New hire onboarding is a necessary process for all growing multifamily organizations. It is also a major pain point. Dominium, a Minneapolis-based leading apartment development and management company, set goals to double in size by 2025. To reach its goals, the company needs an innovative and efficient training solution. Maya Kasangaki, Senior Service Desk Technician and Yardi Trainer, explains how Yardi eLearning has prepared her organization for growth. Onboarding Dilemmas Dominium faced challenges that are familiar to other property management firms: high turnover and costly, inefficient training processes. The organization hosted monthly weeklong trainings for new community managers at the corporate office.  In addition to regular conference calls, these nearly six-hour training sessions consumed the majority of Kasangaki’s time. Once complete, she lacked a consistent way to track students’ understanding and content retention. “If we have training with 12 people on the call, it’s hard to make sure that everyone is absorbing the information. They aren’t as comfortable bringing up questions or starting a discussion in the midst of a training,” she observes. High turnover exacerbated the already frustrating situation. “Because of the staff turnover in property management, we would train someone but they didn’t have basic knowledge of the industry. The information we provided  was maybe going over their head. Then we would hire someone to replace them and we would have to begin this process all over again,” says Kasangaki. Dominium sought a training solution that would simplify and expedite new hire onboarding. Online Solutions for Onboarding and Growth In 2016, Dominium implemented Yardi eLearning. The company customized the curricula to include soft skills courses, videos, webinars, and more. Kasangaki appreciates the ability to deliver content in different formats, allowing learners to receive the information in a way that appeals to their...

Desperate times call for creative solutions. The city of Allentown, Pennsylvania faced a multimillion-dollar deficit, high crimes rates, and a dwindling population. A unique approach to capital investment saved the city, producing what the mayor calls “Allentown 4.0.” William Billowitch, Controller, City Center Investment Corporation, sits down with Yardi to explore the organization’s singular approach to development. Built from Necessity The city of Allentown, the third largest city in Pennsylvania, descended into a rut during the recession. Its blighted neighborhoods became a hotbed for crime. While neighboring cities gradually pulled out of their recession lows, Allentown continued to descend. In the effort to save the town, local leaders and visionaries from the public and private sector worked together to draft a revitalization plan for the urban core. With that plan in mind, real estate development firm City Center Investment Corporation created City Center Lehigh Valley. The mixed-use complex is helping to transform downtown Allentown into one of America’s most vibrant urban communities. It is a regional center of excellence for business, culture and metropolitan living. “Our objective is to stimulate downtown, the economy. We use pretty much almost all Pennsylvania labor, all Pennsylvania products, to build,” says Billowitch. With Allentown’s new arena, PPL Center, at its core, City Center includes more than 1 million square feet. The campus includes three Class A office towers, the Renaissance Allentown Hotel, STRATA East and West residential buildings, The Shops at City Center, upscale restaurant space and a co-working space called Velocity. The seven-story office building, One City Center, was the first installment of a 10-year master planned project. In addition to office space, it is home to a sports performance and fitness center. One City Center is currently fully leased. “Since then, we’ve opened a building every...

Casey Lynch and Mike Brown were graduate school classmates at UCLA when they started their real estate investment and development company, LocalConstruct, with limited funds and bona fide sweat equity. “We bought a $55,000 condominium in Fontana, Calif. that we painted and renovated ourselves. We were at Home Depot, buying our own supplies,” recalled Lynch. Flash forward nearly a decade, and LocalConstruct has become a thriving small firm with multifamily and mixed-use projects in California, Colorado, Idaho and Montana.  The Los Angeles-based company, a Yardi client, has developed 2,000 apartment units to date. Lynch and Brown have a specific vision for urban infill development. Seeking out markets with plentiful jobs but limited work-proximate housing, they have hit a sweet spot where limited supply meets unprecedented demand. We talked with Lynch about LocalConstruct’s market choices and formula for success.   You started your company in 2008, when real estate was in a desperate place. Why? Lynch: We saw a great opportunity to start an entrepreneurial enterprise, given the volatility in the market at the time. We raised a small fund to go out and buy single family homes and convert them into real properties in Los Angeles. You always hear developers who have been in the business 30 to 40 years talk about their first deal and working their way up the ladder. For us and our story, that would be true.   Things have changed tremendously since then. What happened to LocalConstruct in the last nine years? Lynch: We went from one unit projects to 2 to 4 to 8 to 20 to 100 to 300. We have a presence in four states in the West and we are focused on infill housing strategies, primarily rental housing, and we are focused on emerging markets...

