“Our world has changed. Our field has changed. Now we need to prepare for what lies ahead and determine how we move forward, together.” That’s how LeadingAge describes the purpose of its annual meeting in November, which is always one of the senior living industry’s premier events. And that’s exactly what Yardi will do this year — twice, in fact, since the conference, originally scheduled for San Antonio, will take place as two three-day virtual events. Along with cosponsoring LeadingAge’s technology development initiatives, Yardi will contribute to the conference by spotlighting the Yardi Senior Living Suite, which helps senior living community operators improve resident care and staff efficiency. The suite enables management of all operations on a single connected solution, including accounting, clinical services, marketing and sales. Other elements of the Yardi Senior Living Suite include business intelligence, electronic charting, resident health assessments and pharmacy integrations. LeadingAge will include all the hallmarks of a dynamic in-person conference including keynote speeches, educational sessions and a performance from comedy and magic duo Penn and Teller. Yardi is dedicated to interacting as fully this time as it did at the most recent LeadingAge annual conferences, which drew about 4,500 senior living professionals to San Diego and Philadelphia. Our experts would love to chat with you about how technology can help senior living community operators manage today’s challenges. Please contact us to make an appointment during the Nov. 10-12 or Nov. 17-19...

Senior housing providers are witnessing a major shift within the industry. Traditionally following a hospitality format, today’s senior living specialists now adapt pages from healthcare models. The pandemic prompted senior living staff to implement more on-premises care methodologies. The results are fewer in-person touch points, enhanced health tracking and preventative care. With these changes come new challenges. Bob Kramer is the co-founder of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care (NIC), a Yardi partner. Kramer shares his insights on the challenges faced by senior housing professionals as they shoulder more on-premises care for residents. Learn about the benefits of the NIC Actual Rates Initiative for senior housing market data. A transformation born from necessity In recent history, senior housing providers focused on the resident experience. Staff left health care in the capable hands of off-site experts. COVID-19, however, required staff to renegotiate the barrier between hospitality and health care. In addition to their existing responsibilities, housing providers initiated on-premises health care tasks. “[The pandemic is causing] what you might call the creative destruction of some of what has been the paradigm to senior housing and care,” Kramer explained during a panel interview. “The senior housing and care model that we don’t do health care, and that we ship out our residents for health care services, I just don’t think that model will survive.” He continued, “That doesn’t mean senior living providers need to abandon hospitality-driven models altogether. But it does likely mean they need to rethink how they coordinate care within their communities.” Reimagining doctor’s visits and communication “In just the past six months, older adults have learned to fear the hospital, the emergency room and the doctor’s office, as these are places now associated with a deadly pandemic,” Kramer said. With the help of site staff, residents have taken comfort in telehealth options. Housing professionals forged partnerships with health care providers to offer remote care. Through this alternative, seniors skip unnecessary transport to medical specialists. They receive assessments and basic care from the comfort and familiarity of their communities. Community staff members implement software to help manage residents’ chronic conditions and any changes in wellness. Routine maintenance that was once handled off-site now takes place within residents’ rooms. Emerging from the pandemic, it’s unlikely that telehealth services and community-centered care will fade from practice, suggests Kramer. Staff can rely on technology and data to make the new on-site care model more efficient and secure. Data and interoperability at the intersection of senior housing and health care Interoperability and data management are lingering concerns with senior living providers. The concern has only grown as more care takes place within communities instead of hospitals. An upcoming change in policy may provide the guidance and structure that senior living providers seek. The Interoperability and Patient Access final rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires all health plans to present their data as an application programming interface. Proposed to take effect by July 1, 2021, the policy gives developers insight into general health care data. They can then use that information to address interoperability issues in new technologies. The data can also highlight trends in resident behavior or assessments that allow staff to take proactive care measures. As with all things data, the more information uploaded, shared, and properly analyzed, the more accurate insights become. “The challenge is making sure they have the means to upload their observations that are then screened by an algorithm searching for red flags and are instantly shared with those responsible for the delivery and care for that individual,” Kramer said. While site staff will enter their observations, residents can be empowered to share their health data on their own. Kramer expects strong participation. He observes that many Boomers want to be proactive about their health. “I do think that this is the role of tech, in enabling Boomers to self-direct...

