Real Estate Investment, Asset Management
Article | May 5, 2023
Effective digital asset management is crucial in real estate. The solutions enhance accessibility, security, and productivity and help professionals navigate the challenges of managing digital assets.
Contents
1 Effective Digital Real Estate Asset Management
2 Five Key Challenges in Digital Asset Management
2.1 Lack of Centralized System for Digital Assets
2.2 Limited Access in Remote Work Environment
2.3 Difficulty in Managing Large Volume of Assets
2.4 Inadequate Protection for Digital Assets
2.5 Disparate Asset Management Systems
3 Top Solutions to Overcome Digital Asset Management Challenges
3.1 Cloud-based Storage for Centralized System
3.2 Virtual Private Network (VPN) to Expand Accessibility
3.3 Automation Tools for Large Volume Asset Management
3.4 Data Encryption to Protect Digital Asset
3.5 Application Programming Interfaces to Connect Disparate Systems
4 Transforming Businesses with Effective Digital Asset Management
1. Effective Digital Real Estate Asset Management
Digital real estate asset management is crucial for businesses from creation to distribution and archiving. Effective digital asset management provides a centralized source for data with tags and unique information fields for correct usage resulting in workflow improvement and enabling seamless collaboration. Real estate digital asset management in comparison to property management ensures effective sharing and routing of files, allowing immediate access to updated files. Digital asset management systems are essential for effective real estate marketing, providing streamlined workflows, enhanced collaboration, and better asset organization and management. The ability to quickly and efficiently access and manage digital assets can provide a competitive advantage for real estate firms, ultimately leading to increased sales and revenue. Along with the benefits of digital asset management in real estate, there are challenges that businesses face; so, it is essential to overcome the digital asset management challenges using the right solutions.
2. Five Key Challenges in Digital Asset Management
Managing digital assets in real estate has been a task for the managers and professionals in the industry to streamline the process and for efficient operations; knowing the significant challenges in advance and getting prepared in advance is necessary.
2.1 Lack of Centralized System for Digital Assets
The lack of a centralized system for digital assets can pose significant challenges for real estate businesses. When digital assets are scattered across various devices, cloud storage accounts, and platforms, it becomes difficult for team members to access and utilize the support needed, further leading to delays in project timelines, errors in asset usage, and a lack of consistency in brand representation.
2.2 Limited Access in Remote Work Environment
With the rapid switch towards a remote work environment, real estate professionals face the challenge of limited access to digital assets stored on local servers or company networks. It results in a struggle to access vital information, leading to productivity issues and hindering the real estate business’ ability to serve clients efficiently. Without access to essential files, team members may face delays in responding to client requests, creating a negative impact on client satisfaction and, ultimately, the affecting business’ bottom line.
2.3 Difficulty in Managing Large Volume of Assets
Managing large volumes of assets becomes a daunting task as the real estate industry continues to rely on digital assets for marketing and communication purposes. Organizing and maintaining digital assets gets challenging and time-consuming without adequate latest real estate marketing tools like digital asset management systems. As the volume of assets grows, managing them manually becomes increasingly complex, leading to errors, duplication of effort, wasted resources, and affecting profitability.
2.4 Inadequate Protection for Digital Assets
As real estate asset management operations turn into virtual functions, cybersecurity threats become a more significant concern, that includes the loss of digital assets, especially those containing sensitive information such as financials, strategies, and prospect contacts. Real estate businesses that fail to protect their digital assets adequately damage their reputation and face legal as well as financial consequences.
2.5 Disparate Asset Management Systems
Using diverse asset management systems across various departments or teams can lead to confusion, miscommunication, and errors in asset usage. The back and forth caused by miscommunication slows down team operations. Businesses and team members without digital asset management systems fail to provide context to files like adding descriptions, collaborators, or connections to specific projects, resulting in misinterpretation about asset placement and potential obstacles in achieving desired outcomes.
3. Top Solutions to Overcome Digital Asset Management Challenges
Digital asset management is a crucial aspect of modern businesses. However, it comes with challenges, and leveraging the latest tools and solutions helps overcome challenges and transform how businesses operate.
3.1 Cloud-based Storage for Centralized System
Cloud-based storage can overcome the lack of a centralized system challenge for digital asset management by providing a secure, centralized location for all digital assets. With cloud-based storage, real estate professionals can access their digital assets at one centralized location. It eliminates the necessity for physical storage devices or multiple cloud storage accounts, making it easier for team members to quickly find and access the assets they need. Additionally, cloud-based storage provides more significant flexibility in managing and organizing digital assets, enabling the use of tags and metadata for easy searching and categorization.
3.2 Virtual Private Network to Expand Accessibility
Virtual Private Network (VPN) helps in expanding accessibility for large volume digital assets. By using a VPN, real estate professionals can securely access a cloud-based storage system from anywhere with an internet connection, enabling them to upload, download, and manage digital assets remotely. This can increase productivity and reduce errors and duplication of effort, thereby positively impacting the real estate business' profitability. VPNs also provide added security, ensuring that only authorized users have access to sensitive digital assets and resulting in improved business efficiency.
