How the IoT is Affecting Property Management

At its heart, the Internet of Things (IoT) is all about connection. Connection between smart devices, WiFi, beacons, etc. to collect data on such things as lighting, temperature or the presence of people. With the IoT, the idea is for make our everyday devices smarter –get them talking to each other to share information and then analyze this information for us to gain insights on when to run a dishwasher to save energy or how to set up a store display for foot traffic. For the property management industry, the aim of the IoT is to connect property owners, managers and even tenants to each other. Similarly, it is then to connect these individuals to data insights generated from everyday routine activities. Although much of what the IoT can offer is still in its infancy, it is already having a large impact on property management.

Within the industry, security is a main concern for both the tenant and building owners, and the IoT offers some truly amazing solutions. Wireless sensors allow property owners and managers to offer tenants virtual guard services. Tenants or managers can program the sensors through an app to customize their security. For example, if the tenant works from 7:30am to 6pm on the weekdays they can program the sensors to turn on during this time. Additionally, if something is sensed the device will connect to the WiFi and notify the tenant and property manager via text message, email, phone call or even Twitter. With this early alarm system, other break-ins in the same building can be easily thwarted.

Along with better security, the IoT can analyze data and help managers identify performance trends and give you actions to better achieve tenant service goals in new ways. It can provide you with data-driven, performance-based insights that you had very little data in beforehand. Forty-three percent of building managers in the U.S. believe that the IoT will greatly affect how they run their buildings in the next few years. Those same wireless sensors can monitor other activities from HVAC, office lights, elevator use, electrical systems, and if there are open spaces in the parking garage. They can monitor for the presence of water and notify property managers so that damage can be minimized. In a Johnson Controls survey of the company’s Building Efficiency Panel, 70 percent of responders believed the ability to predict and diagnose problems will be a game changer.

Along with this, sensors play a chief role in keeping energy prices down as they can monitor temperature swings, giving managers a better control over cooling and heating bills. As the potential for the IoT ecosystem grows over the next few years, devices will learn to work with each other creating more comfortable, smarter properties. This can allow commercial real estate companies can offer clear value to tenants. Bettina Tratz-Ryan, research vice president at Gartner Inc., says the largest impact will be in large sites like office parks, shopping malls, airports or industrial zones as the IoT will help reduce the cost of energy, spatial management and building maintenance by up to 30 percent.

Moreover, the IoT can help leverage just one infrastructure to home and operate all management solutions, requiring little to no manual involvement. At the portfolio level, this means enhanced tracking and monitoring combined with portfolio analytics resulting in more granular valuations, lower asset risk and augmented portfolio management capabilities. This can be seen in tracking the flow of people, which enables commercial real estate owners to analyze space usage patterns and occupants’ behaviors, while also acknowledging privacy limitations. This kind of information can help property managers to identify excess capacity and then develop an action plan for peak hours resulting in more efficient portfolio management.

In the long view sense, the IoT can offer data to help managers and owners create differentiation immediately from the development stage. Developers can adapt design and construction to the changing consumption patterns by using end-users’ and tenants’ behavioral data. It can also help to future proof their buildings by monitoring population habits. Through studying this, management companies can stay on top of resident trends and adapt to them causing more desirable living spaces thereby improving the bottom line.