October 20-22, Yardi provided three days of education, training, inspiration and support to clients during the YASC Global conference. The expansion of the online event to attendees worldwide, building on a U.S.-focused event held in May, was well received. Over 20,000 attendees, representing more than 2,500 companies from 58 countries, took 45,000 courses over 72 hours. The event was hosted on the Yardi Aspire learning platform. Anant Yardi, founder and president of Yardi, delivered an introduction to the event and remarked on the rapid adaptations real estate professionals have made worldwide. “Last year we had six different conferences: Washington, D.C., San Diego, London, Dubai, Singapore and Sydney. They were festive occasions where we had the opportunity to meet and greet you. Today, things have changed,” Mr. Yardi said. “We now work from home. We no longer meet face to face, but through digital media. And as all of this is going on, we yearn for those good old days. I don’t know about you, but it sure is nice to meet face to face. And we look forward to the day when we can do that.” But to help deal with the “new normal” that the real estate industry now faces, Yardi has continued to expand its product suites to assist with remote business management, data transparency, social distancing, working from home and much more. These features augment the business and accounting features that have made Yardi the go-to technology provider for real estate over the last 40 years. Product spotlights During YASC Spotlight sessions, clients heard from Yardi executives about the development and progress of product suites, including Affordable Housing, Commercial, Investment Management, Multifamily, Senior Living, and Public Housing. There were also regional updates for international clients from Asia, Australia/New Zealand, Europe and the Middle East. “Through a single connected solution, we remain focused on providing a set of products and services that have a real impact on your property operations and property performance. These products help to create transparency and efficiencies in the interest of reducing risk, reducing expenses, increasing revenues and increasing property values,“ said John Pendergast, senior vice president at Yardi. Products highlighted for multifamily operators were RENTCafé Reach search marketing;  Marketing IQ, a new marketing analytics product; RENTCafé  Self-Guided Tours, which allows socially distanced property tours; RENTCafé Chat IQ, an automated marketing assistant using AI and machine learning; Maintenance IQ; Asset IQ; and the Procure to Pay suite. “There have been some dramatic changes. Remote working, asset distress, residents and tenants’ ability to pay rent, and a real focus on data have been part of our conversations with clients both big and small, operational or institutional ownership. The challenges are common across the different platforms and client perspectives,” shared Richard Malpica, vice president and general manager, Eastern region for Yardi, in the investment management spotlight. While different commercial real estate sectors have been affected uniquely, data visibility and the ability to access operational data have been especially important to investors and operators alike. The Investment Management product suite provides tools to deliver data transparency, risk exposure analysis and real time reporting that investors are seeking now. “Though we have incredible optimism about the next 18 months, it is important that we acknowledge the hardship that many of you have faced in a personal and professional manner,” said Rob Teel, senior vice president at Yardi, in the commercial product spotlight. “I want to assure you that Yardi has passionately contributed philanthropically and to professional trade organizations to help with a global rebound from this crisis.” Commercial clients learned about the latest updates to the Yardi Commercial Suite, including Yardi Elevate, which sits on top of Yardi Voyager and provides operational tools to drive performance and gain operational visibility. Leasing, forecasting, deals, retail tenants and construction projects all have specialized management modules and reporting oversight within Yardi Elevate. Its real time informational visibility has been especially beneficial...

