It’s no secret that the real estate industry is notorious for paperwork. Thankfully, the use of technology in property management has improved the way property managers handle important files. No longer do you need tons of filing cabinets to store documents or wade through an endless amount of paper to find the right file. With a reliable document management system, you can store and organise files easily and make retrieving documents a walk in the park.

Here at MRI Software, we understand just how crucial document management is to your business. This is why we developed an efficient Document Management System (DMS) in our cloud-based residential property management software, Property Tree.

But what makes Property Tree’s DMS the ideal document management solution for your property management team? Let’s find out.

Continue reading “Why Property Tree makes real estate document management easier” →

Relevant and timely communication is essential for every transaction in property management. But when you’re managing multiple properties, keeping track of your communication can be quite overwhelming, and manually doing so is just next to impossible. Thankfully, there are now tools to make managing communications easier in your property management software. In Property Tree, automated communications are designed to make transactions seamless and give your customers a better experience – utilising SMS and email to get notifications, alerts and reminders sent to the right people at the right time.

Here’s how you can easily reach out to tenants, owners and creditors with auto communications in Property Tree.

Continue reading “8 ways automation makes real estate communications easier in Property Tree” →

This blog post relates to Rockend, one of our previous brands. For more information please read the press release.

Elaine Stack joins Kevin on today’s episode of Rockend Rockstars. Described as an honest, personable, and down-to-earth person, Elaine is known to use her extensive real estate knowledge and meticulous processes to help her clients and tenants get the best results for their properties.

Continue reading “Elaine Stack: Putting service first in property management” →

MRI Ascend and the open and connected ecosystem took Anaheim, California by storm last week! More than 1400 real estate industry professionals and 60 partners gathered at the Anaheim Convention Center to network with each other and explore what’s new with MRI Software. We were thrilled to pull back the curtain on several innovative solutions that will help MRI clients do more than just stay ahead of the curve, but also rise above it.

MRI users conferences have always stood as the living embodiment of the open and connected ecosystem, where our clients can leverage flexibility and choice to create the solution that works best for their business. This year, we were excited to unveil a record number of new solutions designed to help real estate organizations in a variety of ways.

This way to comprehensive and flexible real estate software solutions!

At MRI Ascend, we proudly announced MRI Application Gateway, which provides a single point of entry to Platform X. Through an app-based launch screen, users can securely access their MRI and third-party applications, bringing all of the solutions you love and use regularly into one familiar interface.

We also unveiled MRI Secure Sign, which enables clients to efficiently create and send real estate documents for signature with purpose-built integrations from within the MRI platform.
As businesses continue to move operations online, it’s more important than ever to control and protect digital documents and signed contracts.

MRI Living
The MRI Living suite now includes two new innovations: MRI Payments and MRI Lead Management. MRI Payments allows multifamily properties to handle multiple payment types, including online and check payments, through an integrated solution that delivers a complete prospect and resident experience. MRI Lead Management brings leading-edge technology for tracking and engaging potential residents into the MRI Living suite of residential solutions to give owners and operators the ability to manage prospects from lead to lease. Today’s renters expect to be treated like people, not metrics, and the MRI Living suite enables residential property managers to take a customer-centric approach and improve the renter experience.

MRI @ Work
In the same way that MRI Living helps residential property managers meet the needs of their market, MRI @ Work houses all of the products that will help commercial property professionals rise above their industry challenges.

One of our newest products is made possible through the power of artificial intelligence. MRI Lease Intelligence brings AI-powered lease abstraction into the MRI @ Work suite of commercial solutions through the integration of Leverton and MRI. Acquired by MRI in July, Leverton enables commercial property owners, operators and occupiers to efficiently extract lease data and analyze it to gain insights. This solution ensures data accuracy by directly integrating MRI Lease Intelligence with MRI property management solutions.

Congratulations to the 2019 MRI Innovation Awards Winners!

At MRI, we think our partners and clients are pretty great, and we’re proud to be working together to drive transformation and openness in the real estate industry. Our Second Annual MRI Innovation Awards were announced on Tuesday during the general session, and we want to extend a very special congratulations to all who were recognized. Here are the winners:

Community Award: The CT Group
Flexibility Award: Harbor Group Management
Ambassador Award: Cecilia Li, Urban Edge Properties
Partner of the Year Award: insightsoftware

The future of real estate software is here

MRI Ascend is a living, breathing representation of the open and connected partner ecosystem that we strive to create for our clients. It’s an honor to do business with some of the most innovative and forward-thinking real estate organizations across the globe. While this year’s Ascend users conference was a huge success, we hope to see even more of our partners and clients in San Diego next year on October 25-28, 2020!

