Top Tech Changes In Property Management

This episode will dive into the top tech changes implemented in the property management industry and what it means for business. One of the biggest challenges property managers to face is being more efficient, staying organized, and keeping track of everything all at once. We'll also discuss what's coming next and how these new technologies become more and more intertwined with real estate.

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Know more https://www.bargeproperties.com/

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Top Tech Changes In Property Management

Any thoughts on the technology side? You touched on it a moment ago, but what technologies are you seeing that are making a difference in your operations? While we're on the theme of technology, not the technologies you're seeing, what are you excited about in the future? What are some pain points you still feel can be addressed by founders out there?

I have found that having the main center point of technology and how it works with property management is starting with your property management software. If that is something that is user-friendly for both the residents, the employees and owners, then that makes a huge difference. I've been on both sides of it. I've had bad property management software, and I've had good property management software. That makes a huge difference and there can be substantial cost variations. That's a huge thing.

I also have found that finding software and technology that can keep as much under one umbrella is important. The more you have to try to get a resident or employee to sign up for 10 different things, 10 different services or programs, that’s 10 passwords and 10 logins, it becomes cumbersome. They start to not want to deal with it. Simplicity is a big deal and a big role of technologies to make people's lives easier and not creating more clutter. The more the technology firms and companies could try to integrate things together would help adoption rates and daily users go up.

I've said this before in another episode, a startup can come up with the most beautiful UI, UX, strong value proposition, great AI in the back end, and delivers real value. If it doesn't connect to the property management system, if it doesn't fit into the natural workflow of the end customer and user, it's not going to get any adoption. Retention is going to be terrible and it might be a deal blocker. You can't get your foot through the door if you're not integrated.

You can correct me here if I’m wrong, for property managers, it's not just about the cost. It's about the savings, and it's about making life easier. The mental burden of having another login and password is not worth the stress. There's more to manage, and more can go wrong when you have these technology solutions that if they're not used correctly, can also cause damage.

I cannot agree more. If you're in this business, there are a million different products now and you're always getting emails of, “I have this new product for lowering vacancy, this or that.” The fact is, especially if you have a mid to larger-size company, if you decide to undertake one of those products, it's a big undertaking. It’s a big undertaking between training, integrating, and getting it to be used all the way down on the property level. It's quite a lot of work.

Simplicity is a big deal. A big role of technology is to make people's lives easier, not create more clutter.

Having it integrated with whatever the current property management software is, and as an easy add-on makes a huge difference because it becomes, “Here's where you click once you log in. Here's how you use this feature.” It's not like, “You’ve got to go to a whole different application and jump through all these login hoops.” A big recommendation on my end of real-world usage is if you can work with some of the larger property management software companies to get your product to integrate it, the usage would go up dramatically.

If you're not in PropTech and you're a venture capitalist coming into real estate, it's a common mistake to invest in a company that doesn't have a good distribution channel. Distribution channels are critical here because you're relying on the gatekeepers, the big software management companies, and they are not easy to work with. Integrating into them can take a lot of work and some of these companies are in need of disruption. They're not the friendliest towards startups, which is a difficult place for startups to be in PropTech. It's easy to blame the industry as slow and old-fashioned, but the gatekeepers are powerful, and they are part of the reason why PropTech is taking off, but not taking off in the way it has the potential to.

I agree. For a smaller PropTech firm that's trying to get their prod product out there and show its unique value, because I've seen it happen, you take that idea and try to integrate it with a major software company, they start thinking, “We can do some variation of that,” and it comes out themselves. It's happened to me and I've seen it happen with something as easy as eSigning. It wasn't a feature on our property management software and so we looked at using a different company because it was so necessary. Next thing you know, you look up, and the management software has its own eSign feature now. I can see how that can be tough for a PropTech company to get going and make a big splash.

Tyler, I'm glad you said that. If I said that I might sound quite like a negative or pessimistic VC, which is not what it's not fashionable. You need to be optimistic if you're going to be in my shoes as an investor. To hear the reality, I haven't seen this in many industries, maybe in healthcare a little bit where you've got Epic, Mercer, and all these other large systems. They’re the gatekeepers.

In other industries, I encourage startups to be loud about the roadmaps and blueprints. I still trend towards that ideology. Openly share your idea but the problem is, when it comes to moats and barriers to entry, the property management software companies are powerful. They can, and do, steal ideas and implement them. Maybe it was on their roadmap, and it happened to ship coincidentally, but it's pretty scary. I've thought about starting my own PropTech startup many times, and it always comes down to, “I'm going to have to integrate with Yardi, Entrata, AppFolio, and all these other software platforms.”

What stops them from getting one of their engineers or two to implement this feature in record time and get mass distribution for it? Nothing does. You're hoping that it'll be slow. You’re hoping they will keep being difficult to work with so that they're replaced by something more friendly. This is a challenge in the middle layer of PropTech. The middle layer here is the distribution channel. It's tough. Tyler, this has been fun. I appreciate this. We do have a lot of investors who read this and a lot of PropTech startups will be eager to email you. If someone wants to partner with you guys or hire you guys as a property management firm, could you spell out the best way for them to contact you?

First of all, thank you for having me. We're in the same vein. We're always looking for ways to make life easier not only for our employees, but for our owners, investors, and ultimately, the residents. Seeing a lot of disruption and great new ideas coming out of the PropTech industry and it's exciting to see those changes. There are so many more options, and it'll be fun over the coming years to see what takes off what doesn't.

Also, see some of the new big players and where trends are going because it seems to always be changing. Year after year, it’s something new in real estate and technology is going to become more and more intertwined with real estate. I’m excited about that. For any more information about Barge Properties and what we are doing, you can visit our website at www.BargeProperties.com. If you'd like to discuss anything further, I'd be happy to. My email is on the website. I look forward to it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

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The Struggles of the Rental Market for Both Renters and Landlords https://youtu.be/0jx6tdfHof0

About Zain Jaffer:

Zain Jaffer is an accomplished executive, investor, and entrepreneur. He started his first company at the age of 14 and later moved to the US as an immigrant to found Vungle, after securing $25M from tech giants including Google & AOL in 2011. Vungle recently sold for $780M.

His achievements have garnered international recognition and acclaim; he is the recipient of prestigious awards such as "Forbes 30 Under 30," "Inc. Magazine's 35 Under 35," and the "SF Business Times Tech & Innovation Award." He is regularly featured in major business & tech publications such as The Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch.