October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and Santa Barbara County’s Domestic Violence Solutions (DVS) has planned weekly events to bring this societal epidemic out of the shadows and into the light.   Candlelight vigils to bring attention to the prevalence of domestic violence across America are set for Lompoc (Oct. 11), Santa Maria (Oct. 18) and Santa Barbara (Oct. 25). Since its start in 1977, DVS has aimed to educate the public while creating a pathway of hope for those who experience domestic abuse firsthand. It is Santa Barbara County’s only full-service domestic violence agency, committed to ending the cycle of domestic violence through prevention and intervention services. With support from state and federal funds, grants and corporate and private donations, DVS provides the county’s only 24-hour shelter service, as well as the county’s only transitional housing program for domestic violence survivors. To fully illustrate its impact and the need for such services in Santa Barbara County, in 2017 DVS: Answered almost 5,000 calls to its 24-hour crisis and information lines Provided 4,687 safe nights to victims of domestic violence Responded to over 472 calls from law enforcement and emergency rooms at the victims’ location Participated in 244 educational and outreach events throughout the community Sheltered as many children as adult victims of domestic violence The Yardi Foundation is a longtime support of DVS’ work to help domestic violence survivors and their families get back on their feet, and educate the community at large about how to stop the pervasive cycle of violence. “We’re very grateful for the support we’ve gotten from Yardi. They’re a wonderful Santa Barbara company and we truly appreciate their contributions,” said DVS executive director Jan Campbell, the former chief philanthropic officer of the Santa Barbara Foundation. Campbell, who took...

Editor’s note: The following post was written for real estate and investment professionals in Asia by Bernie Devine, Regional Director (Asia) for Yardi. With 30+ years’ experience dedicated to real estate and technology, Bernie is a leader in digital transformation in real estate and using data to create a more competitive and collaborative environment. He supports real estate clients with Retail, Commercial, Industrial, Residential and Mixed Use assets, helping them to grow their operations, create efficiencies, and gain better insight into their business. His expertise includes asset and investment management, private equity, operations improvement, program and project management, finance, technology implementation and compliance. Currently responsible for the growth of Yardi Systems in Asia, Bernie lives in Hong Kong and is a qualified accountant and economist. He has published over 60 articles and has extensive public speaking experience. I’ve recently seen a lot of discussion around the tokenisation of real estate investments. Some has been sensible, but some has missed a few key points. Two key challenges of the real estate market for the last 400 years when compared to other investment asset classes are the slow pace of transactions (it takes a long time for ownership to be transferred) and liquidity (the purchase price is so large that only a limited market of buyers exists). There have been many innovations over the years (Such as private equity funds and REITS) that have sought to address these issues, but the proptech community now thinks it may have a better solution. Tokenisation of real estate investments is about changing the way ownership of an asset is represented. It’s proposed that this change in ownership model will open up how the purchase of the asset is funded and how ownership is transferred. Basically, if ownership can be...

The LeadingAge Annual Meeting and EXPO is set to take place October 28-31 in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. With 4,500 attendees expected and over 150 educational sessions offered, it will be a bustling few days filled with networking and new ideas. The conference schedule also features thought-provoking speakers, including renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz, who seeks to capture the beauty of aging. Her talk is called the “Inspire keynote,” and as the first woman to hold an exhibition at Washington’s National Portrait Gallery and an exhibitor at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Annie Leibovitz has inspired many throughout her nearly-fifty-year career. She’s photographed hundreds of world-famous faces and is an expert at capturing not only a beautiful image, but her subject’s story as well. It’s why Ms. Leibovitz has become so renowned for her stunning portraits: they depict a lifetime of experiences, without any negative perceptions of aging—a rare thing in a society with narrowly defined beauty norms. To some, growing older comes with a stigma. Instead of appreciating each wrinkle as a sign of a life well lived, lines are fretted over, gray hair is dyed. To challenge the perceptions of aging, conference attendees will be encouraged to contemplate and redefine what it means to grow old with appreciation, grace and dignity. The event EXPO, the largest in the senior living industry, will close out the conference. In addition to exhibiting the latest goods and services, the EXPO features a special exhibit to demonstrate a day in the life of a future resident. Attendees will experience various resident scenarios—like living with dementia—via an immersive virtual reality simulation to inspire innovation and creativity. LeadingAge Annual Meeting attendees can schedule time to meet with the Yardi senior living team to learn more about its...