With 8 communities in Illinois, Ohio and Michigan and 3 more in development, Randall Residence prides itself on a history of providing quality care dating back to 1975. Though the company has been around longer than the personal computer, they aren’t stuck in the past. In fact, by embracing the data management capabilities of Yardi to improve staff efficiency and more effectively manage operations throughout their portfolio, Randall Residence is using the best of modern technology to continue their track record of excellence. For Noel Salgado, a key element of the company’s success lies in its ability to harness the power of information. As CFO for Randall Residence, Salgado watched as the company transitioned from a small, regional company to a senior living provider with properties spanning three states. As the company evolved, its needs also changed, including demand for a comprehensive and integrated software system capable of incorporating accounting and care management. “As CFO I want to make sure I can see all the effects that are occurring in real time instead of having to wait a month before knowing whether anything needs to be adjusted,” says Salgado. From Basic to Comprehensive When Salgado first arrived at Randall Residence, the company was in the early stages of Voyager 6 integration. Although Salgado was aware of the software’s capabilities, he admits that at first Randall Residence was “using it in a very minimal way.” “We weren’t utilizing all the Yardi Voyager capabilities at first,” he says. “For the longest time, we used only a minimal portion of the software, before realizing the value of what we could do.” For Salgado, the realization hit when the company transitioned to Voyager 7S and began to add modules and expand utilization. “Moving from Voyager 6 to Voyager...

In the face of crippling budget cuts, housing authorities rely on innovation, resourcefulness, and advanced software to stimulate growth. Carlos Pizarro serves as Vice President of Housing at Housing Authority of the City of Lakeland, Florida. His decade of experience in the private sector made him an unlikely candidate for the position. That experience, however, is the key to the housing authority’s success. “Public housing and section 8 must change,” reflects Pizarro.  “It needs the private sector and the public sector to work together to create something new. I don’t see the government able to support Section 8 and public housing forever. There has to be an effort between everybody.” Such industry changes are felt across the nation. Fort Smith Housing Authority in Arkansas has managed to ride the waves of these changes under the guidance of Rachel Brown, Section 8 Director. “You can’t depend on public housing funding anymore,” Brown says. “Public housing is going away. A lot of us are focused on converting public housing into RAD.” Fort Smith Housing Authority demolished 170 of its public housing units. The 288 remaining units were converted to Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) units. RAD, per the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “allows public housing agencies to leverage public and private debt and equity in order to reinvest in the public housing stock.” The program is an effort to address a $25.6 billion dollar-backlog of public housing capital improvements. Blending funding options within a portfolio, and even within a single project, is one way that housing authorities stay afloat. Discovering untraditional sources of income is another. Innovative Incomes Both the City of Lakeland and Fort Smith housing authorities have created construction and development branches. “We got into developing properties, which is new for a housing...

