Property Management Growth with DoorGrow DGS 327: AI, Survival & Property Management's Future
As property management faces rapid technological disruption, what happens to the businesses that refuse to adapt… or the ones that go all-in on AI and eliminate the human element entirely?
In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with Joe Oliveri in Brisbane, Australia to unpack the accelerating AI revolution and what it means for the future of property management. With over 30 years in the industry and 16 years as an international real estate business coach, Joe shares why he believes the next three years will determine which companies survive, and which disappear.
They explore the shift from traditional property manager roles to data-driven client relationship managers, how AI can transform processes like lease renewals, the risks of deepfakes and security threats, and why the winning formula will be a strategic blend of technology and human connection.
You'll Learn
(00:00) Introduction to AI in Property Management
(00:40) The Evolution of Property Management
(01:58) The Impact of AI on Property Management
(05:35) Integrating AI with Human Interaction
(10:30) AI's Role in Tenant Management
(14:17) The Need for Verification in AI
(16:30) The Future of AI in Property Management
(21:44) Consequences of Ignoring AI
(25:43) Finding Balance: AI and Human Roles Growth
Quotables"If this industry does not change and truly understand AI, we're going to be irrelevant."
"Three years is all we've got to make the changes."
"AI isn't something that they can go back to their office and say, we're going to build this AI. Let the experts do it."
Resources TranscriptJason Hull (00:00)
that companies will need to be able to make to keep up and really frankly, survive. It's recording.
We can time up. Shifts in layout. Let's count. All right. You think it's going to work there or should we hold that? Well, we'll probably have to do this. All right. Cool. No introduction. Well, no. Just do it. I'm saying not the full intro that you normally do the way you read the entire thing. Just do a quick. You're not going to have all that when we're going to send it. OK. Do an intro, but you're not going to do the normal intro. All right.
Put those somewhere. Hang them on your shirt or do something. Okay. That's very Brisbane. Well you have to fit in. When in Brisbane, do like Brisbane. Right, so we are... It wasn't pretty. Okay. Five, four, three, two... If you can see the camera, it can see you.
Can you see the camera? can. You don't... can. Okay. Alright, you ready? Five, four, three, two, one. Alright, so I'm Jason Hull. This is Sarah Hull with DoorGrow and we are Hangout with Joe Oliveri. And we're in Brisbane. Brizzy. Brizzy, yeah. And you can't see but we're overlooking the beautiful city and the river right now.
And what is this, a wine room? Yeah, this is our wine cellar. Private wine cellar. Private wine cellar. Okay. And so we're going to be chatting today about AI, the future, and how that's going to impact and affect property management. So, Jill, why don't you give people a little bit of background on yourself and who you are and how you got into property management.
Yeah well that's a long story but I'll make it short. So I've been in the industry for about 30 years now so it makes me feel old when I say that. ⁓ But for the last 16 years I've been a real estate business coach and I've been lucky enough to coach people in Australia and the USA so I get a really good oversight of what's going on in the world. ⁓ But you know my focus for the last 16 years has been
where is this industry going and how can we help businesses to get there and what do need to do? So basically, yeah, for the last 30 years, I've been doing property management and yeah, I think it's exciting where it's heading and through that journey, I met you guys, which is wonderful. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, fantastic. We've been able to have you out at one of our conference events and have you speak and yeah, it's been delightful.
⁓ I know, I mean, in 30 years, you've seen a lot of changes, but it's speeding up. Like we're in the middle of this AI revolution right now. Everything's changing dramatically. And so what are some of the things that you're noticing? And you have a process software called Thrusos, which we use to run our own operational side of our business. ⁓ What are some of the things that you are right now?
thinking are going to happen and you're trying to figure out. Yeah, well, I'm actually concerned about the future for property management in a positive way. If you can kind of like say that. Because what I'm seeing is we are going through rapid change. I remember when I started in the industry 30 years ago, we were just introducing property management software. Everyone was still using spreadsheets and you know.
paper documents and all sorts of things. ⁓ Carbon copy leases, know, that's how far back we go. And there was major pushback on property management software. And the pushback probably took about five years for the industry to completely transition to understanding you had to use software. Well, we don't have the luxury of five years anymore because my belief is it's changing so rapidly.
And it's the consumer expectations that are going to force change that if this industry does not change and truly understand AI, we're going to be irrelevant. So I believe in three years time, we're going to see completely different roles in the way that we do things. in the next, like leading up to that three years,
I believe that in the first year, we're going to see probably about 40 % of businesses starting to struggle and disappear. They're losing managements, clients are going elsewhere because they're expecting AI and seamless processes and interactions and tasking. And then that will speed up. And by the second year, we'll see 80%.