Each year, the Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference (YASC) returns to Singapore, bringing together real estate management professionals from North and South East Asia for the opportunity to network, learn, and have fun. Join us on October 16 at our new venue – the Grand Hyatt Hotel, located in the heart of Singapore’s bustling shopping and entertainment district. YASC Asia 2018 will be bigger and better than last year! The one-day conference will offer expanded learning and networking opportunities for our clients with property portfolios across Asia. With more than 200 guests expected, this year’s conference boasts over 30 in-depth courses, 50 Yardi experts, six new products, and a post-conference networking hour to mix and mingle with your industry peers. Will we see you there? As one past YASC attendee shared: “Entertaining and informative. Very useful, relevant and practical classes, providing me with the support I need for my role – and knowledge about future innovations and developments.” What to expect at YASC Asia 2018: Yardi Events App A new addition to YASC Asia, the Yardi Events app is a mobile-friendly way to access all conference information, including classes, Lab hours, venue maps, in-app messaging and more. The Yardi Events app is available for download at the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. A browser-based version, synced to the mobile app, will also be available, so attendees can access all these features from their desktop. User log-in details have been emailed to all registered YASC attendees. Have questions? Email our team at [email protected].   Hands-On Help in the Lab Open throughout YASC, the Lab is your one-stop-shop for assistance from Yardi staff. Whether it’s a new product you’d like to demo, a scenario with your current software that you’d like to resolve, or anything else on your mind, come to the Lab...

Akshai Rao’s path to Yardi wound from Austin, Texas, where the vice president of Procure to Pay earned his bachelor’s degree before taking a job in Northern California. He then went to Michigan for business school and Boston for another job before landing back in Austin as a Yardi employee in 2013. Today Rao oversees client services for Yardi Procure to Pay, an end-to-end procurement, vendor management and electronic invoicing platform. He shared highlights of the platform with us in a recent interview. Q: What matters most to property managers who deal with goods and services procurement? A: They want to perform their back office tasks, especially procurement and accounts payable, more efficiently. That lets them spend more time on front office duties, such as building compliance and customer services. Q: Can you describe how the elements of Yardi Procure to Pay meet those priorities? A: We provide one platform for the entire procure to pay process—approval workflows for purchase orders and invoices that are consistent with the client’s process, plus online purchasing, vendor management, outsourced invoice management and vendor payment services. All of these processes are accessible in real time and built into the Yardi Voyager® property management and accounting platform. Yardi has documented client savings of up to 80% on per-invoice costs and 75% on per-invoice processing time. A single connected procurement solution makes day-to-day purchasing, payment and vendor management as simple as possible. In addition, we’re building a robust analytics package to help clients pinpoint areas in which they can make process improvements.  We can compare our clients’ processes to industry benchmarks, and make recommendations to improve their current processes. Yardi Bill Pay, which is part of both Yardi Payment Processing and the Yardi Procure to Pay Suite, outsources check, ACH...

Celebrating 20 years, Yardi Canada has come a long way. As a leading innovator that delivers technology solutions to move the Canadian real estate industry forward, Yardi Canada focuses on helping clients thrive through every change. We caught up with a few of Yardi Canada’s leaders to learn more about the company’s evolution. From DOS to Windows to Internet based web apps to mobile apps and now on to artificial intelligence, Yardi has always been there with a solution for its clients. Here are a few technological highlights from the past two decades. A Unique Market Mobility and the cloud might reign now, but it all began with DOS. Introducing real estate companies to new technologies to improve business operations has never been an easy task. As Canadians, we tend to be a little more conservative when it comes to change. However, Peter Altobelli, general manager and vice president of sales for Yardi Canada, found it was easy to bring Yardi’s three DOS products to market: Yardi Basic, Yardi Deluxe and Yardi Premier. “DOS was a great product to implement since it was reliable, simple and easy to use. It was a technology that property managers understood. Plus, it had all these great shortcuts, because we didn’t have a mouse back then,” recalls Altobelli. Altobelli set up Yardi’s first office in Canada in 1998, which started with four people and now has grown to a staff of over 200. Today’s multitasking generation, accustomed to multiple windows and screens, would feel restricted with a DOS platform. But back then, users could accomplish single functions at a time quickly and efficiently. It was exactly what the industry needed as a catalyst towards more technology and innovation. Moving to the Internet At every innovative milestone, Yardi Canada...

