maintenance plans and schedule necessary replacements to avoid downtime in your buildings. Keeping your buildings operating at peak efficiency with strategic maintenance not only extends equipment life but also keeps tenants comfortable and happy. Tip 3: use data to reallocate budget When it comes to spending, data will guide you in these key ways to make the right decisions for the best results: Evaluate: use of resources and equipment, occupancy patterns, changes in staff responsibilities Look: for energy and cost savings opportunities based on data gathered Implement: changes in your systems and processes to save costs Finding the right solution The industry has embraced a single technology platform solution as a best practice to consolidate your data for a single source of truth across your portfolio. You can maintain peak performance while improving tenant experience by automating preventive maintenance, property inspections and work order management. Ready to gain management level oversight of maintenance across your properties and connect tenants, technicians and vendors on a fully integrated platform that gives you actionable analytics? Learn more about Yardi Facility...
Document Management Musts
Five Features You Need
You’re likely familiar with the challenges of managing documents across your business, both for your staff and external users. A few of these challenges include maintaining consistent folder structures, managing security and permissions, integrating content and users, finding documents quickly and tracking multiple versions over time. You can overcome these challenges by storing and sharing content in a unified system that leverages SharePoint and the cloud. Even better is a solution that integrates with your property management platform for a single source of truth. Centralizing key documents and enterprise information in a secure, mobile-enabled system will help you increase communication and productivity across your business. Read on to learn five big benefits of a full-featured document storage platform. Five features to look for in a document management solution 1: Searchability Finding documents using native SharePoint functions is even more effective when coupled with AI meta data tagging. Adding OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities that convert images of text into a machine-readable text format will make your search for elusive documents even more powerful, giving you the ability to look for keywords within a document. 2: Findability Organization for your documents is key. Implement a taxonomy with a uniform structure that makes it supremely easy to locate documents. Automation will ensure consistency and maintenance of your folder structures. Just as going to a big box store at any location in any state will give you the same layout and experience, a taxonomy that consistently organizes your documents to ensure a familiar experience makes information easy to find. 3: Scalability Without a document management system, managing information across an organization is a laborious undertaking. With an automated solution, it’s easy to maintain taxonomy and security for your documents on a large scale. Automation organizes your documents within hours, and when integrated with Yardi Voyager, you can access documents from a single source of truth. 4: Integration With seamless integration of your document management system with your Voyager property management system and other Yardi platforms (including Yardi Elevate, CommercialCafe and VendorCafe) it’s easier for approved users inside and outside your organization to upload files. Security is managed in Voyager. Depending on the outside user, such as a vendor, when they upload documents they will not be aware that the files are stored in SharePoint behind the scenes. Inside your organization, users will be able to interact with the files in a SharePoint setting where they can leverage all of its features. 5: Compliance Laws and regulations are changing to require less paper and accept more digital documents. Maintaining compliance and security in this evolving digital environment is a necessity. Document management in SharePoint has many features for compliance including retention policies, workflows and the ability to integrate with third-party tools such as DocuSign to meet regulations. Ready for scalable enterprise content management that delivers a single source of truth across your business? Yardi has a solution that enables you to take advantage of all the great features listed above. Join a Yardi Document Management for SharePoint webinar or learn...
