Hidden on each of your apartment properties is a secret weapon that can play an important role in your marketing and resident retention efforts: your maintenance team.

In this general session, a panel of experts will discuss the significant impact apartment maintenance technicians can have on a property’s brand. You will learn best practices for training team members, developing efficient processes, and leveraging the use of technology to turn the “face” of your properties into a powerful marketing weapon.

Read more about this and many more educational sessions at RealWorld 2012, or register now on our website.

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we wanted to do something special for our customers.

As a token of our appreciation for you, we’re offering a special Valentine’s Day discount of $100 off your RealWorld registration. Just use the code RW12LUV when you sign up.

This limited time offer will expire at midnight on Friday, February 17, so be sure to register today and take advantage of this sweet, chocolate-coated deal.

Mmmmmm….chocolate.

We’re putting a little something into your stockings this year if you register for the 2012 RealWorld user conference by the end of the year: $100 off the registration fee.

To take advantage of the early registration discount, individuals must register online at www.realpage.com/realworld/register-online by midnight CST, December 31, and use the promotional code RW100.

“We’re committed to delivering an event that leaves our customers with new ideas and best practices to drive their personal and professional success,” said Andrea Massey, senior vice president of marketing for RealPage. “We’re working closely with industry experts, our user group and our customers to ensure that our conference offers exceptional value and relevance.”

Every year, more than 1,000 rental housing professionals attend the RealWorld user conference for insight into the latest industry trends and innovations. It also provides one of the best networking opportunities in the multifamily industry, as rental housing professionals gather along with industry and product experts and executives from RealPage.

The highlight of RealWorld is the educational sessions that give conventional, affordable, student, senior living, and single-family professionals a first-hand look at strategies and tools for cutting expenses, boosting revenue and creating operational efficiencies. Session topics will include the importance of lead capture and management, optimizing marketing spend, and vendor management as well as general sessions featuring online reputation management and a state of the apartment market update from the experts at MPF Research.

A preliminary list of sessions is now available on the RealWorld user conference web site at www.realpage.com/realworld/educational-sessions.

The $100 early registration discount expires at midnight CST on December 31. To take advantage of this discount, please register online as soon as possible at www.realpage.com/realworld/register-online and use promotional code RW100.

For single-family property owners, Steve Winn’s keynote speech to officially kick off the 2011 RealWorld User Conference contained some interesting new developments around mobile technology and online marketing.

Steve identified three overwhelming tipping points for the single-family industry: customer portals, mobile, and social networking. Propertyware President Sina Shekou joined Steve to expand on the tipping points and he shared two new exciting announcements that will put single-family property owners on the forefront of a growing mobile trend.

Sina announced new mobile-ready tenant and owner portals that provide the same content found on Propertyware’s popular web application, but optimized for many of the most popular smart phones.

And for the property management team, Propertyware announced the upcoming fall availability of Mobile Edition on iOS and Android, giving management teams nearly all the functionality of Propertyware’s solution in an application that works on smart phones. All of your property management information will soon be delivered directly from the RealPage Cloud to a mobile phone. It also includes a conversation wall and redesigned work orders and inspections, all leading to productivity gains.

And to assist in marketing efforts, Propertyware is introducing its next generation listing management and CRM platform. The new platform provides Propertyware customers with the latest technologies to maximize their online marketing spend, from call tracking to QR Codes and social media integrations.

Sina’s announcements gave a glimpse of what Propertyware customers could expect to see more of in sessions taking place during RealWorld 2011. These exciting new developments will help keep Propertyware customers at the forefront of technology.

In this RealWorld 2011 session recap, we take a look at Going Paperless.

Kim Solis, business analyst at Greystar, and Dave McKenna, director of client operations for RealPage’s military market, teamed to provide an informative look at how companies can use new technologies to transform their business processes in the leasing office.