For senior living providers, it’s time to break out the flip flops. This fall, October 7-10, thousands of leading long term and post-acute care professionals will travel to southern California to attend the annual AHCA/NCAL Convention and Expo at the San Diego Convention Center. The conference, celebrating its sixty-ninth year, is designed to address current operating and care challenges, also hosts the largest trade show in the industry. So what can attendees expect from this three-day event?  Beyond the traditional convention sessions—seventy in all with topics ranging from making data-driven decisions to the forthcoming PDPM implementation—there are many unique events offered. Attendees can partake in a San Diego Harbor Cruise, visit the USS Midway Museum aboard one of America’s longest-serving aircraft carriers, attend AHCA’s annual PAC concert and enjoy a gala dinner with entertainment by Grammy award-winning artist Kenny Loggins. NCAL will also host the 12th Annual NCAL Day dedicated to thought-provoking education specifically tailored to the assisted living sector of long-term care. Keynote speakers include retired astronaut and Navy Captain Scott Kelly, who challenges audiences to dream big, test the status quo and “choose to do the hard things,” along with award-winning motivator Dan Thurmon and mindset expert Steve Taubman. The goal of every convention session is that attendees will take home one to three immediately implementable strategies to improve their business. With actionable insights, networking opportunities, and exceptional events on the schedule, this year’s AHCA/NCAL conference and expo is sure to be a memorable...

No one likes to pay for things they don’t use. Hundreds of cable channels never to be watched. Millions of songs you’ll never listen to yet included with a subscription. Thousands of streaming movies and TV shows you’ll never get a chance to see. Thankfully, Yardi eLearning clients have some relief. New features recently added to the learning management software platform come with options for Yardi clients to choose which feature sets best fit their organization’s needs. To be specific, Yardi eLearning clients can now choose from four package tiers: Yardi eLearning (base solution), Yardi eLearning Pro, Yardi eLearning Plus and Yardi eLearning Premium. Yardi eLearning The core of Yardi eLearning includes more than 800 online courses that cover every piece of Yardi software and service. Users have unlimited, online access to courses. Courses can be curated into learning tracks personalized for users. Users access courses anytime, even on the job as a convenient knowledge resource. Yardi eLearning interfaces with many types of software products such as human resources information systems and webinar management tools. Yardi eLearning Pro Yardi eLearning Pro adds digital signatures and surveys to the base Yardi eLearning solution. Digital signatures, called eSign, allow users to execute documents without printing, signing, scanning or emailing. Simple and discreet digital signatures instantly and securely track agreements between organizations and employees. The new surveys feature in Yardi eLearning makes it easy to ask staff anything, any time. Without the need to license or log in to a web-based survey software, administrators can quickly set up a poll to determine gaps in training, course effectiveness or even just what’s for lunch. Response data is immediately available in Yardi eLearning – no need to import data from a web-based service. Yardi eLearning Plus Yardi eLearning Plus...

Last year was the most significant year for commercial drones yet. More than 66,000 remote drone pilots were certified by the FAA in 2017 in the U.S. alone. Drones made their way into a diverse range of industries, from archaeology to construction, insurance to agriculture. Of course, millions of dollars have been invested in drone services, but Goldman Sachs estimates that the commercial drone market industry will surpass $20 billion by 2021. One of the hottest drone products of the moment is the mapping service. DroneDeploy, a company founded in 2013, recently launched Live Map—the world’s first software able to generate drone maps in real time. Usually, creating a drone map takes time—first you have to plan a mission, fly, capture imagery, go back to your desk to upload the data on your computer (it must be a suitably powerful computer) and then play the waiting game. For hours. With the new service, those hours of waiting disappear—even without a laptop or even internet connection, you get the data you need immediately. The steps are simple: plan a flight, take off, look at maps render on-screen during flight. That’s it. Hundreds of acres of land can easily become consumable maps, shareable to collaborators via instant cloud-syncing across devices. Thus, if more in-depth analysis is required, users can also create higher-resolution 2D maps from the same flight data. Live Map is the next-generation product of Fieldscanner, but it’s five times faster, which makes it capable of keeping up with the real-time challenges of the real world. “Hours of waiting for crop imagery are over. We can capture real-time data in seconds without an internet connection, and begin making smarter crop management decisions before the drone hits the ground,” says Justin Metz, technology integration specialist at...

