To succeed in business, you must first meet the basic core competencies that exist in your industry. From that point, you can differentiate your own company to position it for success. When a successful strategy or advancement is proven to work within an industry, it is broadly adopted and then becomes a new core competency that must be met. This pattern perpetuates. Within the property management industry, new technology is rarely part of that cycle. But that trend is now changing, thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Companies in the property management industry have quickly begun to realize that to succeed, you must be willing to adopt new technology to help move your business faster and more efficiently. This movement has led to companies investing in PropTech, a term coined to describe the intersection of the property management industry and emerging technologies. It’s no wonder this trend has been catching on: no other asset class in the United States is as large as the real estate industry. It was only a matter of time until it adopted new technologies to launch into the new age of property management.

How New Technology is Changing the Property Management Industry

Like nearly every other industry, property management companies have had to adapt their business models during the COVID-19 pandemic. People are traveling less, and so the challenge of providing competitive, relative, valuable information about real estate to customers has been a challenge. The industry had no choice but to adopt several key technologies.

One new technology is drones—those small, flying robots you may have seen hovering in the sky. Drones, fully equipped with high-resolution cameras, can provide a virtual tour of a property, complete with an aerial view. Being physically present is no longer a requirement to evaluate a property. 

Another key technology is the utilization of big data. Companies are using this data, which accumulates and compounds, to make smarter decisions within the industry and provide their customers with more valuable information. With big data in hand, companies can more effectively analyze trends and make more accurate forecasts.

Lastly, artificial intelligence, or AI, is widely regarded as a valuable technology in the industry. One-third of property management companies predict AI will have the greatest long-term effect on their future success. Because AI relies on machine learning, it can help identify trends that are difficult to quantify. And when combined with big data, AI is a particularly powerful new technology.

The Impact of New Technology on the Property Management Industry

Property management companies are utilizing new technology to advance their positions within the industry. This tech provides companies with two major advantages. The first is being able to prioritize the customer first. By this point, consumers have become accustomed to easy experiences. Think about having information about any topic readily available from Google, or quickly being approved for a mortgage loan from Quicken Loans, or even ordering your Starbucks ahead through their app. Across industries, technology has led to better customer experiences, and that is a major advantage that property management companies can now seize upon.

 The second advantage is being able to go mobile. It was not long ago that websites were exclusively built for desktop web browsers, but as smartphones became more common companies have been forced to make their websites and other services responsive on devices of any kind. That is no different with property management, an industry that is often quite mobile, moving from property to property.

For more information about new property management industry technology from trusted experts, visit the Coastline Equity news section.