And then we'll only have a small percentages. I know this seems like doomsday, but it's a reality. Only a small percentage of existing businesses that are around today who will be around in three years time. If they do not adopt AI and AI is very broad. So they've got to understand AI, but you know, that's my belief. That's what I'm seeing as well. So yeah, you know, we've got to sit up and take notice.
Yeah. And I think a lot of the things that I've been noticing, some people kind of shift right away and some people are a little bit more reluctant to shift. Yes. And I think the ones that it's almost you need to find the balance. You don't want to go all in and all AI and you don't want to have no AI. You want to kind of find the right balance and that happy medium and really figure out what is the best way to utilize AI.
and have a human component. Because I do not believe it will be able to be all AI. I just, think when it really comes down to it, it is a relationship business. It's a human to human contact business. really when things go wrong, humans want to talk with other humans who understand. They don't want, have you ever been on the phone and you're going, agent, agent, representative, and it's not.
understanding and you're like, just get me to the human. do I, what button do I need to push? What option is it that I the human? And I think that will continue, that will prevail. However, AI is such a powerful tool that I think we just need to figure out what's the most complimentary way that the humans and the AI can interact together to provide an amazing experience so that the tenants are happy and the clients are happy and the property management business is happy.
really be able to figure out what's the best way to do this. And something that you were telling me yesterday, I went, ⁓ she is so smart for doing that. Can you talk a bit about your, ⁓ tell us first about Flusos and what it is and how it works. And then tell me what you were chatting with me about at dinner last night about what you're going in and updating in Flusos because of all of the advancements in AI that are happening.
Yeah, yeah, so you're 100 % right Sarah, you know, there will always be the human element. It's necessary. We're a service business. So people want the customer relationships. They want that person who lets them know, hey, this is all right. You know, we're going well here. But the role of the property manager has changed. There will always be a role for property managers, but not in the way that we see it today.
And that's where we've got to make that transition. But one of the simplest flows to talk about, when I talk about flows, Flusos is workflows on all of the various tasks that we do. To help people understand how AI integrates with the human side of property management is if we look at a tenancy renewal. So when we're doing that renewal, there's so much that AI can do that takes away that
you know, that personal kind of like input ⁓ into the task as in like if a property manager doesn't like a tenant, then you know, like it becomes personal. ⁓ If they do like the tenant and they've built this relationship with the tenant, where the tenant is making them feel like if the rent goes up, that the tenant will lose the home, the property manager gets too involved personally and emotionally.
So to take away that very personal and emotional element and deal in the facts, if we look at, you know, a tenant renewal, AI has the ability, and this is what we're building into Flusos. So AI has the ability to go through and say, these renewals are due. It will then look at the tenant history to say, you know, how's the tenant pay the rent on time? Let's look at the in-resident inspections that we've done and we can see that the tenants
looking after the property, abiding by the terms and conditions. Everything's going great. We can see in the system where the tenant has, you know, kind of like mentioned that they would like to renew, that their children go to the local school and they want to stay there through the primary. We've got all of this data that's built up. So AI will be able to go in and say, yeah, you know, like this tenant has mentioned they want to stay on. We look at their history. It's all good. We're also going to look at the market.
And the market is determining that we can increase the rent to this much or it stays, it remains as it is. And we should offer a lease term of this length because AI will be able to determine what's going on in that marketplace. There could be infrastructure rebuilds going on, which could push people away from moving there. You know, just because we've got infrastructure being built, there is a building period that turns people off.
So AI can look at all of that and then say, okay, this is what we should offer the tenant. Now, the property manager then looks at that and they can say, well, you know, this owner has this property as a ⁓ full-time ⁓ or permanent investment property, but we need to talk to them and say, hey, as an investment property, this is where we recommend that you, you know, take the property, increase the rent, offer renewal because of this.
⁓ And then the owner can make a decision. Now AI jumps in, does all the lease renewals, sends off the documents, updates the system. And the property manager's next role is talking to the owner and saying, congratulations, the tenants have signed the renewal. AI has then given them updates on your property is now achieving this in comparison to market. This is what the increase means to you in terms of dollars and percentage.
And we become that voice of, you know, like ⁓ reason and congratulations and service. And the owners look to us for that because all the information that's given to them is not based on personal, ⁓ you know, thoughts on what's going on or emotion. So, yeah.
