Right now, Atlanta-based apartment manager The RADCO Cos. manages around 5,200 apartment units for itself and third-party clients.

However, RADCO’s new senior vice president of operations, Chris Simon, who came over from Fort Washington, Pennsylvania-based Toll Brothers Apartment Living, expects that to change very soon. “We want to continue pushing,” Simon told Multifamily Dive. “We’ve got approximately 11,000 units in the pipeline in some sort of development stage or incoming acquisition.”

But that’s only the beginning. By the end of 2025, RADCO wants to be at 25,000 units a year. Right now, third-party constitutes about 35% of the company’s units under management with the remainder coming from communities that it owns. But expect that percentage to flip over time. 

“The brunt of our growth is going to come on that expansion of the third-party market,” Simon said.

RADCO currently manages properties in Atlanta; Raleigh, North Carolina; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Virginia Beach, Virginia, but to reach 25,000 units the company will move into new metros, like the West Coast and Central U.S. Here, Simon talks with Multifamily Dive about RADCO’s growth plans, acquisition opportunities and centralization.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

MULTIFAMILY DIVE: How do you plan to grow the third-party business?

CHRIS SIMON: We're going to grow in a couple of ways. I think a lot of that growth is going to be organic from us pounding doors and ringing phones. But we're also in the market of acquiring other management companies. So if we do meet that goal of 25,000 units by 2025, I would assume a very large portion of that is going to be the acquisition of additional management companies. 

Do you see more management companies being sold in the next couple of years?

We're seeing this capital debt market causing a large strain on organizational capacities. We are seeing some people that want to get out from under managing these assets, especially some of these mom-and-pops that have larger portfolios.

How are you thinking about centralization as you grow?

We already currently have a centralized processing unit. And that has allowed us to alleviate some of the onsite positions and decrease the payroll from a property perspective. So not only are we lowering the staffing count, but we're getting better consistency across the board by centralizing some of those operations. Specifically, this really relates to the assistant manager's job. They oversee move-outs, deposit accounting and high-level ledger interactions. We have rolled all of that to a central processing unit at our corporate headquarters in Atlanta.

What kinds of things does your processing unit handle?

We have two different divisions. So we have a director of system operations that oversees that central processing unit team. Underneath that director of system operations, we have resident account managers who are responsible for assisting with collection efforts across the board. 

Secondly, we have business systems specialists, and they're responsible for the management of lead generation and follow-up. We're continuously adding to that team. If you have 20 properties, we've removed 20 assistant managers. Now we have four people overseeing all of these aspects that I just mentioned.

How has RADCO incorporated artificial intelligence?

I’ve been in the industry for 17 years now. While you've always had to keep your thumb on the pulse with technology, it's really starting to turn over from more of an AI standpoint. 

At RADCO, we've already got an AI delinquency software that we're utilizing. We've already got an AI revenue management software that we're utilizing. We have an AI digital market survey software that we're utilizing. 

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