Panelists discuss the infusion of technology at RealShare Apartments.
LOS ANGELES—“Technology has increased production for everyone,” Nate Hanks, principal at RealSource said to kick off the 24/7 Tools & Strategies: Tech & Innovations for Day-to-Day Operations panel on day one of RealShare Apartments. The panelists—Matthew Blake, president, CEO and private investigator at Franklin Data; Christian Davis, regional VP at Pinnacle; Kevin George, president and COO of InfoTycoon—deliberated the advantages of and strategies for integrating technology into the real estate industry.
With so many technology options available, Hanks wondered how the panelists were choosing apps for multifamily property management. George said that asking the right questions is crucial in choosing the right apps and technology platforms. “It must start there,” he said. The questions he gave as examples included understanding the user experience, integration and how you plan to leverage the data.
According to George and Blake, adopting new technology is about making better decisions as much as it is about efficiency. However, rolling that out across a company can be challenging and requires a that management learns how to govern it or “you'll be jumping through landmines,” said George.
There are clearly many advantages to technology, but Davis says that there are still improvements to be made in accessibility and affordability. He thinks that real estate technology needs to move toward customizable dashboards with a single login that aggregates information across data platforms. While the technology does exist, it isn't widely available or cost effective to most companies, especially small to midsize users. For that to happen, he says that computer writers need to scale the technology to bring the cost down, but that it will likely it will be larger companies who invest in the technology first.
Blake is working toward affordable platforms at his data company. They have taken the same approach to cyber security has many larger more traditional companies but have fractionalized it to scale down the cost. Cost was a huge concern from all the panelists, but they also agreed that technology is still new. As companies figure out a way to scale the technology, the cost will come down.
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Kelsi Maree Borland