And it makes it seem either that's the thing. No, I guess not. Oh, I think they're building over there. So maybe it'll be good and yet they're supposed to build a new stadium and that'll bring in. It's really figuring out things that we just don't know what the impact will truly be. And I love that it's kind of like, OK, have the human monitor the AI and have the AI do the heavy lifting.
and then you kind of watch it, make sure it's doing the right thing, and then you get to be the human to human connection. Exactly. Let me be the one who calls the owner, but AI has done all the things for me, so it's kind of prepped it, gotten it ready, wrapped it up in a pretty package that now I can present to the owner, and I get to be almost a bearer of good news instead of the bearer of bad news. Exactly, exactly. And know, owners don't want to hear that you should renew the lease because they're a good tenant.
Well, what constitutes a good tenant? They have to pay their rent on time. They have to look after the property. They have to look after the garden. So they've got to abide by the terms and conditions. It doesn't mean they're a good tenant. So owners don't want to hear that. The owners want to hear that they've abided by the terms and conditions. So we see no reason why they shouldn't be offered a renewal. I think one of the interesting challenges that are
that's going to come with AI is that AI can make anything now. I can take a photo of you, I could use AI to make you say stuff and match your voice. And so the danger with AI is that I think we're gonna get to the point where people will only trust human in-person interactions to begin things or to end things or just, you know. And so there's gonna have to be this human element of verification unless there'll probably be some people that work this out.
like some sort of verification system. You can load it up on your phone and verify that this is a real thing that you're talking to on Zoom or something. you know, that with all the AI slop as they're calling it and all of the fake videos and it's now becoming nobody believes anything. And so it's hard to know, is this really true? Is this actually the property manager that I'm talking to that is, you know,
that I have this property and I'm the owner and you know, are they real? And so, am I giving them access? And so I think there's gonna need to be some sort of verification system in order for people to trust because people will trust, I think it'll get to the point where we'll just trust this. Like I can shake your hand, I can touch you, I you're real.
I mean, we might all be fake on the I you don't know we just took a photo and write the whole podcast and do it and yes But they're really in Ulston That's right. Yeah There's been so much that's happened with deep fakes there've been yeah millions of dollars scammed and Now there's it it's getting so aggressive
that it's recommended that if you are a human that recommends or that interacts regularly with another human, like you and your husband, for example, or you and your children, that you have a a safe word, a password, a verbal safe where if you get a phone call from what looks like and sounds like your daughter saying, mom, I'm stuck on the side of the road, please send me money, I need help, what's the word?
What's the word? And then you know if that word isn't said, that is not my daughter even though it looks like it sounds like it. And I think that's going to be something that we need to kind of incorporate as well and for that reason I agree. I think that in-person, personal relationship will be more important than ever. Yes, I agree with that and this is something that's interesting you bring that up because I always had a safe word with my children. It was given. ⁓
It's something that I think property managers take for granted. They call owners and tenants and talk about all sorts of things without any sort of security check. So, you know, like if we're talking to the banks or, you know, anyone, we get a telecode or we've got to like key in what our personal sort of verification. Exactly.
So I think that's another area, and I'm glad you brought that up because it's another area where industry has to step up. We've got to protect the data that we've got. We've got a lot of sensitive data there. So we've got to really look after that. But there will always be that human element in property management because people want to know that they're making the right decision. People want to chat about it. They want to go through and say, based on that data,
would I be wrong in increasing the rent? It's like, no, a property manager is like, that's what the market is determining. So if the market determines a rental increase, then that's what the market is saying. Holding back rent only impacts every other investor in that market. I think it'll be interesting. So I think moving forward in the future, if we start to leverage AI, but we build our processes around things.
you know, initiated in a way that it starts with a human and that sensitive touch points are done as a human and that we come up with our own verification methods, we're going to avoid some of these traps and our processes will have a longer life span. Yes, yes. You know, we won't have to, man, we have to change everything now with the, all these scammers are doing this one thing where they call up and pretend that they're you, you know.
And so, yeah, because you can go on 11 Labs right now. You can upload your little recording of your voice and then you can have your voice and you can have it say anything. so, yeah, so I think that's going to be a challenge. And I think we're going to have to figure out a way to how do you how do you on a Zoom call with a remote owner that's out of state or out of country verify that each of you are an actual
real physical human being. Somebody needs to invent that device that verifies it's like taking a blood sample. It's like they're human and it's it's like, this is the, this is actually Joe I'm talking to across the pond. So yeah. Okay. Yeah, it is important. And I think the other thing for the industry to understand is that, you know, AI isn't something that they can go back to their office and say, we're going to build this AI.
