What’s Better Than a Crystal Ball?
When it comes to apartment community operations, the answer may just be AI!
What would you do with a crystal ball?
Play the lottery?
Find out who will win this year’s World Series?
Anticipate when your community’s boiler will fail?
That last one sounds a little mundane for a crystal ball, doesn’t it? Magical orbs are usually considered the key to making a fortune—or maybe saving Earth from a cataclysmic disaster, like an asteroid or a monumental tsunami. Boilers seem just so basic for anyone lucky enough to be able to see into the future.
Of course, crystal balls don’t actually exist. And the basics matter. A lot. The good news on the practical front is, you actually can predict when your boiler is going to need repair. In fact, so-called predictive maintenance is growing increasingly more accurate as AI is incorporated into Software as a Service. And that doesn’t just apply to boilers. More and better tools continue to be developed to anticipate problems with many physical aspects of operating your communities, making residents both happier and safer, minimizing repair costs and reducing the number of emergencies.
And there’s an added benefit, as Associate Editor Matthew Kaufman discusses in this month’s feature, “Reduce Your Exposure: Why Hi-Tech Buildings Are Safer.” Insurance companies like it. While it may not convince an insurer to cover your property in a high-risk location or to reduce your premium, the impact on the deductible can be significant. In one case, a water damage deductible dropped from $2 million to $100,000.
New advances in safety and security tools that incorporate AI can benefit your liability coverage, as well, since they not only keep residents and visitors safer but they can also produce detailed incident records.
“I tell people all the time, multifamily in 2022 is not multifamily in 2026,” Vingcard/Nomadix’s Sandy Jack told Kaufman. The ability to predict the future is just one good reason to be happy about that.
How well do you know your architect?
Meanwhile, we’re excited to launch our newest ranking, Top Multifamily Architects and Designers. This year’s results showcase the top 10, presenting some of the key information that determined the ranking plus a featured project.
We look forward to expanding that list in future years. Next month, look for our other new ranking of the year: the most active law firms in multifamily property. And the survey will soon be opening up for our most popular annual ranking: Top Multifamily Property Management Firms.
And look for the results in August!