The relationship between investors and investment fund managers is changing, largely because the tech-savvy younger generation expects timely access to accurate information. Investment managers who meet the changing demands of clients can reap competitive advantages. Scott Tavolacci, Yardi’s regional director of investment management sales, explains why in a piece that first appeared in PERE magazine. The need for accurate reporting seems self-evident, but this realization was a long time coming. Two events in the United States were particularly influential. One was the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Designed to protect investors from fraudulent accounting practices, the legislation placed new emphasis on providing accurate data to both public and private players. After that, it often seemed that investors and investment managers could do little wrong. In hindsight, however, financial reporting remained surprisingly lax. Then in 2010, in response to the financial crisis and recession, the Dodd-Frank legislation triggered a new wave of regulations and forced investment advisors to reexamine their processes and information flows. Even aside from these requirements, investment managers want information that goes beyond a financial statement and which does not need to be entered into multiple software solutions. Fund managers who fail to heed that call, instead relying on outmoded reporting systems, put themselves at risk. In the past, many investment managers used customized proprietary systems to provide the necessary reporting and drive more-informed business decisions. They came to realize that these outdated tools were inadequate to meet the demands of today’s investors. Investment managers have been slow to embrace technology for a number of reasons. One of them is the complexity and the cost of transferring data to a new platform, which is largely due to the nature of real estate as an asset class. Tracking a single lease may involve hundreds of...

Yardi is headed to the Windy City, along with throngs of senior living providers, to attend 5th annual SMASH summit taking place October 1-3 at the Loews Hotel O’Hare in Chicago. The conference is geared toward sales and marketing professionals intent on learning new strategies to make their communities stand out. Attendees will choose from workshops focused on content marketing, digital marketing, leadership and innovation, sales management, small teams marketing and technology to discover actionable takeaways. The conference also features many insightful speakers, including Yardi’s own Richard Nix, senior director of senior living, who will share insights about using customer relationship management (CRM) in senior living to supercharge marketing efforts, strengthen client relationships and ultimately drive occupancy. Nix says: “I’m honored to be speaking at SMASH this year. This conference is all about sharing with and learning from peers in the industry, so I’m excited to offer some strategies for senior living providers to increase their efficiency and grow their communities.” Other presenters include keynote speakers Kate O’Neil, tech humanist and author, and Chuck Harry, National Investment Center (NIC) chief of research and...

Yardi’s corporate culture includes a focus on community service. In the Yardi Boise office, a team of employees focused professionally on the senior living product suite decided to bring that value to life by participating in two local efforts aimed at combating hunger. First, staff partnered with Metro Meals on Wheels to serve 80 seniors in the community. Since many of the elders that benefit from Meals on Wheels are homebound and unable to prepare their own food, they rely on meal delivery as their primary source of nutrition. The Boise office team was happy to help with distributing food, cleaning, and socializing with seniors. Metro Meals on Wheels serves meals to nearly 1,000 Boise senior citizens each weekday and over 700 each weekend. Inspired by their work with Meals on Wheels, the team sought a new philanthropic challenge, this time joining with the Idaho Foodbank. The independent non-profit organization is entirely donor supported and is the largest food bank and distributor of free food assistance in Idaho. One in seven Idahoans are in need, and the food bank is making strides to not only provide meals but to promote healthy, locally-sourced foods. In fact, three quarters of the food distributed by the Idaho Foodbank is fresh or fresh frozen versus shelf stable, up from just fifty percent six years ago. So when the organization was hosting a food drive, the Yardi staff was excited to participate. This time, they volunteered to put together meals for the federally sponsored Seniors’ program and gathered donations of juice, cereal, milk and eggs into individual meal boxes. In all, the 60 employees assembled 15 palettes of meals, estimated to contain an amazing 14,000 pounds of food, to be distributed to local seniors. That’s more than enough to...

