I attended NARPM (National Association of Residential Property Managers) in Orlando last month and found it a great experience. Everyone that I talked to was friendly and very engaging. If you are in the property management industry, and have not checked the organization out, I recommend you do (http://www.narpm.org).
There is quite a positive vibration going on in the property management arena. And it is clear they are interested in staying on top of where technology is going and how it can benefit them. With an environment of growth and additional work loads, everyone was searching for ways to improve how they did things. Some people were attempting to use older software systems and using complicated interfaces to hold them together. It was very refreshing to see how much interest there was in online property management software. Essentially everyone I talked to was looking to move to the web so that they could gain the ability to have full access to the power of the internet and how it could help them advertize properties, give prospects easy methods of inquiring about the property, allow prospects to fill out online applications, and provide ways for residents to pay rent online.
It is interesting how, at times, I find myself struggling with change. I used to carry a Franklin planner and used it faithfully. Then several of my colleagues began to use Palm III devices. I used to kid them about how my pencil never ran out of power and how I would never use a PDA device. Now I use a PDA mobile phone and could not imagine using a paper planner. I guess it is called paradigm shift.
Web based property management software is the future and if you add in the fact it is more affordable and less costly to maintain. Well, we get our cake and eat it too.
Rob Crichlow
DIY Real Estate Solutions
Sorry I missed out on NARPM conference this year, I plan on going next year. Thanks for the write up, I know what you mean about changing – right now I am switching from using Outlook to gmail on the web and it is a little hard for me.
Great example for dealing with change. I use Google docs for team collaborating and it does take some getting used to.
Rob.