To mark two decades in the senior care industry, Benchmark Senior Living recently embarked on a seven state mission to spread kindness and neighborly love in towns and neighborhoods where the company’s 54 senior living communities are located. For the month of June, residents living near a Benchmark community discovered care packages on their doorstep along with small helpful acts like a newspaper moved closer to their front porch, all with a note commemorating Benchmark’s “Radiant Acts of Kindness.” Employees committed to 1,000 such acts throughout the month. “This is Benchmark’s 20th anniversary year, and we want to give back to the communities and families that have supported our company’s growth since 1997,” Tom Grape, the company’s founder, and CEO said in a statement. “So, every one of our 54 senior living communities across seven Northeast states — and our home office in Waltham, Mass., — has committed to performing at least 20 Radiant Acts of Kindness during June in their local neighborhoods and towns.” Located in Waltham, Mass., Benchmark Senior Living operates 54 senior living communities throughout the Northeast. They offer services ranging from independent living to skilled nursing and memory care. For the last nine years, Benchmark has been recognized by The Boston Globe as one of the “Top 100 Places to Work,” and many of Benchmark’s executive directors and staff embraced the June initiative. Every one of Benchmark’s communities committed to the 1000 Acts, with many taking a creative approach that went beyond gift baskets to include washing cars, providing free tennis balls to neighborhood dogs to handing out random gift certificates. “We can’t wait to share these compassionate acts with West Chester and surrounding areas,” commented Doug Buttner, executive director, Wellington at Hershey’s Mill. “Our employees already have surprises prepared...

By adopting an electronic health record platform with a centralized database, senior living provider Northbridge Companies lives up to its commitment of providing best quality of care to its residents. When Northbridge companies made the choice to transition from paper documentation to electronic health records, the company’s primary objective involved eliminating redundant tasks and improving staff productivity. As someone on the front lines during the company’s switch to Yardi EHR, Marcia Suddy saw firsthand how swiftly technology can improve the workplace. “One of the biggest changes with electronic records versus paper is that you can lay your hands on information very quickly,” she says. “That reduces the length of time needed to resolve issues and helps us provide the best quality of care to our residents.” Live Well, Love Life Founded in 2006, privately owned senior living provider with 15 communities servicing residents across New England, Northbridge Companies has made providing quality senior care a priority for over a decade. Northbridge Community provides its 850 residents with an environment designed to “encourage freedom, offer lifestyle choices, and provide the necessary services to live life to the fullest.” When Suddy began her nursing studies, she quickly realized she felt a connection to seniors. “While I was earning my administrator’s license and BC certification, I absolutely fell in love with senior care,” she says. “I don’t foresee ever doing anything else.” As Regional Director of Care Services for Northbridge, Suddy feels great satisfaction working for a company she describes as being “passionate about senior care.” “It’s such a relief to work for an organization that truly lives up to the values they advocate,” she says. “It’s not just the president of the company, but the associates, the investors, the families. Everyone is committed to providing the...

When it comes to the senior living industry, one word reigns supreme: community. Whether it’s memory care, assisted living or simply providing the opportunity to live independently, all manner of senior living options pivot on the notion that residents and their families are keen to sustain connections and keep life in the golden years meaningful and nurturing. One key aspect integral to the creation of a senior community is communication, between staff, caregivers, residents and their families. “Communication is one of the biggest challenges we face as an industry,” says Dennis McCarthy, CIO at Superior Residences. “In the senior housing market, you are not just serving the resident, you’re serving the family that cares about them as well, so it’s important to ensure everyone stays connected.” Care, Comfort and Accountability Florida-based Superior Residences exemplifies the multifaceted nature of the senior living industry, with services ranging from independent living to assisted living and memory care. Superior Residences even provides a Day Stay Program designed to give at home caregivers a break by providing resident care for shorter periods of time from a few hours to the whole day. The company’s mission statement, “building trust so that residents, families and our team have peace” demonstrates Superior Residences commitment to creating an atmosphere of care and comfort based on a set of core values including “integrity, service, efficiency and fun.” As one of the company’s founders, McCarthy understands the essential role accountability plays in fulfilling those core values, an accountability made all the easier by the company’s use of Yardi Voyager for Senior Housing. “Billing needs to be as accurate as possible so that you can explain to resident why they are being charged and what services they are being billed for,” he explains. “When you have...