Many student housing providers offer conflict mitigation as a way to keep the peace between roommates. If you don’t, it’s a good idea to start. Roommate conflicts increase turnover and impact your bottom line. Below are three tips to share with your student residents. They promote clear communication between roommates. More importantly, they cut turnover costs for you and preserve your reputation with prospects. Don’t overtax your friendship. Their message: Your friend may be the most compassionate and forgiving person that you know—don’t take advantage of that. Don’t splurge your rent money on SXSW tickets and then pay late on rent because “she’ll understand.” Certainly don’t eat the last of her Greek yogurt. Strained relationships add stress to living arrangements and can affect your academic performance. Honor your friendship like it matters. Your benefit: Bills are paid on time which is a huge plus in student housing. With better relationships between roommates, there are fewer squabbles that require third party negotiation. Your staff is free to focus on loyalty initiatives and new leases. Learn to talk about money together Their message: You will have to negotiate how much you’re willing to spend each month on cable, internet, and optional fees like trash removal (rather than doing it yourself). When you’re comfortable talking to each other about money upfront, there are fewer chances for spending beyond your roommate’s ability to keep up. You can room together happier, longer. Your benefit: This is especially important when rent does not include utilities and other fees in a single bundle. If one resident is more wasteful than the others due to poor roommate pairing, turnover is inevitable. By having money conversations upfront, roommates can pair with other like-minded (or like-budgeted) individuals and reduce the need to switch roommates....

At Apple’s September product unveiling, three new iPhones grabbed the spotlight. Tim Cook’s presentation also showcased the new Apple Watch, called “an intelligent guardian for your health.” To introduce the new Apple Watch to the world, Apple turned to American Heart Association president Ivor Benjamin, who applauded the company’s innovation and commitment towards health issues. The most prominent new feature of the Apple Watch Series 4 is that the device is now able to detect a low heart rate and atrial fibrillation. This advances its health detection capabilities far beyond simple exercise tracking. The watch is now able to measure the electrical activity of the heart, enabling the user to take an electrocardiogram simply by putting their finger on the digital crown. The feature, as well as irregular heart rate detection, has received FDA clearance. There is also a next-generation accelerometer gyroscope, which enables the device to detect a fall by the wearer —when a fall is detected, the watch will send an alert prompting you to call emergency services. If the device senses that the user is immobile for more than one minute, the call will be started automatically. This may be ideal for those aging but hip grandparents who don’t want to admit a life alert device might be a wise wearable. Design-wise, Apple Watch Series 4 flaunts a 30 percent larger display—which gives enough real estate for up to eight shortcuts for apps—as well as a thinner body, which make it less bulky on small wrists. The speakers are 50 percent louder and its new S4 chip will have the watch perform twice as fast. The battery life should last for 18 hours and outdoor workout time has increased to six hours. Pricing starts at $399 for the GPS model and...

If you haven’t heard of corporate social responsibility, it’s time to start listening. What is it, and why should you care? Corporate social responsibility, CSR for short, is not just another buzz phrase in multifamily housing: it might be the key to employee retention. We met with Jen Piccotti, Chief Operating Officer at ManagInc, the industry leader in resident and employee satisfaction, retention and education to learn more. What is CSR? Jen Piccotti: Corporate social responsibility is a focus on corporate culture to improve retention, reputation, recruitment and performance. But it’s more than just volunteerism and green initiatives. CSR is rooted by three pillars: The Workplace This is a focus on providing the support and resources to employees so they can do their best work—as well as to suppliers. And that part is important because residents don’t always see a distinction between in-house maintenance staff, for instance, and the landscaping crew who’s contracted out. So it’s important to work with suppliers who are paying attention to their culture and their impact, because who you choose to work with is a representation of your brand. The Living Environment Here, we ask ourselves questions about the communities we build and manage. Are we providing everything residents want and need? How is our customer service? What do our policies and procedures look like? The Greater Good This is what most people think of when they think of CSR: it has to do with volunteerism, philanthropy, utilizing resources responsibly, and maintaining a code of ethics. What does CSR have to do with staff retention? JP: More and more prospective employees, especially Millennials who make up the largest segment of the work force, are asking questions. What kind of company is this? How do you run your business? They...

