Apartment Executive Panel Gives Outlook on Work From Home

The work-from-home and work-from-anywhere phenomenon across most all business industries – including property management – is alive and well, but for how long?

Leading multifamily CEOs discussed the potential return to the office and other topics during a presentation on Tuesday at the MFE Conference hosted by Zonda in Las Vegas.

It featured Ella Neyland, President, Steadfast Apartment REIT; Tom Toomey, Chairman and CEO, UDR; and Gregory Bates, President and CEO, GID

“Working from home was not something that even existed in my mind the past 40 years,” Neyland said. “But it’s here now. To me, it’s hard to not be in the office. You need to be with people. You can’t replace the dynamic of conversations in the hallways.”

She said today, many workers are demanding it, saying, “they’ve shown they can do the job away from the office and have earned [the privilege] to continue doing so.”

Neyland said most of her executive team has been working in the office for many months now.

“We’re looking into creating different working environments for different departments, even within the same company office,” she said.

Bates said that GID allowed for remote work even before the pandemic.

“It’s something that can work if you’ve built up trust, but I see a desire to come back to the office happening eventually,” Bates said. “We’re social creatures. We’re better off in the office.”

Bates said his company’s culture is strong, and it’s something that is evidenced by when prospects come to interview with the company.

“There’s a positive, infectious feeling our people show that makes people want to come work with us,” he said.

UDR Takes Automation Approach

Toomey said UDR has cut 40 percent of its staff – operations or executive level-wise—the past few years as it moves boldly to a more self-service approach as well as outsourcing some functions to save on payroll costs, including the use of bots for some menial onsite tasks.

“Look around and you see that self-service works; it’s in all of our lives. [95 percent of] our renter prospects told us that they’d rather tour the apartments on their own,” he said. “They wanted to buy, and not to be sold to. This led to us having a much smaller leasing staff.”

He looked at some positions that were earning $25 per hour, but said it was really closer to $70 per hours when all other employment factors were considered.

Toomey said since the moves, his employees have seen higher salaries, flexible working hours and resident satisfaction scores are up 35 percent.

Lightning-Round Commentary

The panel was hit with a few quick questions that called for short responses. Among the commentary:

• Toomey said Wi-Fi is the new must-have amenity as washers and dryers used to be, “and smart-home technology is not far behind that.”
• Bates said right now that “capital is not king; capability is.”
• Neyland said when she looks around and to the future, it’ll be “more renters and less owners.”
• And Toomey said the apartment industry will soon introduce a new “version 2” of its pricing engine, one that improves upon revenue management.