Don’t just stay ahead of the curve – rise above it!

This blog post relates to Rockend, one of our previous brands. For more information please read the press release.

What does the future look like for real estate agents and property managers?

While there’s no magic crystal ball to predict exactly what will happen in the next 5 or 10 years, the closest we in the real estate industry can get to is to look into certain factors and trends today that are shaping its future.

So, what will agencies of the future focus on? Is it disruption or diversity, people or profit? We sat down and talked with some of our most loyal and highly experienced customers about how the sector has changed and how it is likely to progress in the future.

Continue reading “The future of the real estate industry according to experts” →

This blog was written by Itzik Spitzen, co-founder and CTO of LeasePilot. LeasePilot, an MRI partner, is a context-aware lease automation platform. As the architect of the company’s software framework, Itzik takes a hands-on approach to managing the company’s technology strategy and software engineering teams. Itzik holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science as well as Practical Software Engineering diplomas from premier academic institutions in Israel.

Of all the things that need to be done during a leasing lifecycle, creating an abstract is far and away the most dreaded task. But because of the abstract’s centralized importance to the daily operations of every real estate business, it’s a necessity. And until recently, it has been a necessity with no shortcuts. But emerging technologies are finally providing viable alternatives to the traditional process.

At a conceptual level, there are only two possible ways that a lease abstract can be automated. But before I can talk about and compare each method, there’s some important background I need to cover first.

Making Breakfast with Structured Data

Computers and the software that runs on them — including the so-called “artificial intelligence” software — are dumb.

Coming from the CTO of a software company, that might sound like a provocative statement. But I don’t believe that it is. In fact, I think most of my peers would agree with me. If you’re skeptical, here’s an experiment you can try right now:

Step 1: Unlock your smartphone and open the Calculator app.
Step 2: Tap the following buttons: 2 + 2 =
Step 3: Observe the result

Hopefully your calculator produced an output of 4. Everything is working as it should. Go ahead and clear that result so we can continue. This time, let’s throw your calculator a proverbial curveball:

Step 4: Type the following sequence: 🥓 + 🍳 + 🍞 =
Step 5: Observe the result

At this point, astute readers may have noticed that Step 4 is impossible. Even WolframAlpha, the most advanced AI-powered calculator available to the public, can’t make sense of the emoji math above. But you probably figured it out instantly. The answer to 🥓 + 🍳 + 🍞 is, quite obviously, breakfast.

The reason why your Calculator app can’t handle EmojiMath is obvious enough: it wasn’t designed to understand emoji-based inputs. To enable a computer to understand EmojiMath, an engineer would need to add new rules to the calculator software specifying the meaning of each new emoji. The important takeaway here is that computers don’t have general intelligence in the same way that human beings do. Even so-called artificial ‘intelligence’ is task-specific; you can’t use a self-driving car’s AI to trade stock on the NYSE.

So what does all of this have to do with lease abstracts? Everything, actually. The purpose behind this exercise is to introduce the concept of structured data as the essential and fundamental prerequisite for software-based automation of any kind. Structured data describes information that is indexed and formatted in a way that a computer can understand. When you and I look at a lease, we see and understand the structure. But a computer does not. To a computer, there’s no structure to a lease beyond the string of words, punctuation, and line breaks that the document contains.

So when we’re talking about how a computer can automate a lease abstract, what we’re really talking about is how we can convert the raw, unstructured data in a commercial lease into structured data that a computer can understand. And there are only two ways that can be done:

1. Machine Learning Analysis
2. Context-aware ‘Snapshot’

The rest of this piece will discuss how each method works and when to use it. Note that these methods are complementary and have very different use cases. A cutting-edge leasing team will be able to use both in its workflow.

Method 1: Machine Learning Analysis

In a nutshell, the Machine Learning Analysis method uses advanced software to “read” a lease and convert it into structured data that a computer can understand. This process requires a lot of time and computing power, and as a result, a Machine Learning Analysis is typically only run after the final version of a lease is signed and executed. There are a handful of different technologies that a Machine Learning Analysis uses, but for the sake of brevity I’ll focus on the most crucial: Natural Language Processing.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) uses an algorithm to convert the unstructured human language in a commercial lease into a structured dataset that computers can work with. The algorithm works by comparing the unstructured language in the lease to a large sample dataset of pre-structured leasing language. Over time, the algorithm “understands” the meaning of the content in the new lease and builds a logical data structure around its findings.