3.3 Automation Tools for Large Volume Asset Management
Automation tools can help real estate businesses overcome the challenge of managing a large volume of assets by streamlining the management process. Automation tools like content recognition software, AI-powered asset management systems, and metadata management tools help complete tasks quickly and accurately, reducing errors and minimizing the risk of duplication of effort that was once done manually. In addition, automation can be used to set up workflows and approvals, ensuring that assets are reviewed and approved before use, improving quality control.
3.4 Data Encryption to Protect Digital Assets
Data encryption involves converting the data into an unreadable format only deciphered by those with the encryption key. This process ensures that even if the data is intercepted or stolen, unauthorized parties cannot access it. In the real estate industry, data encryption can be applied to sensitive client information, financial records, and other critical data to prevent cybercrime, protect the company's reputation, and comply with regulatory requirements. Real estate businesses can ensure digital assets are secure and protected from cyber threats by implementing data encryption.
3.5 Application Programming Interfaces to Connect Disparate Systems
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) help to connect disparate systems in digital asset management by providing a common language for communication between systems. APIs allow different software applications to exchange data and functionality, enabling digital asset management systems for real estate businesses to integrate with other business systems like CRM or ERP. The integration can further automate workflows, reduce duplication of effort, and increase efficiency by allowing data to flow seamlessly between systems.
4. Transforming Businesses with Effective Digital Asset Management
Successful digital asset management in the real estate industry improves both internal efficiency and client service quality. Real estate agents can more effectively market their listings to prospective buyers and renters by keeping digital assets for a property up-to-date and easy to access. Furthermore, future real estate transactions will be conducted digitally, with seamless residential and commercial property purchases and sales. Major stakeholders will benefit from increased transaction speed, lower transaction costs, and increased data availability by utilizing digitalization in real estate.
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Real Estate Technology, Asset Management
Article | May 30, 2023
When people talk about real estate investing, they often only talk about whether the value of the home goes up or down. While that may be true if your only investment was in your primary residence, it completely misses many strategies for creating wealth through investment properties. The fact is, there are five different ways owning investment real estate can help create wealth for you.
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Real Estate Investment, Asset Management
Article | May 25, 2023
Impactful service-enriched housing programs and onsite supportive services build a foundation for serving the unique needs of a rental community’s tenant base. Quality services that address the individual concerns of each resident help eliminate the challenges that force turnover and increased expenses for property managers. Service-enriched housing includes the incorporation of programs and services within a community that advances the social and economic skill set of tenants.
Meeting net operating income (NOI) and covering debt service obligations are key performance indicators for property managers. Tenants must be valued because they are crucial to improving the financial performance of a community or property. Without support in discovering a realistic path to self-sufficiency, these improvements made will not promote the stabilization of a tenant population.
The key outcome for a community through the implementation of service-enriched housing programs is internal revitalization. Tenants benefit socially and economically from services that support access to job readiness, education and financial growth. During this time of economic instability, our resident services coordinators help remove barriers that plague many living in rental housing communities. Through its partnership with Esusu, Rainbow has alleviated tenants’ significant economic hardship by bridging default payments with no-interest loans. Tenants can use the company’s rent reporting platform, which sends on-time rental payment data to the three major credit bureaus – allowing them to build and develop their credit scores.
Prioritizing tenant empowerment offers tangible and intangible changes in a property, leading to increased financial performance and improved tenant retention. It also reduces turnover costs for property management such as flooring, paint and reletting fees. Free programs and services also improve the marketability of a property to prospective tenants. Rainbow communities have seen a reduction in community vandalism since the implementation of youth enrichment programs that keep children engaged and supported in their education.
Quality service-enriched housing programs, such as those offered by Rainbow Housing Assistance Corporation, provide direct access to resources that support the needs of physically and mentally disabled individuals, veterans, chronically homeless, single-parent households, families and seniors. Additionally, this type of outreach attracts the interest of local city, state and federal agencies as it helps stabilize the most vulnerable communities, cutting city and government expenses on a number of levels. This type of approval can even lead to further funding and support for initiatives that will enrich the future of affordable housing services.
Key programs and resources address life skills, financial intelligence, education, employment, youth and senior programs, resources to eliminate emergency situations, and social development in a multifamily community. The implementation of a professional, service-enriched housing program with onsite staff ensures that these offerings are tailored to each community and primed for longevity. A stable tenant base will determine the solvency of a community and reposition the financial performance of an asset.
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Real Estate Technology
Article | April 7, 2021
Spring is here, and with it comes home buying season. If you’re in real estate, it’s about to get really interesting. There are also some unique challenges you and your buyers might be confronting in the market now. Let’s get to what you need to know.
The housing market has been red-hot for quite a while now. Sales for both new and existing homes have been on an absolute tear. But last month, both of these metrics took a step back.
One likely reason for this is no doubt a moderate increase in mortgage rates. However, it seems to me we talk about that enough. Today, we would like to spotlight another factor causing issues in the housing market and possibly even delaying construction of homes in some areas.
There’s a real shortage of the necessary materials for constructing and renovating homes at this point. According to a December report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 71% of builders were facing a shortage of at least one material.
That means the houses that were being built in December that may just be getting ready to come on the market now may either be delayed or come with higher prices. The material most in demand was lumber, with 31% of contractors experiencing a shortage.
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