Making Sense of HOTMA
Yardi’s plan for PHAs in 2023
The Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act (HOTMA) of 2016 brings significant changes to HUD’s public housing program. After years of preparation and implementation processes, public housing agencies across the country are ready to change the way they complete many of their core processes. Yardi is also ready for HOTMA with updates to our PHA Suite in development, as well as a plan to provide hands-on assistance to our clients as we work through HUD’s new program mandates. Gabrielle Van Horn, director of client services for Yardi, recently led an online webinar for Yardi clients walking them through Yardi’s HOTMA strategy. The webinar’s agenda included an overview of HUD changes, notably: Finalization of the Public Housing Over-Income Rule: Section 103 (PIH 2023-3) Final Rule for Sections 102 and 104 HOTMA Implementation Revisions to all 50058 forms Housing Information Portal (HIP), which replaces IMS/PIC National Standard for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE) Van Horn walked attendees through Yardi’s plan to accommodate these upcoming changes. She also provided a timeline for all Yardi PHA clients who will need to upgrade their software this year, in order to remain compliant with the new HUD rules. Important notes on preparation and training from Gabrielle’s presentation included: Prepare your Board of Commissioners: ACOPs and Admin Plans must be adjusted. These are not optional changes We recommend utilizing training from HUD, industry experts, and industry groups such as NAHRO and PHADA for regulatory guidance An in-person training will be offered at the Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference in San Diego, September 6th – 8th Additional training will be available via online learning and documentation for those unable to attend the conference “This is an all-hands-on-deck process for the PHA client support team over the next few months. We’ve got a plan to help all of our clients to get their software ready for new HUD requirements, and we are allocating resources from within to help make the process as smooth and timely as possible. We’re committed to helping our clients through this process,” said Gabrielle. As a leading provider of PHA software and services, Yardi has access to contacts at HUD to seek clarification and provide feedback on how new rules can be accommodated. Yardi, as well as other vendors, will soon have a private meeting with HUD to discuss particular challenges and to provide advice on implementation strategies. Public housing agencies who are current Yardi clients can log on to Client Central to see Gabrielle’s recorded webinar. Questions submitted during the session, along with answers from Yardi, are also available on Client...
The Metaverse
Real Estate's New Frontier
Is the virtual real estate market the new frontier thanks to the metaverse? Investors are now looking at metaverse real estate, an online platform where people can buy, sell, and lease virtual property, according to recent article in the New York Times. A general contractor and NFT (nonfungible token) collector, Gabe Sierra, in Miami, offered his latest creation, an 11,000-square-foot mansion, but to spice up the deal, he provided the exact twin home in the metaverse. The property hits the auction block this month, and Sierra is hoping for a sale price of around $10 million. “It’s a project that blends the line between physical and digital to the furthest extent that I could go on a residential home,” said Sierra. “It pairs a real-world build and expands on it in the digital space. It will make much more sense as these technologies get more immersive.” Financial transactions in the metaverse are handled in cryptocurrency and powered by the blockchain, a digital distributed public ledger that eliminates the need for a third party like a bank. According to Technavio, the metaverse real estate market is expected to grow by $5.37 billion by 2026. In the Sandbox, one of the most popular metaverse worlds, much of the virtual land has been purchased by global corporations like Adidas, which is there to sell products. The total land value in The Sandbox was estimated to be $167 million last year. While a parcel is sold for about $400, there is a secondary market where prices can be many times that. Proximity to land owned by celebrities and big-name brands drives up prices. One buyer paid $450,000 to become Snoop Dogg’s neighbor in “Snoopverse.” “Land is becoming the infrastructure of the metaverse,” said Sebastien Borget, co-founder of the...
Tech Trends from CES
Let's Get Nerdy
Significant changes in technology are coming. At the 2023 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, recognized for underscoring the latest technology, Steve Koenig, Consumer Technology Association vice president of market research, highlights the newest tech-savvy trends. “Cybersecurity, cloud, artificial intelligence, and robotics are all part of it and underpins the effort and the global economy,” Koenig said. This includes speed and increased productivity benefits, improving worker safety, and optimizing space. He continues, “The metaverse is closer than you think. Metaverse is still a speculative term but make no mistake, this is a real trend, just as the internet was a real trend in the early 1990s, even though many of us didn’t know what it was. That’s the same dynamic manifesting around the metaverse right now.” Advertisements and how consumers shop look different today compared to 20 years ago. Using the metaverse and online shopping, consumers can push a shopping cart in “an elevated sense of immersion,” said Koenig. In addition, virtual meetings with sales associates when purchasing a new computer or shoes will be more common, allowing the sales representative to show the features in detail. Many are turning to electric cars with technological advancements and more autonomous transportation advancements. With a decline in truck drivers, soon the answer will be self-driving trucks, predicts Koenig. “Humans are nice to have. Technology is the answer.” Robots are becoming more advanced, especially in sustainability. For example, farmers are now using more windmills, farming robots, soil sensors, and intelligent silos. In addition, John Deere won the 2023 Best of Innovation at the CES show for a fully autonomous tractor. Regarding the gaming world, data shows that there are over 164 million self-described gamers in the US market, according to research from the CES show. However,...
Optimize Facility Management...