Bozzuto Management Company President Stephanie L. Williams was recently recognized by the Washington Business Journal as one of the top 25 minority business leaders in Washington, D.C. One of the co-founders and co-champions of the Bozzuto Diversity and Inclusion program, which strives to cultivate diversity at every level of the company, Williams has strongly held views on how those in the multifamily industry can make their corporate cultures more innovative and strengthen relationships with residents. What do you believe was the greatest factor in your success? Williams: I’ve been at Bozzuto since 2004. I came in as a development associate, having been brought on board as a result of relationships I started in graduate school. I learned early on that building relationships was a key to getting opportunities and to being successful. Once I joined Bozzuto I continued building relationships, demonstrating knowledge of the business and my interest in the industry. And that was evidence I was committed to the company and wanted to grow within the company. I was pretty vocal about saying I wanted to become a leader and also in saying, ‘Help me understand how to do that.’ I supplemented that with relationships outside the company, which allowed me to bring business into the company, whether it was a company we could partner with or build for. I’ve always been a big believer in mentors both inside and outside the company. They have helped me strategically navigate through my career, urging me to take risks and sometimes to show patience. And then just not being afraid to take risks. That separates the good from the great. There were times when I made a decision that wasn’t the right one. But showing the initiative and the willingness to think outside the box...

The British retail investment market joins the rest of the United Kingdom’s business community in facing a host of unknowns in 2017.  Chief among them is the timing and impact of the UK’s exit from the European Union following the outcome of the referendum in June 2016. Yardi caught up with one its partners, NewRiver REIT, a specialist retail and leisure investor, asset manager and developer whose convenience-led positioning means it is uniquely placed to navigate these uncertain times. NewRiver’s £1.3 billion portfolio includes 33 community shopping centres, 22 retail parks, 16 high street assets and 350 pubs. The portfolio provides consumers up and down the UK with its daily essentials – those items essential to daily life, the things consumers require, opposed to what they simply desire. Fundamental to the success of the business over the past seven and half years has been how NewRiver has engaged with and satisfied all the stakeholders within its chain, from store customers, retailers, peers, advisors and local authorities all the way to its institutional investors and shareholders. “At the heart of the retail sector is the customer and our business begins with building and retaining consumer loyalty,” says Emma Mackenzie, a Director at NewRiver who manages assets in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north-east of England. “At the local level, we make sure our shopping centres satisfy the needs of the towns they serve. Its about providing a variety of products and services at a price the customer can afford. Furthermore, we work hard to ensure the environment is fit for purpose – and that includes such basic factors as the centre being clean and accessible as well as bright and attractive and providing somewhere to sit down or get a cup of tea.” Brexit has triggered...

Each year, more than 4,000 households rely on the services of Everett Housing Authority (EHA) of Snohomish County, Wa. The new Pivotal Point community reflects the importance of new beginnings for residents as well as for the space that they occupy. Old Site, New Purpose The site of Pivotal Point is the former Oswald US Army Reserve Center. It closed as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) operation. Rather than sitting vacant, construction on Pivotal Point gave the space a new purpose. Fulfilling that new purpose, though, took longer than many anticipated. Financing and permits required the approval of numerous governmental organizations and stakeholders. Ashley Lommers-Johnson, Executive Director at Everett Housing Authority, recalls the challenges. “When you deal with multiple federal agencies, local agencies, the military–it’s just a lot of hands involved in getting all of the funding lined up. That was a significant achievement, getting the funding,” he smiles. In 2014, the property finally reached completion. Pivotal Point now serves as long-term housing for participants in the Domestic Violence Services (DVS) of Snohomish County program. All signs of its military past have been replaced with fresh, modern, and welcoming residential features, in a sense “a conversion from swords into ploughshares,” according to Mr. Lommers-Johnson. A private entryway and a cozy front porch adorn each of the 20 units at Pivotal Point. Shared stairs leading to the second-floor units open to reveal a courtyard speckled with greenery. In the center of the courtyard stands a protected playground. Parents can watch their children play from the covered benches nearby. Back on the main level, residents share a laundry facility. The adjacent meeting rooms are used for private and community gatherings. The project and its design have received national praise. Pivotal Point won the National...