The presentation highlighted steps a leasing office can take to go paperless, with some of the top reasons identified including:

1. Labor Cost Savings
2. Paper Cost Savings
3. Improved Service Delivery
4. Environmental Considerations
5. Corporate Image

Some of the most paper-intensive processes identified in the multifamily industry include:

1. Lease and Addenda
2. Purchasing and Invoice Processing
3. Maintenance Service Requests
4. Check Processing
5. Renewals

The biggest obstacles to going paperless were seen as:

1. Technology Costs
2. Change Management – Disruption to Current Process
3. Paper Habit
4. Culture
5. Lack of Time

Greystar offered an example of what a company can do with a comprehensive paperless program. The Greystar portfolio began to seriously consider going paperless in 2004. At this time the company was using the DOS-based program and felt they needed to have real time data from an Internet-based program to achieve their goals, service customers. and improve financial performance.

Greystar’s strategy was to leverage emerging technology, use in incremental approach, and careful change management. In the spring of 2005, Greystar transitioned from to RealPage’s Conventional suite of products, OneSite Leasing & Rents with Facilities and CrossFire.

After that, paperless guest cards were introduced, followed by online payments and an integrated web portal with pricing, availability, ILF Feeds, reservations, service requests, forms, and newsletters.

Paperless purchasing followed in 2007 for purchase orders, approvals and invoice processing. Revenue Management was introduced in 2008 to reduce analytical processing and increase effective rents.

Greystar’s process continued with renter’s insurance and document management in 2010 which offered on-Line Leasing, online renewals, an electronic filing system, and standardized documents. A move-out processing pilot is now being explored which would complete the life cyle with checklists, forms, photos and payments. Once this roll out is completed, Greystar will have completed the full circle of online processes and going paperless will be complete.

Attendees were left with five free ways they can reduce paper now:

1. Scan Documents
2. Store Electronic Documents Centrally
3. Print to PDF – Not Paper
4. Free Online Software
5. Centralize Invoicing

In this RealWorld 2011 session recap, we take a look at Revenue Management: Best Practices.

The session was led by a distinguished group of panelists who explored whether those in attendance were making the most out of their revenue management system.  The panelists were seasoned in the use of Yield Star Price Optimizer and shared lessons learned and best practices that have helped them deliver financial results and user satisfaction.

When implementing revenue management at new properties, a number of considerations should be considered. This includes:

• Educate and prepare owner and/or asset manager
• Confirm asset strategy before finalizing configuration
• Internal rate review in person with regional and property manager
• Allow two weeks of at least three training calls with regional and property manager
• Go-live leasing training on-site, with all leasing professionals participating in role play
• Two week follow up with site after leasing training, including secret shop by phone
• Four week follow up with site for refresher renewal training & rate review
• Turnover training upon hire is critical for ongoing success

As for managing pricing, Price Optimizer supplements pricing practices.  It is not a replacement for operational expertise and knowledge.  A dedicated, equipped and empowered Revenue Manager is required.  Additionally, daily review and interaction around rate recommendations outside of autopilot is essential.  User should focus on overall rate recommendations, not one particular unit level price.  An 85% to 95% rate acceptance is the acceptable range.

Additionally, performance management is best on a monthly basis with a review of key metrics, executed lease analysis and a formal documentation of any concerns/challenges and successes.

To ensure ongoing success, users should establish a forum for communication with leasing associates to share lessons learned and successes and provide reinforcement training quickly when needed.  Turnover training upon hire is also critical for success as is keeping quotes current.  Price Optimizer allows you to be aggressive on renewals.

Another key selling point is that virtually all Price Optimizer properties have stopped using concessions. The question those in attendance were left to answer is, “have you?”

In this RealWorld 2011 session recap, we take a look at Executives Speak Out: A Cloud Computing Case Study.

An impressive panel that included Riverstone CFO Pal Ottesen, SVP and CIO of UDR Scott Wesson, Pinnacle President Rick Graf, CIO of The Habitat Company Mice Carson, and RealPage VP of Operations Ty Brewer provided an informative look into cloud computing.

The panelists agreed we are in a dynamic business climate in which companies need two things: Flexibility and immediate cost savings.

When the economy was booming, many companies purchased new hardware. Four or five years later, nobody has the money for large capital investments. In today’s IT reality, the NY Times reported that $1.2 trillion is spent annually just to keep the lights on, which means IT shops can only add very little strategic value. Increasing the budget perpetuates the problem. In short companies need a paradigm shift. Capacity versus utilization is another key issue.