Reduce costs, raise asset value
How are you overseeing maintenance operations, managing service requests from tenants, tracking work orders with technicians and extending the health of equipment in your buildings? If you’re not using automation, you’re working too hard and spending too much money. It’s also easy for important things like timely repairs and inspections to fall through the cracks. You can optimize building performance and tenant experience by using facility management software to automate preventive maintenance, property inspections and work order management. Following are best practices to help commercial operators maintain peak building performance and gain portfolio-wide oversight. Tip #1 Automate service requests through a tenant portal. Reduce manual tasks for your staff and increase convenience for your tenants with online work order requests and automated scheduling. Improve communication via email and SMS messaging and ensure tenants are satisfied with your maintenance performance. Reduce man hours needed to manually field requests from email or by phone Simplify the feedback loop through follow-up tenant surveys and promote satisfaction Tip #2 Automate notifications for incoming work orders and set rules around completion. Auto-assign work orders to technicians so they can get started quickly with all the details they need. Track work to completion and eliminate time-consuming manual processes including paperwork and phone calls. You can easily track pending requests, alerts and exceptions. Shorten work order cycles by improving communication between maintenance staff and tenants Help improve tenant satisfaction by preventing requests from falling through the cracks Tip #3 Schedule preventive maintenance and inspections without paperwork. Save time by scheduling recurring property maintenance and standardizing inspection routines. Satisfy all types of inspection requirements including annual, regulatory and due diligence. Use workflows with flexible templates to ensure that inspections cover every detail, every time. Save money and man hours by extending the...
Scam Alerts
Avoid these common traps
There are thousands of new scams every year, which can be challenging to keep up with them all. However, remember these few tips, and you can avoid most scams while protecting yourself and your family. Never send a wire transfer or gift card to someone you’ve never met. Wire transfers or gift cards act the same as cash does, which makes it impossible to trace. If someone is trying to convince you to pay this way, hang up and file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Avoid clickbait. Always think twice about an ad that pops up or clicking on links from an email. Clicking on a link will download malware onto your computer or smart device, allowing cyber thieves to steal your identity. Scammers are great a mimicking official seals, fonts, and other details. If you recognize the email but the message is off, delete, block, and report the email as a phish. If it is too good to be true, it probably is. This goes without explanation. Many scammers will offer a discount rate, offer all the added services then ask for money upfront. Never pay for a service upfront. Always check reviews and profiles at the Better Business Bureau to see what other people have experienced. Use extreme caution when dealing with someone online. Scammers will use social media, dating websites, Craigslist, and many other sites to reach potential targets. They can quickly feel like friends, which is part of the con for you to trusting them. Never share personal info. Again, this goes without explanation, but never give out your personal information, such as your banking information, birthdate, and social security numbers. Always read over invoices, and do not be intimidated when a scammer uses those scary tactics...
Related Training Boosts Long-term Skills
New Yardi Aspire Feature
Want to train your leasing agents to perform with fewer errors and more confidence? Research shows that learning something once isn’t enough. If you want your staff to retain long-term software skills, you need learning software that implements immersive learning and repetitive practice. But how do you implement those features without overwhelming staff? How to train staff for long-term skill retention The key lies in seamless integration. Related training is the newest feature in Yardi Aspire designed to help staff gain long-term skill retention. Available within several Yardi solutions including RentCafe CRM Flex, Yardi Procure to Pay and RentCafe Affordable Housing, related training embeds continuous learning directly into staff workflows, giving staff easy access to skill information where and when they need it most. With easy access to relevant training right before an employee performs a specific task, they can reduce potential costly errors and complete tasks with greater efficiency. Information fades over time, but with help from experiential learning, employees can actively refresh their memory, enhance their understanding and create a more meaningful learning experience — without the hassle. How does related training for Aspire work? A tab will appear on the right side of the screen when an employee uses any related training-compatible solution, like the ones previously mentioned. This tab will directly link them to Aspire training courses associated with the task they’re currently performing. Users can then choose from available training options, followed by a key concept review and short quiz. Once finished, they can continue learning in Aspire or return to their task with greater confidence. It’s that simple! Those who use the integrated Yardi Help tool can find the new related training feature in their Help window. From there, they can review course details and launch a recommended course from the Help screen. Training success starts here Educating your employees efficiently can be one of the most challenging aspects of running a real estate management company. Yardi Aspire is committed to helping you make it easy with innovative learning technology that educates and empowers. Ready to improve training efficiency? Here’s everything you need to support your developing...