The story of Janice Hill reflects the dilemma of many managers in the affordable housing sector: she wades through an endless stream of work while juggling several responsibilities at once. All this is done while dealing with, what seems to be, fewer hours in every day. “My title this week is business analyst,” chuckles Hill. She follows with a telling sigh. Also like many others in the industry, she loves her job. Hill has worked with New Directions for 18 years. She takes pride in helping people secure housing, giving them a stable foundation upon which they can build their dreams. But the demand for affordable housing continues to grow. Staffing and other resources can’t keep up. That’s why she and the small, dedicated staff at New Directions Housing Corporation are exploring how to help more people using fewer resources. The organization turned to Yardi for help. In 2000, New Directions implemented Yardi Advantage before upgrading to Yardi Voyager® property management platform in 2002. The web-based platform facilitates operations management, leasing execution, and easy analytics. The team recently updated to Voyager 7S with enhanced functionalities. Voyager 7S runs on any device using any browser. It also hosts user-friendly mobile apps and add-on products that allow New Directions to improve efficiencies and deliver competitive services to residents. Hill explains, “We chose Yardi Voyager because it was Windows-based and it had everything we needed it to do: management, maintenance, affordable, payroll. Everything was in one place. We got rid of a database and [two competitors] for the financials. Voyager got rid of all of these different programs that we were using to run New Directions. Voyager simplified it.” Voyager has helped New Directions do more with less. Streamlined and automated workflows promote efficiency, accuracy, and transparency...

Fairness and transparency are essential to every decision a public housing agency makes to determine which households receive housing assistance. Waiting lists, though often loathed by potential residents, are an important piece of keeping that process transparent. PHAs follow complicated rules set by the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to maintain waiting lists, which includes information like household income, veteran status, age, disabilities, and more. Depending on regional circumstances, it could be years before an applicant will be considered for housing assistance. PHAs typically open waiting lists to applicants for relatively short windows, since they could quickly become unmanageable if left open in perpetuity. To make waiting lists more manageable, PHAs periodically correspond with households to confirm their interest in remaining on the waiting lists for public housing or voucher assistance. Without routine maintenance, waiting lists would be perpetually clogged with households that have had a change in status, which may affect their eligibility, or are no longer interested in that particular waiting list. As important as waiting list maintenance is, it is also costly. PHAs have historically spent significant time and money on staffing, forms, and postage to keep waiting lists updated. Yardi PHA clients can now take advantage of a cost-cutting solution. It’s called Save My Spot, and it is a new standard feature of RentCafe PHA. Yardi is the only PHA software provider offering a modernized waitlist management solution, bringing relief to a longstanding industry issue. A RentCafe PHA Primer RentCafe PHA gives public housing and voucher applicants, residents and participants, and landlords online access to communicate with their local PHA, without having to visit the agency’s office. Households can sign up for a waiting list, submit applications, complete eligibility forms, upload documentation and more, all from a personal...

Arriving at the Rittenhouse Claridge in Center City Philadelphia on a cold winter’s night in January, the first thing you might notice is a charming string of white holiday lights over the lobby door. Stepping out of the cab into sub-freezing temperatures with wind chill, ducking inside the warm and welcoming lobby felt like stepping into the apartment of a dear friend. We were visiting Philadelphia to see first-hand how Yardi client the Kaiserman Company uses Yardi’s Procure to Pay platform to optimize its procurement process, streamlining ordering and delivery and making invoice approvals easier than ever before. Procure to Pay has helped Kaiserman save $60,000 annually, reduce paper use by 50 percent, and redirect staff time to other important tasks. The company uses the Yardi Voyager platform for its multifamily and commercial portfolios, and after implementing two years ago, has found the cloud-hosted solution to be invaluable. “We love it. I have been in the industry for awhile, used many different platforms, and Yardi is by far my favorite. Our leasing teams, our management teams and even our corporate office have access to Yardi. It just makes doing everyday tasks simpler,” said property manager Eric Schulz. The Rittenhouse Claridge One of just two apartment buildings located right on Philadelphia’s iconic Rittenhouse Square, the Rittenhouse Claridge was built in the 1950s by its current owner/operators, the Kaiserman Company. Over the last several years, an effort to restore the property to its midcentury roots has been underway, with charming results. On the building’s second floor, a sprawling common area with comfortable seating, fireplaces, reading nooks, game tables, a kitchen and private meeting spaces overlooks the Square. In one corner is the spacious gym, where a line of treadmills looks directly over the park. The vibe...

