President’s
PERSPECTIVE Katya Watson, CAM The Guild 2022 AAA President
MULTI-FAMILY: AN INDUSTRY OF INNOVATION
Honoring the past and celebrating the future
A
s I reflect on my career in the multifamily industry, I can’t help but admire the innovations that we have made in these last 20 years. For example, a highly impactful innovation in the apartment industry since I began in this industry, is going paperless! This has reduced the: • carbon copy resident ledgers • worrying about aligning the typewriter with the blanks in the TAA lease • the stack of files on a desk, having to file them or hunt the missing file down • running a calculator tape 3x’s for a batch of rent checks, especially when you could only do 50 checks per batch on a 300+ property. • And of course, reduced the time for the onsite team doing these manual processes to be able to shift to the digital demand. Our companies and properties now innovate daily because they are geared toward tech enablement - meeting the customer where and how they want to meet. That could be about how they like to communicate to how they want to tour and lease. Looking to the future, I predict that centralization is the up-and-coming innovation that will have the biggest impact on our industry. Removing the day-to-day tasks that can be done remotely allows onsite teams to do what they do best: connect with prospects and residents to take care of needs that cannot be performed remotely. This also helps reduce the administrative work to allow for more property walks for upkeep and asset preservation. We talk a lot about innovation, but there are a lot of pieces of tradition that have stood the test of time within the industry. The tradition that I find the most important is giving back to the community – whether executed by a company or the Association, there are so many great ways
to create an impact - the Doc and Gayle Young Food Drive, Habit for Humanity, or Ronald McDonald House – just to name a few! For me, the aspects of multifamily that kept me engaged and driven during my career were income potential, rent discount, and rapid advancement opportunities; but as my career progressed, I have found that the people and culture are what drive me. Networking has been a great way to learn about new products and services and of course, meet new people several of whom have become great friends. This truly is an industry of multi-FAMILY and the AAA is a big driver of this through their events, like the annual Trade Show. We are celebrating our 50th anniversary of the Trade Show this year, and it is going to be bigger and better than ever! This is a milestone year and should be celebrated with a big to-do! With continued innovations, we are seeing more and different, service options. Not only that, but supplier booths have also become more engaging and entertaining, which means it hardly even feels like work because it’s so fun! My advice to anyone attending their Trade Show for the first time this year would be: come early and find out what it’s all about! You will be able to expand your network, your knowledge of products and services, market your company and yourself, and get some great swag, some nibbles, and libations. Plus - the event is FREE! I hope to see you there!
Sincerely,
Katya Watson, CAM
2022 / SUMMER /
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