Real Estate Technology

Recently I was visiting someone at an upscale apartment community. I struck up a conversation with the Property Management and being me, I asked her what PM system they used. She told me and said he didn't like it. No names needed here. I asked her why she did not like the system and discovered a crucial reason.

It turns out that she has to fill out a report in Excel every week and email it to the Regional Manager. All, I repeat all, of the data on this Excel report is from the PM System. I suspect that not only does each Property Manager fill out and email this report, there is someone at the corporate office that consolidates the data and creates another report.

This very manual process could easily be automated with a custom report. It might cost a few thousand to create it but it would be a quick return on investment in process efficiency and accuracy. All it takes is for corporate to talk to the on-site Managers about there system needs.

Leverage the system you have!

The trend over the past many years has been to have software hosted and maintained by an Application Service Provider ("ASP") rather than the company maintaining the infrastructure to run the software. This trend has increased as most applications have become web-based. That is to say, the software is run with a browser (i.e. Internet Explorer) and can be access by anyone with a high-speed Internet connection. As high-speed Internet access becomes increasingly common the requirement for a Client Server application becomes less important. Many of the Property Management & Accounting software companies offer a hosted solution (e.g. Yardi, and Intuit RES). In fact, one firm only provides a hosted version (RealPage).

Should you allow your mission critical software (e.g. Property Management & Accounting system) to be hosted by the Vendor? Here are some pros and cons to be aware of before making your decision.

ASP Pros

There are still some Multifamily Property Managers using DOS applications like Rent Roll and the AMSI DOS version. Many of you may be surprised that these products are still in use and will wonder why do people still use them? Well, frankly, they work, albeit with risks! Smaller, cost conscience firms find it difficult to justify spending the money for an upgrade when the old DOS system still gets the job done.

The expense to upgrade to a new product can be a lot. Plus, new equipment, training and changing business processes can be daunting and costly. But is the risk of staying on the old DOS application too great? I say "YES!" Early versions of Microsoft Windows actually ran on top of the DOS platform; however since Windows 95, DOS is no longer needed and has fallen in disuse. That does not mean you can't still operate a computer with DOS, in fact there are some companies that will sell you a PC with FreeDOS as the operating system. DOS is not the only problem or risk, you have to consider the hardware, support, expertise, security, and opportunity costs.

Risks of not Upgrading

Hardware

Studies have shown that many IT projects are considered to be failures. The Standish Group has reported high failure rates for years and recently a study by KPMG found that about half of the respondents reported at least one failed project in the past year. Why do projects fail? The reasons are too numerous are varied to identify; however, I'll discuss some common failure points. This is not isolated to IT; it applies to any type of project such as implementing a new software, improving a business process, creating a community marketing plan, or any thing that can be defined as a "project". So, what is the definition of a "project"? According to the Project Management Institute ("PMI") "a project is a unique temporary endeavor, with a set beginning and end".

Now that we defined a project we should also define "project failure". That is to say, how do you know if the project failed or succeeded? Ah! That is actually one of the reasons projects fail! In other words, not defining the success criteria can lead to failure. For example, if we implemented a new software system and it worked exactly as the vendor stated but nobody in the company uses it, was the project a failure or successful? I worked on a project for a large Federal Government Agency and something similar happened. It was on a project that occurred before I arrived. There was a large IT project that was scrapped because the business didn't like the way it worked. But people in the IT Department were patting themselves on the back for delivering the product on time.

Okay, so what are some common reasons projects fail?

• Lack of clear scope of work
• Not defining the project success criteria and expectations
• Lack of communication
• Inadequate planning
• Lack of skilled resources
• Unrealistic time, budget, and/ or scope
• Lack of risk management
• Lack of Senior Management and Business ownership support and involvement

As I said before, there are many reasons why a project may fail, but if you take care of these common issues your rate of success will be much improved.

Don Wood is a PMP with over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information. 

I wonder how many people have upgraded to MS Office 2007 and long for the old familiar look? I for one don't love the new "Ribbon" look. I've been told by a Microsoft Partner that the reason for the change was to make it easier for people to find features. The story, as told to me, was that Microsoft did a survey of most wanted enhancements for Excel and the most requested features were already in the product! The Ribbon design is an attempt to make it easier to find these features.

If you don't like the "Ribbon" you can have your old menu bar back; at a cost. I have not done this so I can't recommend any vendors, but if you do a Google search you will find a few companies that sell a tool to display the old menu bar.