The senior living industry employs close to a million people, and the sector is expected to add nearly 300,000 jobs by 2026. With employee turnover already a worrisome—and costly—issue, companies need to arm themselves to keep up with demand. That means thinking not just about hiring, but also retaining key staff. What does it take to temper employee turnover? It’s not just about more money. If you want to keep employees in this competitive landscape, it’s about engaging staff by creating a truly employee-centric culture. Here’s how: Build an environment of recognition In order to realize the significance of their roles, staff need to feel appreciated by management, their peers and by residents. Sadly, only 21 percent of employees think they’re truly valued in the workplace. The good news? 44 percent say they’d regularly give peer-to-peer recognition if it were easy to do. Develop simple, quick ways to deliver acknowledgement, and make sure that it’s visible across the organization. You might be surprised how much feeling appreciated boosts morale. Promote balance with flexible scheduling Practicing work-life balance in the long-term care industry, where many residents require round-the-clock care, can prove to be more challenging than in other industries. But giving employees some flexibility is possible. Start by setting a quota on number of weekends and holidays worked, then allow staff to set schedules autonomously by working with colleagues to optimize their hours. Talk to standout staff Reach out to the best of the best on your team and ask important questions: What motivates them? Why do they stay? What could you be doing better? Find out what makes them tick, then apply these learnings to the greater organization. There’s no input more valuable than from top performers who are satisfied and come to work...

Until fairly recently, enterprise software platforms for real estate largely focused on accounting, finance and other back office operations. The advanced programming languages, mobile reach and internet capacity that enable automated workflows and remote access available for the back office hadn’t reached the front office. Things are different today—for the better. In an article originally published in Journal of Property Management, Todd Huebsch, Yardi vice president of commercial sales, explains why.   New software applications squarely target the front office, lending new dynamism to leasing, customer services, facility management, development and other operations. What does the evolution of technology dedicated to the front office mean in practical terms? For one, it means that property management technology has reached the point where remote access is both affordable and effective for managers involved in leasing, construction and facilities management. It also means leasing and asset management can work a deal together with a previously unattainable degree of collaboration. Development vice presidents can evaluate risk with instant access to project status, instead of waiting for a weekly report. They can leverage ERP data such as lease comps, revenue trends, contractor and job analysis, to make better decisions. Consider, for example, construction managers working to correct a problem with a building’s foundation. In an earlier era, they would call or email the back office, or even leave the site altogether to calculate the change order and negotiate the amount and cost code. Today, using apps designed specifically for their role, construction managers can enter the work order with just a few taps on a mobile device. The change order automatically flows to the back office and is recorded in the core property management and accounting platform. The adjustment is fully visible to all parties and the construction manager...

Editor’s note: The following interview originally appeared in GCUC UK and is reprinted with permission here. Tony Freeth has seen the evolution of the office space industry firsthand. Co-founder of Phoenix Broadband and creator of Medusa, a product that handles premises infrastructure, Freeth has played a pioneering role in bandwidth management and workspace wifi solutions since the late-1990s. Recently, Medusa was acquired by global real estate technology company Yardi. Freeth, who was at the first Global Coworking Unconference Conference (GCUC) in Austin, Texas in 2012, has now taken the role of Director of Coworking Europe at Yardi. With two decades of experience, Freeth provides a unique and valuable perspective on the now-booming workspace industry. We spoke with Freeth about the evolution of the industry, Yardi’s acquisition of Medusa, and how commercial real estate has now adopted coworking as an asset class. Here are the highlights of our conversation. What’s your coworking story, Tony? How were you introduced to what was then a small movement? Tony Freeth: In 2010, I was talking to someone at Steelcase who told me I needed to go to Coworking Europe. While there, I came across a bunch of people who had a very different idea of how people could work in a space, based on collaboration and community. We tried to sell that message to our conventional customers for many years, and for a long time their response was, “No that’s not what we do. Everyone wants a door.” We told them when you put millennials behind doors, it’s like depriving a plant of light—they just wilt. I met [GCUC producer] Liz Elam at Coworking Europe and she invited me to Austin for GCUC. It became clear that U.S. coworking seemed extremely vibrant and extremely well-organized. I imagine your...