As for tomorrow’s IT possibilities, one opportunity discussed was creating an efficient enterprise by leveraging the cloud and using a significant amount of those resources toward innovation, growth, and competitiveness. This is about spending IT dollars like other capital.

The RealPage Cloud was identified as a solution for cost effective relief to a company’s current IT situation through:

• More than 1,800 servers
• 24x7x365 monitoring of all systems
• Fully redundant processing with 98%+ availability operating in 2 data centers
• SAS 70 Compliant
• PCI Compliant

The value proposition offers cost certainty and predictability plus immediate cost savings that results in positive ROI in typically one month along with a smooth transition.

Cloud computing is about redeploying capital into operational expenses while reducing costs.

RealPage guarantees 98% uptime. If an existing IT shop has 90% uptime, which many don’t, they are throwing away $300,000/year in lost worker productivity (on average 250 employees).

The session left those attending considering three options:

• Maintain status quo
  • No change in service
  • Costs remain the same
  • Problems remain the same
• Fix & grow
  • “Invest” in people and tools
  • Deliver SMB IT at SMB costs
• RealPage Cloud Technology
  • Improve service
  • Reduce costs
  • Enterprise IT services at SMB price

The dates for RealWorld 2012 are set. Mark your calendars.

At the RealWorld 2011 User Conference, RealPage employees surprised attendees with a flash mob performed to the Bee Gees’ “Night Fever” during the 70′s-themed dinner event.

Entertaining and informative, the keynote presentation at the RealWorld User Conference is always highly anticipated. If for nothing else, to see the entrance Steve Winn will make.

The popular Phat Strad returned to RealWorld to play the walk-in music and entertain the crowd.

RealPage Chairman and CEO Steve Winn, with the help of a troupe of acrobats, then took the stage to deliver a keynote built around the theme of tipping points.

Acrobats demonstrating their version of tipping points

A tipping point is that critical moment at which an idea or a new technology tips over into becoming widely accepted and mainstream. Steve outlined several key technological tipping points to be aware of in the rental housing industry, including The Cloud (specifically the RealPage cloud), the move to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) from ASP, total online marketing, managing risk, managing property renovation, revenue management, the affordable housing’s move to electronic document management, and single-family housing.

Cloud Computing

The first key tipping point Steve discussed was The Cloud. Introduced at last year’s RealWorld user conference as an important trend to watch, cloud computing has reached a critical mass with companies moving to embrace its economic and performance advantages.

Companies now have the ability to share large, high capacity state-of-the-art data centers that enables a level of performance, reliability, data security, and disaster recovery that few individual companies can afford. In fact, IT costs actually drop – by as much as 30 percent or more.

For the multifamily industry, it’s the RealPage Cloud that has reached the tipping point, running not only RealPage software, but hosting mixed systems, combining solutions from RealPage and other leading vendors.

Total Online Marketing

Total online marketing is another significant tipping point facing the industry. So significant, in fact, that Steve described this tipping point as the one that will change everything about the way the multifamily industry markets and sells apartments in the future.

Steve explaining the technology and products behind the new leasing marketplace

The most perplexing question facing the industry, according to Steve, is “what is the cost per lease per marketing channel?” To help explain how RealPage will use technology to help customers finally, with statistically accurate data, answer that question, Steve brought on stage Sina Shekou, president of Propertyware.

Steve also announced that Sina will head up a new division at RealPage to that will create the next generation marketplace for renters. The keynote served as a soft launch for the new product whose development Sina will lead. The capabilities of the new system are currently available as single point solutions marketed under different names. What RealPage is doing now, under Sina’s leadership, is integrating these products into a cohesive, single, integrated marketplace.

Sina Shekou, President of Propertyware

For the remainder of the keynote, RealPage customers were given looks at the other technologies that have reached their tipping points–technologies designed to give them a huge advantage in managing their properties more easily and more profitably.

And with that, RealWorld, the 2011 RealPage User Conference, officially flipped into high gear.