Technology can play a role in streamlining the operational complexities of managing hundreds of units
Property management companies in the MENA region play an extremely important role – they are the bridge between tenants and landlords to help make the interactions and experience for both parties in the transaction become actually enjoyable.
Running a property management company is not easy. It’s a service that is operationally intensive and requires a back-office that can handle everything from scheduling viewings to preparing contracts to following up on the dozens of service requests that can be opened on a daily basis. As a result, these property management companies often have to hire a significant number of admin staff to manage all the units under their portfolio.
However, property management is a field that is ripe for technological disruption. Specifically, technology can play a role in streamlining the operational complexities of managing hundreds of units, allowing property managers to focus on the work that adds the most value to landlords and tenants alike.
Here are a few trends that we will see changing up property management as we know it.
Internet of Things
What if the refrigerator, air conditioning unit and washing machine units could all be connected to the Internet? In the not-so-distant future, IOT devices (mini-computers that are attached to our devices) can live inside our home appliances. Imagine a world where before a tenant complains about their refrigerator not being cold enough, the property manager has already been notified and has sent a message to the tenant to schedule a time to get the fridge looked at. A combination of hundreds of these sensors across all the units that a property manager handles can give him a realtime view of what needs addressing and when!
Leveraging on Artificial Intelligence technologies, property managers can also be informed about when a device is about to fail based on the history of the hundreds of other connected devices. These predictions allow property managers to make timely decisions to replace or service parts of a unit before any real (and expensive) issues arise.
Automating market insights with AI
Property managers are responsible for having a good sense of market trends to determine how to price a unit that just came up on the market, or what price to offer a tenant when they are about to renew.
There will come a time where leveraging on market data points (e.g. house prices on Property Finder), AI solutions will be able to give property managers an idea of whether their unit is attractive in the market or not. If a unit is overpriced, property managers can even see a predicted number of days that their unit could be in the market before it can be rented out.
These AI solutions can also pull in social data (e.g. LinkedIn data), market data and neighborhood details to give property managers an idea of how likely a tenant is to move out. If a unit is significantly under the market rate and has amenities that are highly attractive, AI insights may indicate that it will be unlikely for the tenant to leave, giving the property manager an opportunity to bring up prices to the right market equilibrium.
The AI-driven automation and insights will help property managers react to changes in the market to ensure that they are always maximizing the yield on the units they are managing.
Chatbot/Virtual Assistant – 24/7
While human assistants can only work a limited number of hours a day, a virtual assistant can work round the clock to solve the peskiest of problems
for tenants. Soon, we’ll start to see virtual assistants acting as the first line of defense for most property management companies. These chatbots will be able to answer straightforward questions that arise (e.g. FAQs), they will also be able to open and file tickets that a human can address once they get into the office.
Companies, like ask porter in the UK, have embedded their chatbot into Google Home devices, allowing tenants to ask questions to a bot wherever
they are in their home.
AR + Mobile-first experiences
Tenants will soon be able to call someone in the property management company, and in a live stream, show (or record) where something is broken. Companies like PlaceNote in Canada are providing technologies that do just that – users can take a video and leave virtual notes that others can pick up on. For example, tenants will be able to use a video and augmented reality technologies to pinpoint where exactly a leak is happening.
Summary
If all these technologies add up, we can soon start seeing a fully tech-enabled property management experience. From the viewing to the contract signing to filing service requests, new technologies pose some really great opportunities for property management companies to stand out.
Yi-Wei Ang
VP of Product, Property Finder