⁓ Let the experts do it. Let the experts who understand process and know, Sarah is a real expert on process and to have that level of expertise, it takes a lot of knowledge and a lot of like building and rebuilding and understanding and it's tweaked, you know, for different companies. But you know, like they shouldn't be taking this on themselves. Let the experts do it. And when we talk about, you know, our tech.
We need tech stacks and there is a lot of different technology out there that we've got to build it all in together. Property managers can't do that. A lot of business leaders can't do it either. know, have faith in the experts. That's what I'm saying to the industry is have faith in the experts because, you know, they are doing a lot of work behind the scenes on making sure that AI is not a negative.
impact to the industry is only making our industry sustainable and relevant into the future. mean that's going to be one of the temptations and dangers is that anyone can now go create any software. can load up lovable or any of these other tools and they can say make me a CRM or make me a property management software. But yeah the problem is you then have to become some sort of expert that's constantly communicating, fixing bugs, tweaking it, figuring it out.
And if you can't or something breaks or something gets hacked, then you're at risk. Your whole business is now at risk. And yeah, so I think that, but in the future, everybody will be able to create anything. So I think the people that really thrive and survive and keep a job while AI kind of takes over, I believe will be those that are the artists.
So we're going to shift away from it being about being a nerdy programmer. It's going to be those that have this creative thinking that they can think, how can I combine these tools? How can I connect these? How can we innovate this? And that's been one of the most fun things for me in playing with AI is now I get to be an artist with building systems and building things and creating things. Cause I can create things so quickly. Whereas before I would just think about all the things I wanted to do. And I'd be like, that'd be nice if somebody made that. And I'd be like, that's way too much work.
I don't want to do that. but yeah, it's now you can just create anything and you can edit things quickly. You can have things reviewed. And so there's a lot of things that everybody's probably already using some of the AI tools right now, you know, like chat GPT and maybe Claude and perplexity and some of these things, but there's a lot of, you know, more advanced tools that are coming out that are going to make things even faster.
And now AI is building AI and things are just speeding up.
Jason Hull (22:01)
is that we're gonna have a lot of tenants out of work. I think there's gonna be a lot of tenants that are like, hey, I just lost my job to AI. And so we've already replaced some roles and some functions of our team and maybe even a whole team member with some AI tools already. And so that's coming very quickly. And I think Elon Musk just said that
in the next three to five years, the best surgeons in the world will be robots. And those are high paying, high functioning jobs that people put a lot of effort into, but he says they'll be better, more accurate. And so, do you want a really seasoned, older surgeon with maybe, he's human steady level hands, or do you want somebody that has laser precision that gets it right every time that's overseen by that person?
I think the best blend is both. I want the AI laser precision with the human with all of the knowledge and experience to watch it and make sure that it's the right thing. if you did it that way, if a doctor just had a monitor, it eliminates the need for many of them. You now need one doctor to...
multiple AI robots. Because you've got beta. think everything that's going to shift, AI is going to change so many things, which is great. It's still not going to be able to, I mean, how comfortable would you feel? Open heart surgery and that's the AI robot and you go, ⁓ do I want that thing cutting me open? ⁓
What's its track record? What if it glitches? What if it breaks down? Is it going to do the right thing? it know? What is it, you know, is it programmed? What if it dies in the middle of the surgery? Does it have a battery? There's a lot of things to think about. And does it care? Right. is it, what if it that eye robot where it's scanning and going, oh, it has an 11 % chance of survival. I'm done. Well, wait a second. Hold on. Do we, you know, do we keep going? So I think everything is going to come down to a blend.
of AI and human and there's got to be both of those components. So can you maybe chat about, let's chat about kind of both ends of the spectrum here. What might happen to some property management companies that refuse to adopt AI? Where they go, I'm just not doing it. I'm not using AI. I'm staying old school. We don't want to learn anything. We don't want to do anything else. might you be a, what would you think the prediction would be on companies that just will not?
Yes. Use it. That's a really good question because we kind of saw that with what happened with these old school companies ⁓ where they refused to have anything but the property management program, you know, where you store your data. ⁓ And they eventually were out of business. I mean, I'd go into these offices and they just have
files everywhere, files covering the desk, they didn't know where anything was. But they refused to, you know, ⁓ use anything else than go to that paper file. And it was a mess. mean, how do you find paper? ⁓ So we saw those businesses gradually get out of business. They didn't have a business to sell, basically. So they might have been mighty in their day, but they were no longer mighty when technology just
over. Now that took a long time to happen in the past. It's going to be more rapid now. So those businesses that refuse to adapt or adopt AI or understand it because a lot of them think we've got AI. It's like you don't have AI. GPD does not help you to manage process better. So if they don't then
We're seeing it already Sarah and Jason. We're seeing that these companies that used to manage 500 or more managements are down to half of that and I'm selling one at the moment where they had 600 and we're just on the final figures today. They're down to 342. That's a lot of money that they've lost because they refuse to adapt new methods and they let the property managers determine
what technology they would use. Because what happens if we allow staff to determine what technology we will use, then the staff just create or justify a reason for their position. We can't do that anymore. We've got to identify the task that a property manager does. And there's much less than what, you know, they did in the past. A property manager is basically just a client relationship manager now.