Although these algorithms aren’t perfect—a human still needs to review the results and correct any mistakes—they “learn” more with each new lease and grow more accurate over time. With all of the grammatical oddities and complexities implicit in human language, this feat is nothing short of amazing.

Method 2: Context-aware ‘Snapshot’

Lease abstraction using the ‘Snapshot’ method is relatively new on the CRE scene. This method doesn’t require a complicated NLP algorithm, uses minimal processing power, and can produce an error-free abstract instantaneously (no human review required). Given all of these advantages over the Machine Learning Analysis method, you’re probably wondering why the Snapshot method isn’t common practice. Here’s the catch: a Realtime Database Snapshot can only produce an abstract from a lease that is drafted and revised using software built specifically for creating commercial lease documents.

Although specialized leasing software is relatively new, it operates on the same principles that every real estate lawyer and paralegal already knows reflexively: commercial leases have a logical structure with a predictable framework. For example, when an extension option is added to a base lease form, the lawyer drafting the lease automatically knows that s/he will need to update the term, rent tables, and assignment provisions accordingly. The lawyer knows the broader implications a single change can have because s/he is aware of the larger context.

Specialized leasing software operates on the same idea of contextual-awareness. It’s the equivalent of giving your computer a comprehensive ‘map’ of your base forms and option language before a lease is drafted. When it’s time to draft a new lease, the software uses the ‘map’ to build your lease with data that’s already structured. As default option language is added, removed, or manually modified during the negotiation process, the underlying data is continually updated in real time. With this approach to lease-drafting, creating an abstract is as simple as a ‘snapshot’.

Context-aware lease-drafting tools are relatively new to the industry, and as such the snapshot method isn’t as well known as Machine Learning Analysis. But as more and more landlords begin to take advantage of context-aware drafting tools, there’s no doubt that this type of software—and abstracts created with the Snapshot method—will be the industry standard in the next 5-7 years.

Use the Right Method

Now that you have a better understanding of both abstracting methods, the reasons why these methods are complementary are easier to understand. Let’s bring them into view more clearly.

When to use a Machine Learning Abstract

The primary advantage of Post-Lease Analysis is its flexibility. It can be used to create an abstract for almost any lease, which makes it particularly useful when landlords acquire new assets or wish to gather historical leasing data from their portfolio.

The downside of the Post-Lease Analysis method is accuracy and consistency. After the analysis is run, the abstract still requires human review and correction which limits the scalability of the method and eliminates the feasibility of abstracting each iteration of a lease draft during negotiation.

For these reasons, the general rule-of-thumb is that landlords should use the Post-Lease Analysis method for leases on tenant paper or legacy leases.

When to use a Data Snapshot Abstract

Producing an abstract using the Snapshot method is the future of leasing. Its advantages over Post-Lease Analysis are clear: It’s instant, it can be run with each draft to speed up negotiation, and it’s 100% accurate every time.

The obvious downside is that a Snapshot is only possible with leases that are created with specialized lease-drafting software on the landlord’s forms. But as context-aware lease-drafting software becomes the industry norm, this drawback is becoming less important every day.

This blog post relates to Rockend, one of our previous brands. For more information please read the press release.

Want a simple way to stay across your agency and portfolio performance? Keep your finger on the pulse of your business with the newly re-imagined dashboards in Rockend’s cloud-based property management software Property Tree, giving you access to not one but five dynamic dashboards.

Each dashboard aggregates and extract value from all the real-time data you collect, simplifying them into more manageable chunks of visual information. This means you can see what you’re doing right and where you need to improve on your agency, residential and commercial arrears, leases, vacancies and trust accounts… all critical components of running a successful property management business. You can even customise the content shown using smart filters, saving for future use if desired. For even greater visibility dashboards is also mobile friendly, so you can access on the go.

Let’s take a look at each of these dashboards and how they can be an invaluable tool for real estate agencies looking to stay on top of their business performance.

Continue reading “All you need to know about Property Tree’s 5 new dashboards” →

Customer service expectations continue to rise in the property management sector. More than ever before businesses need to work out how to use technology to help them do more in a more personalised manner.

Continue reading “Why is there a need to innovate in property management?” →