Interestingly enough, technology has found its way into the commercial and residential real estate markets as well as the property management industry. While the industry has seen some sizeable returns on investments in state-of-the-art technology, the following is a list of some of the current technology trends in both the commercial and residential real estate industries.
Commercial and residential investment properties will exhibit a greater need for real estate market intelligence and research – there’s been a significant increase real estate market decision-making and intelligence tools that help professionals determine what market, product, and timing is right. For example, you now have the ability to access important data sources and statistical methodologies.
Expanded utilization of software for managing revenues more cost-effectively – with the right revenue management software, an owner or property manager will have the ability to base their rental rates on current local market conditions as well as projected future trends in the local geographic area. Basically, they will be adjusting rental rates in much the same way that hotels adjust theirs based on the economic concept of supply and demand.
Increased requirements for data integration will be implemented – this is true where property management applicants along with vendor-specific software are concerned. As an example, the Multifamily Information and Transactions Standard (MITS) and the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) recently developed standard application templates that will share data. This ensures that data will be shared consistently between processes and systems while eliminating obstacles in the process.
Internet-based purchase order systems will play a significant role in commercial and residential property portfolios – there are end-to-end solutions that are fully functional and can navigate throughout the a purchase order’s entire life cycle from the creation of it up to and including when the vendor has paid the invoice. This enables investors and property managers to track expenses more effectively while at the same time ensuring that the purchase of goods and services is approved properly.
Tenant screening technology will become more sophisticated – investors and property managers will be able to improve their profitability through a number of different technologies including:
- criminal background and rental history checks
- ledger integration capabilities
- rental history databases
Property managers and owners will even be able to protect themselves by determining the amount of risk in dollars of certain tenants and offset this with increased security deposits. In turn, occupancy rates will increase and so will your profitability. That is your aim of investing in prime properties, in any case.
In summary, investors and property managers who have invested in these technologies are experiencing more profitable growth than those properties that are experiencing a higher turnover of staff members or have new, untrained personnel managing them. The bottom line is that technology has impacted the commercial and residential property management industry and is showing no signs of slowing down.