An ongoing series of research reports from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) details information from the hundreds of thousands of buildings who use ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager to track energy usage. The latest report focuses on renewable energy and trends in energy metering and efficiency tracking. Onsite renewable energy systems The report studies data from over 260,000 properties, determining that less than 1% (2,447 properties) are currently generating onsite renewable energy. However, even with this low total, the use of onsite renewables has increased ten-fold in the last decade. Among the most common property types who do generate renewable energy are retail stores, K-12 schools and offices. Schools and worship facilities account for the largest number as a percentage of their total properties, still only representing 2.4% each. By comparison, only half a percent of multifamily housing properties have implemented renewable systems. Where are these systems most commonly found? According to the study, California leads the way by a wide margin with nearly 1,000 properties. That number represents more than the next 10 highest states combined. Because the source energy conversion factor is lower for onsite renewable energy, these properties have higher ENERGY STAR scores by a significant margin compared to all properties (74 to 59). Data also shows that 55% of these buildings meet less than a quarter of their electrical consumption from onsite renewables. Metering challenges and considerations There are three primary types of meters that customers use, determined by local utility company standards and building electrical systems. The report dives into the types of meters, what information they do or do not provide and how this impacts energy benchmarking and efficiency goals. Net meters spin forward or backward showing net consumption of power, but do not tell you what was imported or exported. Bi-directional meters tell you how much energy was imported and how much renewable energy was exported. The least common, dual meters have two devices, one to measure import and another for export. The main billing issue, as described in the study, is that only reporting net consumption makes it challenging to benchmark energy performance. To assess this accurately, you need all energy use, regardless of source. Portfolio Manager accurately incorporates onsite renewables into efficiency calculations. Developers may be willing to retrofit older meters with newer versions in order to capture renewable energy generated onsite exported back to the grid and the amount of grid energy sent to the building. The report goes into further detail about renewable energy certificates, inaccurate billing and metering practices, and thoroughly explains the flow chart connecting energy, meter and property. While the total number of buildings reporting onsite renewable energy continues to grow, it still represents a fraction of total properties. Data will become more available to customers as more meters support accurate measurement of onsite renewable energy. Until then, it’s hard to paint a detailed picture of efficiency and even harder to invest in a mix of strategies to achieve great energy use...

When Yardi launched its Changemakers initiative last year to capture innovative thinking in senior living, few could have anticipated the profound challenges that emerged over the next 15 months. Changemakers, a collaboration with Senior Housing News, features interviews with leaders who offer creative perspectives on a range of issues including community architecture; care support partnerships with outside parties; the collocation of independent living, assisted living and memory care under one roof; technology issues; and staff members’ work/life balance. Eleven senior living provider executives presented their thoughts on the state of the industry in the Changemakers series for 2020, which is now available as an eBook. COVID-19, of course, ended up overshadowing almost every other issue this year. Mary Leary, a Changemaker with Mather, predicts that the pandemic “is going to catapult the industry forward because we’re having to abandon, at least temporarily, ways in which we have been providing services, which will give us an opportunity to rethink how we may want to do things differently.” Here’s a sampling of other impressions you’ll find in the eBook: “Changemakers definitely are risk-takers. When I first started Silverado, it was such an enormous change that I was proposing to the industry’s norm of bringing in the medical piece, the clinical piece, the 24-hour seven-day-a-week licensed nurses, master’s level social workers, and don’t even get me started with use of pets and children coming in.” – Loren Shook, Silverado “Our communities are designed to fit the neighborhood. It does not look like the sunrise Victorian mansion that gets plopped down into areas that don’t have Victorian mansions. We use the local vernacular.” – Michael Schonbrun, Balfour Senior Living Care “It’s not good enough to say, ‘I’m a risk-taker.’ What does that mean? Does that mean you’re at the firm every other Thursday? It’s not good enough just to be a risk-taker, you have to quantify risk. This [COVID-driven] economic downturn is a great example.” – Dwayne Clark, Aegis Living “We are less focused on the number of changes or the speed, but rather how meaningful the change may be to seniors, their families, and our associates. The number of ideas are infinite and can result in busy-ness rather than improved sound business practices.” — Marc Vorkapich, Watercrest Senior Living Besides sponsoring Changemakers, Yardi drives innovation by offering a comprehensive technology platform for senior living management. Learn...