They're reviewing data and interpreting that data to have conversations with the clients. And that's the way we've got to do it. And the other thing is, investors are changing too. So we're getting a lot of institutional investors. So institutional investors don't want to deal with, you know, mother head and type, you know, like, ⁓ the tenants are lovely and you know, you don't want to lose them and...
you probably can't afford to do the maintenance and things like that. Institutional investors just want the facts so they can make a decision and quite often they don't want to make a decision they want the property manager to do what's needed. And AI will determine the necessary steps so the property manager becomes that person this has been done or they can look online through their portal. in
I'm like, that's a long answer to your question. But you know, like I believe hand on heart and don't want to seem like I'm doing so sorry, I'm hitting the mic. that three years time is three years is all we've got to make the changes and to identify the tasks the property manager does. Because it's not the same anymore. I agree. And I think it's about shifting that shifting. It's about making that shift.
And then conversely, let's talk about the other end of the spectrum because, okay, if you go, you know what, I'm sold, I'm doing everything AI. I'm firing my entire team, I'm letting AI do everything and we've seen some companies try to do this before, but now there's a lot of changes and AI can do a lot of things that before was not possible. So what would you say to the companies that are gonna go all in and they're gonna do all AI? Is that the solution?
No, it's a happy blend of technology and team. So if you don't have the team there, property management is a service industry. So we have to remember that, you know, and our service is helping the clients to feel confident about decisions that they're making or instructions that they're giving. ⁓ So it is definitely a blend of ⁓ technology and team.
but the team's role has changed. please don't think you can go in there and chat GBT is going to, you know, create all the conversations and, and, know, they're going to answer the phone and, and, you know, talk to the client and record it all. No, there needs to be human element. But again, I'll go back to it's the experts that will help you create that because it's very, very difficult to understand how to blend that technology and team. ⁓
without the kind of like the team having their say in it too. A lot of business owners let the team say too much and they make decisions based on team. We've seen that, or they take a vote. A vote, yes. My team, I hear that from our clients, and they go, well my team voted and what? Your team voted? No, no, no, no. that's good. They don't ever vote. Like, yeah, you know, eliminate my job. I'll vote yes for that. Yeah, yeah. No, no.
Yeah, the challenge with team members is that they are not usually money driven the way entrepreneurs are. They're not focused on the money side of the business and they're focused on safety and security. And as AI comes, that's going to take a lot of that away. And so yeah, you don't want to have your team vote. This is, it's not like a
It's not democracy. No, this is business. I believe in democratic principles, it's the business. But yeah, you can't place the burden of decision making on people that are wired to make decisions in a way that's not conducive. Yeah, it's all about them. And, you know, like it's important to understand how the team is thinking so that you can then help them adjust to it or no.
that person's not going to come through with me. So you can make the decisions. no, know, team will always justify why they are needed in a business. Yeah. mean, the day may come with all the AI stuff and humans really, we tend to like each other. We like humans a bit. You know, we'll probably have labels on our business made with real humans. Real humans at our business and a real human answers the phone. No AI. You know, I mean, it might happen. So that could be interesting. So.
One of the things that I also though, am thinking and maybe I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist or a little crazy, I don't know. But ⁓ when Trump went into Venezuela and extradited or took out that dictator that had taken over the government there and was causing a lot of problems, the people were very happy. But what was really interesting, what was unsaid or I didn't hear people talk about it much is the US government.
Military whatever went in had the ability they turned off all the power to the entire city There were not even backups were working everything went out and went black. Mm-hmm and That's wild to think that we have the ability to just wipe out power and electricity I don't know if it was an EMP thing or Some people say solar flares can do this and maybe the government can do this kind of stuff. Who knows but the fact that technological
data, power, electricity, all that can just shut off in an instant. How would we deal with that in a world where everything has become digital and everything has become AI? Will we have backups? Will we have keys? Will we be able to find things? ⁓ Will we know stuff? there's, think there, I mean, if that happens one time, it will be like change everything forever. Just like the pandemic changed everybody's perception forever about.