Can a real estate investor ever have too much property insight?
Not likely, especially in the aftermath of 2020. Take the multifamily sector. The aftershocks still echo as many institutional and private investors set new standards for property and ESG—environmental, social, and governance—transparency, accountability, and granularity.
How many units are occupied? How are the rents being collected? What’s the delinquency rate? What’s being done to mitigate it? Are existing assets being repositioned? How are renovations going?
The mounting need to present operational insight along with financials each quarter is no easy task. It’s made even more daunting by the on-demand expectations stocks and bond traders have created. Think Fidelity or Schwab.
It’s a challenge Adam Vanni is familiar with.
As the vice president, portfolio management, of Fairfield, Vanni directs reporting on 187 properties across 34 U.S. markets with $10.4 billion under management. His firm offers a variety of strategy-based open and closed-end investment funds.
“Especially over the last three years, the details investors want to know have become even more comprehensive and exacting,” Vanni explains.
The Fairfield investment team strives to meet investors’ growing appetite for information with a couple of strategies:
1. Synching Operational and Investment Reporting. Fairfield is vertically integrated, combining acquisition, entitlement, development, construction, renovation, property and asset management, and disposition under one roof. That understanding represents exceptional market insight.
For nearly two decades Fairfield has partnered with property management leader Yardi to link this robust accounting detail directly into its financial reporting processes. The integrated technology platform informs both sides of the business.
“It’s not unusual to have the investment and operation sides of real estate run by different teams within an organization. Having a single connected solution can optimize access across teams,” observes Chris Barbier, Yardi’s senior director of investment management. “The property owner can publish data on a timely basis without having to export and import across multiple disparate systems.”
2. Launching On-Demand Investor Dashboard. Soon Fairfield investors will log on to a wholly automated reporting solution. The new dashboard, now in late-stage development from Yardi and expected to launch in the first quarter of 2024, “will give investors the information they need, when they need it,” according to Vanni.
The dashboard promises to extend property transparency far beyond the PDF reports now available through the Fairfield investor portal. “This will enable our investors to view higher-level metrics across all their Fairfield holdings. No more PDF reports. No more trying to aggregate their position across multiple vehicles.”
Vanni sees the new capability as a competitive differentiator. Reporting efficiency and speed simplifies life for investors. “Investors will see how their investments roll up. Being able to automate is a big advantage,” Vanni says.
Today, with pressure on owners to deliver on property and ESG performance and practices like never before, the power of a single, integrated automated solution is compelling.
“We looked at a lot of quality single-point customer relationship management solutions,” Vanni concludes. “In the end, it came down to utilizing the data we have without going back and forth between different sources. The dashboard from Yardi is going to be an exciting advance for investors.”
Learn more about how the power of accounting and investment integration delivers more transparency and insight for multifamily investors.
