Technological Innovation in the Multifamily Industry: Separating Hype from Reality

As winter turns to spring, my thoughts turn to the annual Apartment Innovation and Marketing (AIM) conference. AIM has always been interesting as it brings together the cream of multifamily marketing for a meeting that showcases creativity, technological innovation and the things our industry should be doing to engage residents and promote our product.

This year, technological innovation takes center stage – as I argued previously, we are at a technology tipping point in multifamily, the like of which we have not seen since the late 1990s. With so much going on—smart home tech, the growing role of AI, short-term rentals and more—now is an exhilarating (and challenging) time for multi-family housing operators and marketers. AIM provides a focus on what this all really means so we can separate the hype from the reality.

The theme of separating hype from reality is one that we will develop in a new general session that we’re delighted to be delivering at this year’s show. In “Technology Investment Outlook 2020” (which takes place on Monday, May 5^th)  we will present the findings of our recent 20 for ‘20 study – based on interviews with 20 leading operational and technology executives – and their implications for the multifamily technology ecosystem.

In addition to the outlook presentation, we are sponsoring - for the first time in our company’s history - a lunch at AIM on Tuesday on an “invite only” basis. The lunch will feature a facilitated conversation on Three Tried and Trusted Ways to Increase Conversions and NOI. We’ll be joined by multi- and single-family rental industry veteran Tina Mortera, Senior Vice President Marketing at Progress Residential as we discuss three critical opportunities:

• Why everyone’s doing Sales Performance Improvement in 2019 and how smart companies are doing it. As the 20 for ‘20 study identified, leasing is the highest training priority for 2019.
• Self-show is coming - single-family housing has figured it out. The 20 for ‘20 research also identified a surprising hesitation to embrace self-guided tours in multifamily.  Given how well it’s been working in single-family, we think this is a missed opportunity, so Tina will discuss how it’s been working for Progress Residential.
• The power of email re-marketing. In the past few years, we’ve run two studies into the use of email re-marketing by multifamily companies.  We are finishing a new run of the same analysis and will preview the results with this select group

Through investments in activities like the 20for20 white paper and our email re-marketing studies, we remain committed to providing you and the industry with forward-looking, practical information and advice on how to maximize your NOI.

If this is interesting to you or any of your team members, please reach out and we will be happy to make sure you/they get an invitation to this exclusive lunch and learn opportunity.