Artificial intelligence, data and new technology, in general, have wide-ranging potential to make property operations more efficient and, some would argue, make housing more affordable.

“Data, much like connectivity, is a lifeblood of this industry from the prospecting phase throughout the resident experience and throughout operations at some point,” said Kevin Donnelly, executive director and chief advocacy officer at The Real Estate Technology and Transformation Center during the OPTECH Conference last week in Maryland. The newly created, Washington, D.C.-based association is focused on the intersection of technology and real estate. RETTC was born out of NMHC, but is a separate, affiliated organization.

A patchwork of federal, state and local legislation can make it hard for multifamily providers to know how to handle data security, for instance.

“The reality is that Congress has grappled with how to approach data, privacy and security for far too long,” Donnelly said at the annual technology event of the National Multifamily Housing Conference. “There have been periods of time where we've seen starts and stops.”

The intersection of regulation, technology and housing came up often at OPTECH. Here are three takeaways from the conference:

Artificial intelligence

With Ameca, described as a cutting-edge humanoid robot pushing the boundaries of AI, as a presenter at the conference, it wasn’t hard to see that NHMC wanted to put artificial intelligence front and center.

AI brought massive efficiencies for Atlanta-based student housing, multifamily and built-to-rent owner PeakMade Real Estate after the company plugged it into its internet listing services and digital advertising, said Ashly Poyer, senior vice president of sales and marketing at the firm.

“We were just able to convert much faster,” Poyer said. 

Greg Stobart, senior director of maintenance and procurement and operations at San Diego-based apartment owner MG Properties, said his firm found success adopting AI for maintenance.

“The AI automatically sends out a call that connects with the maintenance team,” Stobart said. “It just handles all that, and then it emails and texts. It clicks on the phone number and calls the resident back, which is helpful.”

The view from the Senate

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) addressed the housing and technology challenges facing lawmakers. Warner, who has invested in hundreds of start-up technology companies, said the key to AI and housing will be the data sets that are fed into it.

“If there are inherent biases in that data,” AI could produce discriminatory results, he said. However, he thinks federal legislation, with some level of preemption of state and local laws, could give the real estate sector more guidance than “having a mish-mash of state and local requirements on AI tools.”

On the affordability front, Warner was intrigued by the idea of government incentives to revitalize worn-out strip malls.

“There is not a community in America, whether it's rural, suburban or urban, that doesn't have a dilapidated strip center,” Warner said. “Could we not think of a tax incentive that would revitalize America's strip centers … into some level of multifamily that might have some commercial?”

Centralization lessons

Although many operators are still in the midst of centralizing their operations, others have already had success with administrative, leasing and maintenance functions. But in the process, they’ve learned important lessons.

For instance, Ebony Landon, director of property operations for Chevy Chase, Maryland-based apartment owner JBG Smith, said her organization assumed its collections would improve immediately upon centralizing its platform. But that didn’t happen.

JBG Smith first needed to understand how its platform could work in the different jurisdictions in which it operated. “There's a lot of tweaking to the systems that we use,” Landon said.

For third-party operators, bringing clients on board with centralization can also be a challenge. “Not every owner has been down for it, especially as there is a trial and error in a lot of these things,” said Ian Bingham, senior vice president of business development at Buckingham Cos., an Indianapolis-based owner and operator. “Some people don't want to finance your trial.”

That means managers need to smooth out the kinks in their centralization platform before they introduce it. “We have to get it right before we roll it out,” Bingham said. “Otherwise, you're kind of licking wounds and asking for forgiveness, and sometimes that comes with a financial ask.”

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