Proptech Tools Are Great, But Only If You Have The Systems To Manage Them

The labor shortage has hit nearly every industry, including commercial real estate property management. This has left many CRE owners with a host of impressive proptech tools and smart home technology to offer their residents, and few people to make sure they are running smoothly.

“The pandemic reorganized the labor market across all industries,” said Jeremy Miller, senior commercial director of Smarthome Solutions for General Electric Appliances. “Talent has changed, and that is having a serious impact on how property managers are able to meet residents’ needs.”

In a survey conducted last year of more than 1,000 property managers, 50% said human resources, staffing and recruitment were their top post-pandemic challenges. Miller said that he has personally heard from companies whose maintenance staff is down 20% or more, including many housekeeping staff who would be the first line of defense in reporting any issues with smart appliances. 

“These people are pretty critical to your operations,” Miller said. “I think what a lot of hotel and property managers are trying to think about is how they can maintain the level of service they were providing before, given that expectations are increasing and they need to differentiate, deliver new value and make the experience even better.” 

For property managers facing the reality of this labor shortage, GE Appliances has a solution. GEA’s SmartHQ Pro system allows property managers to remotely monitor appliances, receive proactive alerts, and perform precision diagnostics during maintenance visits. This way, they can know what is happening with a particular unit before a tenant even reports it, from filter cleaning reminders to a dishwasher leak to smaller issues that may not even need to be serviced by a technician.

These solutions have become particularly attractive for owners of vacation rental properties, where owners can reap a tremendous amount of revenue, but also face substantial risk. With tools like GE Appliance’s SmartHQ Pro, these owners will be able to detect whether or not appliances within their properties are experiencing any issues, allowing them to resolve issues before guests check in and keep room inventory online.

“When the appliances in a rental are not working, this can have a dramatic impact on both the investor’s bottom line as well as future revenue,” Miller said. “When rentals need to be serviced, they can’t be rented and if a problem is discovered after a guest checks in, then it has a high probability of resulting in a bad review.” 

Miller added that with so many proptech solutions coming on the market, owners should first and foremost choose one that is built with modern technology in mind — not the technology of 20 years ago. That means systems that are open and able to interoperate with other devices, platforms and ecosystems. Beyond that, owners should ask themselves if the solution is going to meet their specific needs and have a clear sense of the quantitative and qualitative value it will deliver, and how easy it will be to adopt.  

“I think the thing that gets in the way of a lot of people's success when they buy software is it ends up not being exactly what they're looking for and they can’t get it to take off within their organization,” Miller said. “Or the solution doesn’t help the people who need to use it do their jobs more effectively. Part of what we are seeing in the workforce is stress and fatigue, and if a property can deliver tools to reduce this stress, they can retain and recruit staff better.” 

Miller said that newer solutions like SmartHQ Pro run on systems like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Salesforce, taking advantage of all the solutions that those infrastructure providers are delivering.

“Google, for example, helps us understand how to build machine learning models to predict failures with appliances that normally would not even be detected by our sensors, it's more of a pattern analysis that helps us understand,” he said. “So I would tell owners to look at companies that are also working with their vendors closely to really take advantage of all the innovation that they bring. If you are just hosting your applications with these vendors, you are not driving real innovation.” 

Miller said that it all comes down to proactive maintenance, which is important across all industries but becomes very difficult during a labor shortage that makes it challenging to address problems as they arise, let alone before they occur. With SmartHQ Pro, property managers can be informed of equipment that might be in need of routine maintenance and stop problems before they start, even if they don’t have the labor force or experience to spot those problems on-site. 

The labor shortage has forced property managers to rethink and retool their operations, leading managers of multiple properties to choose to centralize their offices, rather than having staff spread out in each location. Miller said that the right proptech tools can allow them to have this centralized system while still staying on top of issues and providing high-quality service to residents. 

He added that he has heard from many GE Appliance clients who said that SmartHQ Pro has also helped them reach their energy savings goals. The remote management system allows them to monitor their heating and cooling and manage the settings to cut down on costs. One client, Georgia State University, was regularly facing issues caused by maintenance staff leaving HVAC systems cranked up for months at a time when no one was using the dorms. 

“So for three months, these things are running at full blast, just chewing up tons of energy, and you can't go to hundreds of dorms to check on them,” Miller said.

With SmartHQ Pro, the university system now has the systems to manage that. 

“SmartHQ Pro gives us more capability to remotely monitor our Zoneline units in our residence halls for proactive maintenance in addition to giving us greater control for managing energy,” said Bob Nichols, associate director for facility operations at Georgia State University. 

Steven Kopf, founder and CEO of lighting, energy and technology solutions company Lumenant, said that his company believes that a life of wellness starts with healthy spaces. Lumenant is working to reinvent the standard of senior living by creating cleaner, safer and more appealing properties by installing advanced technologies. SmartHQ Pro is the "heart and soul" of the GE Zoneline PTAC systems that the company offers to its partnering senior living communities, he said.

“[SmartHQ Pro] is vital to keeping residents safe and comfortable, and truly gives everyone involved peace of mind,” he said. “SmartHQ Pro allows us to go above and beyond, giving us visibility into thousands of units at once. We know when systems need maintenance or updates before those living or working in the building do across thousands of units at once — gone are the days where families complain because a resident’s room is too hot or cold. This technology is seamless and really a total game-changer for our clients, and for us.” 

SmartHQ Pro can also cut down on service calls by alerting property managers to issues that might appear to be a total system failure, like a washing machine that has stopped working due to too much detergent being added, leading to friction in the system. While in the past it might have required an expensive technician visit to diagnose that issue, with SmartHQ Pro, property managers can check the dashboard to see if it’s a simple fix that just requires the restarting of the cycle. 

“Those are the sorts of benefits that we're delivering to the market that are really impactful because they add up the real, immediate savings,” Miller said. “And it also creates a better experience for the tenant, while also not being a drain on your resources.” 

This article was produced in collaboration between Studio B and General Electric Appliances. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

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