Whether you are on WORD 2007 or an earlier version there are a lot of keyboard shortcuts you can use. Everyone is familiar with the popular ones like Crtl+B to bold a highlighted word, and of course the Crtl+C to copy and Crtl+V to paste. Here are some lesser known shortcuts that can be very handy:

The shortcuts

Keystroke	Function
Ctrl + Shift + D	Double underline the selected text
Ctrl + ]	Increase the size of selected text by 1 point
Ctrl + [	Decrease the size of selected text by 1 point
Ctrl + Shift +>	Increase to the next font size
Ctrl + Shift + <	Decrease to the next font size
Ctrl + Shift + A	Make selected text all caps
Ctrl + =	Toggle subscripting for selected text
Ctrl + +	Toggle superscripting for selected text
Ctrl + Shift + Q	Apply Symbol font to selected text
Ctrl + Shift + N	Apply Normal style to current paragraph
Ctrl + Alt + 1	Apply Heading 1 style to current paragraph
Ctrl + Alt + 2	Apply Heading 2 style to current paragraph
Ctrl + Alt + 3	Apply Heading 3 style to current paragraph
Ctrl + Shift + L	Apply List Bullet style
Ctrl + 0 (zero)	Apply or remove space above current paragraph

If you would like a list of 80 MS WORD 2003 Shortcuts, send me an email request and I'll send you a copy.

 

Don Wood is a PMP with over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information. 

If you are a multifamily third party property manager and use RealPage's OneSite Accounting you are going to like the Bill Back feature.

The Bill Back feature allows you to to create an Accounts Receivable invoice and the system will automatically create the Accounts Payable bills for the properties. So, if you are paying for items such as landscaping fees, telephone, delivery charges, etc. you can create an Accounts Receivable entry for the Owner and an Accounts Payable entry will be created for the individual properties. This is particularly helpful when dealing with payroll expenses.

This is a really nice feature that is not available in some other well knows packages. Most other accounting applications that can do this do so by use of their job cost module.In this case, the feature is part of the Accounts Receivable module.

Multifamily revenue management has been a hot topic of late. There are products on the market that will cost a fair amount and help you to optimize your pricing. Often these products have a proprietary calculation method that gives you the recommended rental price for a unit. If you have Yardi Voyager 6.0 you already have this feature available to you.

Revenue Management comes free with Yardi Voyager 6.0. Granted, it is not as feature rich as other products such as RealPage's Yieldstar but it is included in your base application.

What can you do with Yardi Revenue Management?
The revenue Management functions include market surveys and pricing models.

• Market Surveys
  • Subject property
  • Comparison properties
  • Comparison groups
  • Collect market survey data
• Pricing Models
  • Create pricing models
  • Preview model rents
  • Calculate new market rents
  • Review and post new market rents

You already collect market surveys, right?
You are probably already collecting market survey data and entering the information on a spreadsheet or a paper form. With this tool you just enter that data into Voyager. The module will then maintain the information and allow you to use it for analysis and reporting. You can capture data such as property name, number of units, percent occupied, rents, unit types, amenities, etc.

The market survey reports list the data and includes graphs. The standard reports include market survey and rent comparables, effective rent trends, and comparable ratings. Imagine how impressed your boss will be when you present a report with graphs showing the valuable data you have gathered!

Flexible Pricing Models
Voyager allows the user to create pricing models. Instead of using a proprietary black box methodology, Yardi puts you in control. The pricing model is basically a set of rules and measurements that define how new market rents are calculated. There are pricing factors that you can weigh and rate according to your particular market.

Once you have run the pricing model, Voyager will provide a suggested market rent that you can accept or adjust before posting it to the system.

If you have Voyager 6, then you really should look at this functionality. It is easy to use and oft overlooked. I suspect that if more people use this feature and begin asking for enhancements, Yardi will make it even better.


Don Wood is a PMP with over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information.

A few years ago, Microsoft purchased the Great Plains accounting software company and rebranded it as Microsoft Dynamics - GP. This product is not about to take on the property management software leaders like Yardi and Intuit RES (MRI), however, it does offer a solution for a much needed niche: corporate accounting, consolidations, and non-real estate related business accounting.