A leading property management company requires a software company that is able to accommodate the management of its developments. McCormack Baron turned to Yardi property management solutions to facilitate growth and improve efficiencies across its diverse portfolio.   Yardi Voyager Project Manager Karen Pruiett has been with McCormack Baron for nearly 30 years. She ushered her company through its first Yardi Voyager® implementation in 2004. Since then, she has seen McCormack Baron flourish and adopt new Yardi software to meet its needs. “We chose Yardi Voyager because of its excellent accounting background and the property management capabilities in the software,” says Pruiett. “We looked at different companies and you guys have the best accounting background. Also, the number of property types that you all support is amazing. That was a necessity for us.” Yardi Voyager is a web-based platform that enables clients with larger portfolios to smoothly manage operations. It is ideal for clients like McCormack Baron that manage a spectrum of properties. With Voyager, McCormack Baron executes leases, runs analytics, and issues innovative resident, tenant, and investor services. The software automates workflows and permits controlled transparency that enables the firm to collaborate with greater accuracy and efficiency. “Voyager has definitely improved our efficiencies,” Pruiett says. Yardi PAYscan Pruiett recalls notable savings with Yardi PAYscan™, a Voyager ancillary product that automates invoice processing. “PAYscan has totally saved our lives. We were doing a lot of manual invoice processing. Now that we can scan our invoices into PAYscan, it’s absolutely wonderful to have the image attached to the invoice, especially for auditing purposes.” Before PAYscan, the accounting team had to dig through file cabinets to find invoices during audits. Now, auditors receive limited access to PAYscan and they are able to pull images of invoices...

Yardi client Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Association (RRHA) recently broke ground on the expansive Churchill North/East End Revitalization project. East End Revitalization will include the demolition of the 504-unit Creighton Court public housing community. It will be replaced with a mixed-income community of nearly 1,000 energy efficient homes and apartments. Residents can choose between more than 40 townhomes, 240 market rate rentals, and public housing. The new neighborhood will include more than 500 public housing units to replace those demolished at Creighton Court. All units will be converted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Rental Assistance Demonstration program. The vacant Armstrong High School, the site of the project groundbreaking, is also being demolished. Upon completion, the 21-acre site will receive infrastructure redevelopment in preparation for housing. Construction may take a decade or longer to complete but the momentum and enthusiasm are growing. Mayor Jones says, “From this building will rise a phoenix of new possibility and transformation of persons who will be able to have better lives and better environments to live in.” Tammy Grubb, Housing Choice Voucher Program Supervisor with RRHA shares the Mayor’s enthusiasm. “We’re revitalizing the entire corridor,” she says. “We’re looking forward to a beautiful transformation. We’re so excited about the new housing. For Grubb, the housing is more than a shelter. She sees the new homes as stepping-stones towards a brighter future. “It’s like our mission at Richmond Redevelopment, to assist in finding housing, to encourage our clients who use housing as a stepping stone to build themselves up and take advantage of the programs that they need to step up and become more self-sufficient.” “We are also excited for the new opportunities that residents will have, personally and professionally,” says Grubb. The highly anticipated...

