Can The Right Technology Help Asset Managers Save Time And Boost NOI?

It has been a busy time for building owners and asset managers. On top of all of their regular responsibilities — leasing units, handling tenant communications, managing property marketing — they are now dealing with the challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, from an initial influx of vacant units to the recent increased demand for multifamily housing. 

During this hectic time, it has never been more important for asset managers to be able to streamline the life cycle of a deal from lead to lease. Unfortunately, that is usually easier said than done.

“Owners, asset managers and their leasing teams are often faced with a long, difficult process when they attempt to lease up their buildings,” Yardi Senior Account Executive Turner Levison said. “They have to prepare and post marketing materials on several different sites, manage individual projects and legal needs for each new tenant leasing space, track commissions and more, all on various unconnected platforms which require various stakeholders to complete.”

Yardi, Levison said, designs tools that help make asset managers’ jobs easier, from marketing platforms to leasing systems and commission management tools. Now, the company has created a complete end-to-end solution for commercial real estate professionals that manages the entire life cycle of a deal. Elevate Revenue is a connected set of Yardi’s solutions that handles everything from lead to lease. According to Levison, the goal is to provide asset managers and their leasing teams with powerful automation, unparalleled visibility, collaboration and comprehensive insights.

Levison and his colleague, Yardi Senior Account Executive Matthew Gleason, walked Bisnow through these solutions and how asset managers can use them to streamline each step of the deal life cycle. 

Marketing 

The first stage of the deal life cycle is marketing. Traditionally, when asset managers have a property to market, they have to create a listing and then post it individually to several different sites. With Edge Marketing, Gleason said, asset managers can upload a listing that is then automatically posted to Yardi’s network of sites including CommercialCafé, PropertyShark, Point2 Commercial and Commercial Search, as well as to the company’s own website and top third-party commercial listing sites. Then, as leads start to come in, Yardi’s in-house verification team will vet each lead and filter out any spam or vendors. 

“We get rid of the noise and only pass on prospects that are interested in transacting on the space,” Gleason said. “It's about more effective marketing — putting everything that you have in one place to maximize your revenue across your portfolio, rather than letting things slip through the cracks. It’s also a nice bonus to update your listing in one place and those changes automatically sync across every site you want to market your spaces on.”

Macerich, an owner, operator and developer of retail and mixed-use destinations throughout the country, recently launched QuikSpace, a platform the company developed that offers tenants the flexibility to lease short-term space, do their research online and even virtually tour spaces. This new platform is powered by Yardi Elevate’s Deal Manager and Edge Marketing solutions. 

“Yardi’s CommercialEdge was essential to powering QuikSpace, Macerich’s new digital platform for frictionless, short-term retail leasing," said Aaron M. Spector, assistant vice president of specialty leasing at Macerich. "Yardi provided a highly user-friendly way for us to showcase our available space online, which supports our business goals of converting more prospects into tenants for our portfolio of market-leading retail and mixed-use properties." 

Deal Creation 

If a marketing campaign has done its job, the next step in the life cycle is for brokers and asset managers to actually put together a deal for the potential tenant. Deal Manager, Levison said, is Yardi’s leasing pipeline management tool that allows asset managers and owners to see what's happening in an active deal cycle and collaborate digitally to speed up deal flow and leasing processes.

“It's a pretty powerful tool that gives asset managers more insight into what is happening on proposals against prior leases and their budget,” Levison said. “It makes deals happen faster, and it makes them as economically efficient as possible.” 

After a lead comes in and has been vetted by the Yardi team, Deal Manager helps commercial real estate professionals create the most effective deal by comparing proposals against prior leases and budgets. This helps them approve only the best deals across their portfolio, and helps them see the net effect of rent across that particular deal and to compare it to their budgeting. 

“Yardi’s Deal Manager has proven to be a well-rounded CRM tool to assist our dealmakers in better managing leads so they can be even more productive," said Steve Schmid, senior business intelligence analyst/project manager at Macerich. "Deal Manager’s sophisticated reporting helps our executives make data-driven decisions to lease smarter and more efficiently. This impactful tool also gives us the ability to easily summarize important deal points to facilitate faster lease approvals.”

Legal

Once a deal is really in the works, the next piece of the puzzle is to draw up a lease and begin the legal process. This would typically be the beginning of various email chains with attached PDFs, Word Docs and a long stream of red-lines that can be a hassle to keep organized and moving along. With Yardi’s Legal Module, Gleason said, asset managers can automatically generate their standard lease agreements and modify them directly in the application.

Redlines occur in the app, all the proper parties are notified and the process is simplified and standardized. Once terms have been agreed upon, all parties can sign the lease electronically in the platform. 

“The goal is to reduce legal costs and accelerate the leasing process,” Gleason said. 

Commission Tracking 

Finally, once a lease has been signed, the last step in the deal life cycle is for asset managers to track and pay brokers their commissions. With Yardi’s CommisionTrac, Levison said, this process can be automated and done with increased transparency. 

As deals are completed, whether it be the management of incoming invoices from external brokerages, or managing the commissions of an in-house leasing team, Deal Manager pushes that information into CommissionTrac so the owner/asset manager can stay on top of both AP — accounts payable — and AR — accounts receivable. 

“This helps owners and asset managers stay on top of their own leasing team’s commissions and easily verify commission invoices coming in from third-party brokers,” he said. 

Putting It All Together

Macerich Executive Vice President of Business Development Ken Volk outlined how the company is simplifying every aspect of short-term leasing by digitizing the process with its QuikSpace platform, which is made possible through its partnership with Yardi. 

Kevin Yardi, vice president for global solutions at Yardi, said that the company is excited about continuing this partnership and that it was able to help design a unique system that integrates the entire leasing workflow, from the front-end website to the back-end accounting system

“Completing deals faster and with less friction benefits landlords and short-term tenants with an easier leasing process and convenient management tools," he said. "More than just lead generation, Macerich is changing the game for short-term leasing, and we expect other shopping center companies to follow their lead."

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

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