There are excellent property management software products that manage resident traffic, rent, maintenance, etc. Where they often fall short is in handling the corporate office accounting. In the past JD Edwards has been the leader in solving this problem. However, MS Dynamics-GP is starting to gain momentum in this area. Several large multifamily companies use MS Dynamics - GP. A few months ago I helped CAS (Riverstone's parent) select MS Dynamics-GP as their corporate accounting platform. I have since assisted Aztec Systems, a Microsoft Partner, better understand the Multifamily requirements.

Microsoft has placed GP in their Office division and that has enabled some powerful integration with MS Office. For example, a report can be run in GP and placed in an Outlook folder. Users can open the report and drill down to data from their Outlook and never log into GP. Therefore, they don't need to purchase a license for GP. Microsoft has taken a best of breed approach and rather than developing their own software modules they promote tight integration. This can be very good for users. For example, job cost, project accounting, project management, and project controls can be crucial to many multifamily companies. Microsoft Dynamics-GP has partnered with WennSoft to bring a full featured product to the table. Microsoft also empowers and encourages their partners to develop add-on products. Binary Stream has created a feature that really enables GP to work in the multifamily space. GP on it's own doesn't handle multi-company consolidations as well as needed. But Binary Stream created the Multi-facility module that makes multiple entity consolidations a snap. In a nutshell, the module enables users to process centralized and decentralized AP/AR accounting transactions for multiple entities within a single company database. The same partner is also working on a real estate management module. It will be interesting to see how that develops.

I realize this post sounds like I'm a shill for MS Dynamics-GP. I'm not. I think JD Edwards is a fantastic product as well as some others. I'm independent and want people to know about their options.

Don Wood is a PMP with over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information.

Is there a future for Twitter in multifamily facilities maintenance? I think there may well be! Those of you using Twitter have seen the social media, personal, and business uses of this tool. I read an interesting article on WIRED (http://tinyurl.com/bz3569) that points out how some people are using the open architecture of Twitter to notify them of such things as when their laundry is done or if someone has broken into their home.

This got me thinking about facilities maintenance for multifamily communities. Imagine a facilities technician receiving a Tweet ( a notice from Twitter) from a malfunctioning pool equipment or the club house HVAC system? A broken security gate could Tweet the repair staff before a Resident reports it! The ideas are endless.

It might even be useful to Leasing Consultants. Perhaps they are on the property away from the office, someone opens the office door and a Tweet is generated to their phone. Again, I can imagine all kinds of possibilities. Perhaps it could be integrated into the facilities maintenance software to create a work order!

Don Wood is a PMP with over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information.

We all want to work smarter, right? Well, I have a great way to increase productivity and improve your communications at the same time. There are software companies offering tools that provide additional functionality to Microsoft Outlook. I'm not promoting any particular company. However, there are two providers that I have tried and used with their products with success:

• MapiLab
• Sperry Software

Both companies offer similar products. I have successful experience with two products that offer these features:

• Manage attachments
• Send an individual email to multiple email addresses

There are other add-on features that I have not tried but sound promising such as:

• Hide fax numbers
• Reply to all monitor

My experience
The manage attachments add-on was a huge productivity boost to me when I worked for a firm that limited the size of our inbox. This add-on automatically removes the attachments in an email and saves them on your hard drive. There are options on how you organize the attachments. The tool, inserts a link in the email that you click to open the attachment. For example, if John Smith sends me an email with a 2MB file attached, the tool takes the file, removes it from the email, replaces it with a link, and saves the file to a folder organized, in my case, by the sender's name. It saves me from having the 2MB file in my Outlook folder and getting a warning that my mailbox is over the size limit.

My favorite tool is the Send Individually addon by Sperry Software. In the past I have sent emails to a large number of people using blind copy to protect everyone's privacy. But when I do this, if I'm soliciting advice, I get few responses. I believe most people think "oh, someone else will respond to him". With the Send Individually, add-on I can have the tool send an email to multiple addresses, each with the person's name inserted into the body of the email, this makes it appear to the receiver that I typed a personal email to them. When I have done this, I get a much higher percent of people responding.

The other two products I mention sound promising but I have yet to try them.

Hide Fax Numbers
When you click the "To..." button on an email compose screen you get a dialog box that lists all of your contacts, the list includes fax numbers. This tool hides the fax number entries.

Reply to all Monitor
How many of us have clicked the "reply to all" button in an email and regretted it later? The Reply to all Monitor add-on pops up a warning anytime you select "reply to all" to make sure you really want to send it to everyone on the email list.

There are many more add-ons for Outlook. I encourage everyone to consider these tools as an easy productivity boost.


Don Wood is a PMP with over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information.