Zero Genie

When it comes to technology, the real estate industry has traditionally been slower to embrace advancements than many other fields. Breakthroughs eagerly adopted by other industries initially met with resistance from leading real estate players, leading to the kind of delayed adoption that unnecessarily hems in sales and profits.

But as competition has grown more robust year after year the real estate industry has followed others to one realization. Companies must embrace technology or wither and die. The key, some say, is identifying the right partners to grow with the industry.

According to KPMG’s 2018 Global PropTech Survey, almost a third (32%) of property management respondents identify artificial intelligence as potentially exerting the greatest impact on their companies long-term; another 17% identified big data and data analysis as most significant. When asked how they planned to innovate digitally and technologically, half said they would collaborate or partner with an existing supplier, while almost 60% planned to collaborate or partner with a new supplier.

Investment initiative

One real estate firm, 30-year-old investment and property management firm Laramar Group, with offices in Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver, so believes in the future of PropTech that it established its own tech fund, Nine Four Ventures.

The fund identifies technology that can positively impact Laramar’s operations, Laramar professionals test the technology, provide input and helpful suggestions to providers and position Laramar for returns on investment when the technology goes to market. “In our opinion, maintaining the status quo from a technology standpoint isn’t an option,” said Kurt Ramirez, Nine Four Ventures general partner.

”Technology advancements are enabling more efficient building operations, resident expectations are evolving, and leasing and marketing teams are being forced to keep up, and that’s just for starters. We believe there’s tremendous value in being on the leading edge of technology investment and deployment, and our partnership with Nine Four allows us to be on the forefront.”

A sample of Nine Four’s portfolio includes construction loan automation software platform Built Technologies; next-gen short-term rental firm Stay Alfred, and vertically-integrated commercial appraisal firm Bowery Valuation.

Small sampling

Tech suppliers and solutions focused on property management appear every day. Identifying even a fraction of them is beyond this article’s scope. But a small sampling gives a sense of the breadth of tech innovation coming to property management.

Anyone Home. The Lake Forest, Calif. company’s solutions and services address effective and comprehensive engagement experience for prospects, residents and leasing teams, and include Anyone Home CRM, Access Scheduler, lockboxes and smart locks.

“When a property company invests, it can force them to break their scope-lock and avoid the sometimes dangerous, debilitating statement of ‘We have always done it this way,’” says Todd Katler, Anyone Home CEO. “Challenging the status quo is always a great attribute.”

Entrata. The 16-year-old Entrata is the only property management software provider with a single log-in, open-access Platform as a Service (PaaS) system. Its online tools include websites, mobile apps, payments, lease signing, accounting and resident management, and its open API and selection of third-party integrations let property managers choose the technology and software best fitting their needs.

“While the importance of implementing tech is growing . . . in the real estate world, it shouldn’t be done haphazardly,” says Entrata president and CEO Chase Harrington. “Real estate organizations should have a clear vision of what they are aiming to accomplish with any tech implementations, and they should work with providers that can integrate with their current systems and provide any necessary training or feedback in a real-time manner.”

STRATIS IoT. An IoT platform that addresses the complexities of multifamily and student housing, STRATIS IoT delivers seamless “sidewalk to sofa” credentialing for staff, residents, vendors and everyone else accessing multifamily buildings, trims energy costs by 15 to 20 percent by reducing energy usage during lease up and vacancies, and in general offers automation that results in intelligent buildings.

Matterport announced in September its new Matterport 3D Capture for Smartphones, making possible 3D capture through iPhone and Android smartphones. Matterport’s AI-powered image-processing technology, Cortex, can comprehend any physical space, and the objects, rooms and characteristics of them.

With more than 5 billion smartphones globally, Matterport’s new innovation “will enable anyone to try Matterporting a room, a studio, an apartment and much more, for free,” said CEO R.J. Pittman. ““Matterport’s ever expanding support for a broad spectrum of cameras ensures we can meet our customers’ needs with best-in-class performance.”