Despite massive disruption to in-person learning protocols, demand for off-campus, purpose-built student housing remains strong, according to a webinar and a new bulletin from Yardi Matrix. “College students don’t want to live at home. And their parents seem quite amenable, if financial circumstances allow it, for them not to live at home,” said Jeff Adler, vice president of Yardi Matrix, during the webinar. “There’s been a tremendous amount of noise around the sector, but as it relates to the financial performance of off-campus student housing, it is largely unaffected.” The one key factor is that college or university the students are attending must be offering classes in some capacity, even if they are all online. Need for greater social distance between students in on-campus dormitories have been another helpful nudge. “As long as the school is open somehow, for the dedicated off-campus student housing inventory, (the education format) doesn’t matter,” Adler said. “The off-campus student housing industry has shown itself to be really resilient.” Development pipelines also remain strong, with only two planned projects nationwide falling off the radar in the last quarter. Enrollment trends have favored public universities rather than private schools, indicating that students may be looking for more affordable education alternatives given current economic uncertainty. And off-campus housing options provide a more continuous housing option than on-campus dorms, which are more likely to be subject to closures or status changes. Though college enrollment from international students is down due to travel restrictions, those spots in off-campus housing seem to thus far have been backfilled by American students. One caveat is that these are students whose parents’ economic fortunes have likely not been disrupted by the pandemic. And even if no vaccine is available in spring 2021 as expected, purpose-built student housing is expected to continue to do well. “Even if everything goes horribly wrong (with vaccine development), the fact that this year was as good as it was indicates that as long as the school is open in some fashion, it’s a non-event for the off-campus student housing sector,” Adler said. For the 200 colleges and universities the Matrix team analyzed, preleasing of purpose-built student housing was just 3 percent behind that of 2019. “While demand has been volatile on a university-by-university basis, the willingness and desire for people to congregate near their school will likely help the student housing sector steer through these uncertain times,” states the analysis. Preview new technology for student housing providers at the NMHC/InterFace Student Housing Conference, a virtual event taking place Oct. 19-22. Visit the virtual booth to see how RentCafe Student and Yardi Matrix Student will graduate your leasing and management...

The events of the past several months necessitated major shifts in the housing industry. The pandemic made it clear—if there had been any doubts—that the future of efficient, healthy social housing relies on integrated technology. When it comes to tenant files, bypassing physical touch points reduces exposure risk while increasing process efficacy. The latter benefit carries with social housing providers long after the pandemic has faded from conversation. Integrated leasing and property management technology expedites daily processes by digitizing, streamlining and automating tasks. One of the first steps towards greater efficiency begins with tenant portals. When resident portals integrate with back-end property management technology, the results are improved safety, maximized compliance and more accurate reporting. Ontario housing receive a mandatory tech makeover Leasing social housing units has always been an elaborate process: paper applications, manual reviews, in-person interviews, and seemingly endless data entry were a few trademarks of the process before online portals. Redundant and tedious tasks can cause staff burnout, costly errors and inconsistent tenant experiences. The pandemic forced social housing to evolve. Social housing management has been transformed by social distancing protocols and health guidelines. The transformation is changing office processes and the work environment. Months into the pandemic, an industry that has been accustomed to incremental change is adapting online leasing tools at a rapid pace. Technology, such as online tenant portals, comes with a host of benefits for social housing providers and tenants. 5 Benefits of a tenant portal for housing providers Tenant portals are tools of empowerment. Staff members benefit from online portals in five major ways: Save staff time with online and automated services. Online portals make data management easier for staff. Tenants enter their own data which is seamlessly integrated with back-end software. This reduces data entry for staff, minimizes errors and eliminates redundancy. Simplify resident management with user portals. Staff experience significantly fewer phone calls and in-person meetings when they can conduct rent geared to income (RGI) reviews and resident management tasks online. There is also less downtime between correspondences: no waiting on snail mail or returning calls. Improve financial management. Accurate reporting is crucial to long-term success. Online portals facilitate faster reporting. Housing providers can leverage software that supports provincial, municipal, board and internal reporting requirements. Staff can also create custom reports from any web-enabled device. Housing providers can also generate more complete rent collection and rent geared to income (RGI) reviews with user-submitted data. Increase data accuracy and accessibility. Physical documents are stored on premises and not accessible in remote work environments. Online portals facilitate telecommuting by storing resident information in a secure database that staff can access in the leasing office or their remote work locations. Enjoy a simple, single sign-in. Managing multiple software products requires multiple credentials for staff. Staff must manually rekey and update renter profile information in multiple locations if errors are made or changes are necessary. With an integrated solution complete with portals, tenants manage their own personal information. When staff must intervene, there is a single sign in and greater consistency throughout the leasing and RGI review process. Through the gained efficiencies of user portals, staff members are empowered to shift their focus from tedious tasks to building relationships and offering stellar services. Top 3 benefits of a tenant portal for tenants Tenant portals also empower residents. Users can safely and easily complete tasks with three added benefits: Offer convenience and flexibility. Tenants can gain 24/7 access via web browsers to their customizable profiles. A simple, self-service data entry process allows them to update personal information, complete forms and review their status. With a website, tenants can interact with staff without the restrictions of leasing office hours. They can also communicate with staff and receive responses via SMS/text messaging that abide by CASL requirements. Increase accuracy for annual or interim reviews. Residents can log in at their convenience and update RGI information. They...

While energy efficiency is important every day of the year in any economy, 2020 is presenting unique challenges along with big opportunities for companies and individuals alike and now is a great time for everyone to take control of energy use and utility costs. Using energy efficiently is the simplest way to lower utility bills, improve air quality and reduce environmental impact as part of a larger concerted effort. Driven by the mission to save money, cut pollution and create jobs, Energy Efficiency Day on October 7, 2020, is a collaboration of dozens of energy efficiency advocacy groups around the U.S., including the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), Advanced Energy Economy, Alliance to Save Energy, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Regional Energy Efficiency Organizations and many others. As we come together for the fifth annual Energy Efficiency Day, the event website offers some great tips to deal with pandemic-related utility costs now and through the summer. A costly lockdown While working remotely and spending more time at home is helping to stop the spread of COVID-19, it’s not helping most people’s wallets. For areas in a home that need improvement to increase energy efficiency, workers usually need inside access. During a pandemic, that kind of exposure carries serious safety concerns. If you’re not ready to let utility pros into your home, what can you do? Consider a virtual energy audit. Check with your local utility companies to find out if they offer this convenience in your area. There are also some things you can do yourself to increase energy efficiency and stop the waste. Following are a few highlights and takeaways from the article Pandemic Hurts Efficiency Jobs But You Can Still Make Energy-Saving Upgrades. Seal the gaps Check around windows and doors as well as mail slots, electrical outlets and window-mounted AC units. Wherever you find a crack or gap, seal it with caulk or weather stripping. Replace filters Keeping your furnace and air conditioner filter clean will ensure they aren’t working harder than they need to — which saves you money, lowers emissions and extends the life of your equipment. Lighten up your bills Switch your bulbs to LEDs, which use up to 90% less energy to deliver the same amount of light as incandescent bulbs — and they last up to 25 times longer. Save water With a high efficiency showerhead, you can save more the 2,000 gallons of water per year, most of which is hot water, so you also get the savings on heating. While you’re at it, install an aerator in your kitchen sink — a pressure compensating model ensures plenty of flow power while it reduces water use. Want to learn more? Get the scoop on ways to save on your next energy bill for tips including ENERGY STAR® appliances and how you can take part in Energy Efficiency Day. For property managers and owners looking for ways to gain control over energy consumption and reduce costs, join a free webinar on energy solutions brought to you by Yardi, named an ENERGY STAR Partner of the...