Bug of the Century
Could Y2K Happen Again?
Readers of a certain age might recall the buildup to Jan. 1, 2000, as an exercise in high drama. The object of concern was the so-called Y2K bug, the fear that hardware and software systems would stop functioning if they interpreted Jan. 1, 2000, as the first day of the year 1900. The issue was a legacy of computer programs from the 1960s, when engineers used a two-digit code for the year, omitting “19” to save data storage space. 2000 was comfortably far away then. But as that year approached, the concern grew among experts that the faulty interpretation of “00” would wreak havoc on everything from national defense systems and energy grid infrastructure to home mortgage calculations and factory operations. Corporations and governments formed task forces, planned and tested for years leading up to 2000. Large businesses in the U.S. spent an estimated $100 billion creating Y2K compliant programs. Boeing conducted a series of test flights with systems simulating a 2000 rollover to safeguard its 10,500 jets in service worldwide. AT&T spent $650 million to bolster its phone system. There was a fair amount of worry, too; IBM attributed its 9% fourth-quarter earnings drop in 1999 to large corporate customers delaying computer purchases. Smooth start to the millennium On Jan. 1, 2000, everything held together with only minor glitches attributed to Y2K. The U.S. Federal Housing Administration listed incorrect dates on a few reports. A Berlin opera company’s system made people born in 1995 appear to be 95 years old, rendering their parents ineligible for government-mandated subsidies. A video store in New York state foisted a $91,250 charge on a customer who, according to their computers, returned a rented movie 100 years late. There were some airline flight delays and a few other snafus...
And a App-y New Year
Four apps to enhance productivity in 2023
It’s the end of the year, and you are starting to feel sluggish. Scrolling social media endlessly or putting off tasks are everyday bad habits that society picks up in December. Why not start now with some New Years’ resolutions and download some productivity apps that can help get you out of that slump? We’ve done some research and found a few apps that can help. Here are four apps to increase productivity for the end of the year and the start of next year: 1. Todoist App (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome, Safari, Firefox). Todoist is a task management tool that promises to make complex to-do lists manageable. This app is for individuals, helping you track your tasks and ensure nothing gets forgotten. Key features of Todoist include task management, prioritizing tasks, project goals, and reports. Todoist offers a slick, cross-platform interface that makes it quick and easy to manage functions if you struggle to keep on top of your to-do list. 2. Trello App (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and web). Trello is like Todoist, except it is for collaborative teams. Tasks are added and organized on “to-do,” “going,” and “done” statuses, which helps teams keep track of progress. Tasks can be grouped into boards and cards, which contain multiple functions in themselves. Individual duties can be assigned to groups or team members with deadlines and checklists. Key features of Trello include project management, to-do lists, Trello boards, working with anyone, and instant messaging. Instant messaging makes it easy for teams to communicate and collaborate, especially in today’s world of working from home. 3, Zapier App (Windows, Mac, iOS, Andriod, and web). Zapier is a simple automation tool that can save teams vast amounts of time on repetitive tasks and switching between different apps. Zapier sends data between apps like Trello and Outlook, so emails are automatically sent out when anything changes in Trello. Add all these automations together, and your team will collectively spend much less time on menial tasks to focus on more critical ones. Key features of Zapier include the integration of apps, automation of tasks, and custom automation. Zapier is a very gentle introduction to business automation, but it can impact the day-to-day tasks that often slow down collaborative teams. 4. Forest (iOS and Android). This is more of a quirky app to keep you from scrolling social media all day. It is designed, so you stop spending so much time on your phone and/or tablet. Forest essentially gamifies downtime away from your mobile devices. When you want to focus, you plant a “tree,” and the more time you spend away from your smart device, the more it grows. Spend enough time away from your phone to produce an entire forest. The best perk of this app is that you can earn virtual coins by staying focused on your tasks and use them to grow real-life trees from the app. Forest key features include productivity, gamification, and growing actual trees. Forest not only increases a bit of fun into productivity but also helps you make the world a better place while improving your workflow. So far, Forest has planted over a million trees! We hope these apps have given you some inspiration so you can get your productivity game up. These are here to help productivity and not add stress to completing everything on your to-do...
