Tuesday June 24, 2025
Powered by the National Apartment Association (NAA), Apartmentalize is one of the largest annual events for the multifamily housing industry. For the 2025 Apartmentalize conference, Calynne Oyolokor, Senior Vice President of FirstService Residential’s Multifamily Rental Management Division, and David Thomas, former Director of Innovation for Veritas Investments, spoke on a live panel that explored how a centralized operations model and advanced AI tools could streamline leasing, building maintenance, and resident engagement.
The panel, “Advanced Centralization: Using AI and Technology," was moderated by Sunny Juneja, CEO of Canopy Analytics, and focused on centralization in property management, its challenges, and the transformative impact of AI proptech.
Centralization has become a cornerstone of operational efficiency in property management.
From improving resident satisfaction to reducing costs, centralization can help companies adapt to changing market conditions. Juneja noted its "staying power" as an operational priority, drawing attention to its prevalence in recent industry surveys. He framed the discussion around current market conditions including interest rates and tariff volatility, a surge in multifamily transactions, and $1.2 trillion in debt heading to refinance. Juneja referenced recent data showing that 10,000 loans have been transferred to special servicing in densely populated urban markets, including New York City.AI is a revolutionary tool for owners and third-party managers to accelerate centralization.
A 2025 report from McKinsey estimates that 78 percent of organizations across the globe have embedded AI in at least one business function, up from 72 percent in early 2024, and 55 percent a year earlier.FirstService Residential and Veritas are using AI to reshape workflows and improve efficiencies at impressive speeds. Both Oyolokor and Thomas emphasized that centralization is an onerous task for companies that fail to take advantage of sophisticated proptech and AI-powered technologies.
Source: McKinsey Global Surveys on the state of AI
With the help of AI-powered proptech, FirstService has streamlined tenant data collection and automated essential processes for multifamily rental owners including maintenance, leasing, and collections.For years, Oyolokor has worked with organizations that have deployed a mix of AI-powered technologies to automate leasing and enhance lead nurturing. At FirstService, she’s collaborated with the Canopy Analytics product development team to automate the creation of variance reports that reduce administrative workload and improve productivity among the property management teams.
"Canopy is one of the tech tools we use for a lot of reporting, because of how it aggregates data. We are able to easily create custom reports so that our managers aren't doing manual work, which means less human error."
— Calynne Oyolokor, Senior Vice President, Multifamily Rental Management, FirstService Residential
Challenges and lessons learned
Role specialization and siloing
While centralization enables role specialization, the panelists acknowledged the risk of siloing within departments. Oyolokor explained how an emergent co-living developer addressed this issue by appointing portfolio managers to aggregate and relay data across teams. These operational changes helped simplify client communications and enhanced data quality.Fail fast, iterate quickly
Thomas shared Veritas Investments' journey toward centralizing maintenance workflows. The company’s data-focused approach has drastically accelerated the completion of work orders, with project teams seeing a 50 percent reduction in turnaround times.He also advocated for a "fail-fast" approach to innovation, suggesting companies test new ideas on smaller scales to manage risk effectively. In the past, Veritas Investments leveraged small-unit buildings to pilot new technologies before scaling them across the portfolio.
Leadership buy-in
Both speakers stressed the importance of leadership buy-in to drive centralization initiatives. Oyolokor shared her experience at FirstService Residential, where executive support for centralizing lease administration tasks allowed her team to focus on higher-value activities.Where does the journey to centralization begin?
The panel concluded with actionable advice for attendees, encouraging them to assess friction points in their workflows and use technology to streamline operations. The speakers also highlighted the importance of creating better work-life balance for employees, ensuring centralization remains a win-win for all stakeholders.Takeaways for multifamily building owners, asset managers, and real estate investors:
- Start small: Identify repetitive tasks in one department to centralize first, then expand to others.
- Leverage technology: Invest in platforms with open APIs to integrate seamlessly across systems.
- Enhance communication: Avoid siloing by creating roles that facilitate cross-team collaboration.
- Prioritize satisfaction: Focus centralization efforts on improving resident and employee experiences.
"The future of centralized apartment management is promising, and the integration of AI into core business operations will soon be commonplace. Businesses can significantly increase efficiency and support a consistent tenant experience across a portfolio."
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