Maintaining a family-oriented company culture does mean limiting corporate growth. Westbrook Management of Milwaukee maintains the balance with Yardi Voyager. Westbrook Management supervises about 2,000 units, including 450 units of affordable housing. Anthony Franda joined Westbrook Management four years ago to serve as the Controller and CFO of the small organization. He quickly embraced the tight-knit office community. “It’s a small, family-owned organization. Because it’s small, we all wear a lot of hats. Everybody is valued,” says Franda (pictured, right). “I think having direct interaction with the owners allows me to see that I’m having an impact and that I’m valued and appreciated.” While the family-owned atmosphere was great for office culture, staying small wasn’t a long-term plan. Westbrook Management had the talent and will to grow. But Franda soon realized that an outdated software system limited the company’s capacity. Franda attended a National Apartment Association (NAA) conference in search of a solution to the outdated software. “We went to an NAA conference and saw everything that the industry was doing. Our system couldn’t handle anything, really, that the industry was moving towards. I realize that we had an antiquated system. Not only that, but the software company that we were with wasn’t investing in the product. They weren’t updating,” Franda says. “I realized that we were in the wrong system.” Westbrook Management thoroughly researched several software options before selecting Yardi Voyager. Franda explains, “Yardi is an industry leader and they invest a lot in new technologies. The one thing that I realized is that if you’re not constantly improving with all of the new technologies that are coming out, within a few years, you’re going to be antiquated. I needed to find a software company that is constantly improving their processes and investing...

For Yardi Matrix client John Azar, one of the most important aspects of any real estate transaction is rigorous due diligence. That means having the most comprehensive, up-to-date market information available to make a smart buying or selling decision. In 2016, Azar’s firm MACC Venture Partners began using Yardi Matrix for apartment market data, switching from their previous data source, one of the industry’s best known providers. “We kept looking at the disparity in cost and at the data being produced, and we really couldn’t find enough difference to justify the large cost difference between Yardi and our previous vendor,” Azar explained. “The integrity of the Yardi data is just as good and in some cases better, and Yardi offered much more competitive pricing. And Yardi is very responsive. Client services are always on point.” Ten-year-old MACC Venture Partners, which is closing in on almost 5,000 apartment units in the Southeast United States, has also made customer service a vital part of its success. The family-owned private equity firm is currently branching out into fund management – its first ever $25-$30 million fund will launch this month. “It is our first fund, a closed-end private equity fund. We are growing and making more products available to our investors. But we’re still a family owned company, so they are going to get the same service they would get from most real estate platforms, but with a family company touch to the relationship. We are very relationship driven,” Azar said. It has been a unique journey for Azar, who was born and raised in Aleppo, Syria, and emigrated to the U.S. at age 16. When his family arrived in the states, Azar spoke limited English and was wide-eyed as he experienced American culture in real life,...

The “Upgrade Like a Rock Star” series continues, offering insights for a smooth transition to Yardi Voyager® 7S, our latest property management platform. For the second installment, Kimberly Chambers, Senior Vice President, Accounting and Tax Services, at Buzz Oates real estate firm shares how she led her team through a two-month conversion from Voyager 6 to 7S. Getting Started The conversion of Buzz Oates models how a small team can make big strides towards efficiency in a short timeframe. At Buzz Oates, there are just 45 staff members using Yardi Voyager to manage 22 million square feet of real estate. “We run lean and mean,” laughs Chambers. “Since we expected our users to handle their regular workload and test, it was, ‘Okay, well, we’re going to test what we can and then we’re going to go for it.’ And we did. And the conversion wasn’t a very long timeframe.” The resourceful team prepared for the transition by watching training videos and tutorials on Yardi Client Central. Through the online portal, Yardi customizes virtual training tools to expedite user education for each client. Buzz Oates then invited Yardi specialists to offer onsite training for the group. The specialists covered new features in Voyager 7S and addressed questions that arose during the virtual training. Chambers says, “When a user had issues, the Yardi representatives were able to go around and help us get them up to speed right away. The users didn’t have to wait for our one IT person or myself to run around. We had a few more hands on deck that could answer their questions.” Testing and Challenges While a small staff size made training more manageable, it posed unique challenges during the testing phase. Without a designated IT team for the task,...