Getting to know the user-friendly side of technology

Real Estate Weekly, August 10, 2005 by Jake Harrington

New technology can be scary. For all the buzz surrounding integrated products that should make our lives easier, most up-and-coming technologies fail. The problem is usually that they are just too hard to use.

Real estate management has historically been a nuts-and-bolts industry. Multifamily management firms have been slower to adopt web-based services than other industries. The reason is the same: Most systems are too complicated to be useful.

In 2000, when we launched On-Site.com, one of my primary concerns was how the company's target audience--real estate managers, owners and brokers--would receive the product. We were creating a Web-based program that could serve apartment communities with technology to streamline the application process--marketing units, qualifying applicants, preparing leases and tracking traffic.

It was an innovative idea. In the past, credit checks would take hours or days to process, and the results were not terribly helpful at predicting how reliable a resident would be. Agents filled out leases by hand. Managers made advertising decisions by intuition or anecdotal evidence. And surprisingly enough, many real estate offices still operate this way.

We wanted a way to eliminate redundant data-entry and improve quality controls along the way. As we began the actual design process, I kept thinking about the existing products available--there wasn't a program available that didn't require plenty of retyping. We decided that in addition to creating a way to make it easier to evaluate prospective residents, we would provide a seamless process that would "waterfall" from task to task.

To thoroughly understand the process, we studied the steps involved in renting an apartment, and how this workflow differed among companies. Often, software is designed by programmers who have no idea what the end-user actually does on a day-to-day basis.

User-friendly programs are vital for the property management field. In many markets, properties are run by owners with little time to spend on learning new software. Furthermore, employees--particularly at the onsite leasing level--move among jobs and companies quite a bit, so the fact that minimal training is required to use On-Site.com gives new users the ability to be up-and-running quickly.

In order to make On-Site.com less daunting for users and ensure it stood out among its competitors, we focused on ideas that would differentiate the product from anything else on the market. We introduced a risk-management mechanism that allows managers to set thresholds on which applicants are acceptable. This method of scoring and making recommendations to rent, takes the guesswork out of decoding credit reports, and can prevent leasing agents from approving sub-par applications. Furthermore, we created a sophisticated method to produce paper-work on-the-fly, totally integrated with the screening process.

The result is a product that multi-tasks. As users submit an applicant's information to run a background check, they are, in essence, also typing a lease. In pulling a credit report, they are tracking where the applicant is moving from. As they enter the rent amount, they are also compiling a report on the building's income. On-Site.com is modeled for specific job functions within the property management field. Our technology eliminates the need to type and retype information and creates a database that populates forms and aggregates reports. Each client's account is personalized for their properties and equipped with error-checking methods, so users and managers can be assured that their employees adhere to set policies. A company may opt to adjust their late-rent-payment fee, for example; with a single click, the change is implemented across the portfolio. This level of document control is impossible without a set-up like On-Site.com's. Largely through feedback from our clients, we have been able to make On-Site.com a company that industry professionals can depend on as a responsive and reliable partner. We're always innovating. Earlier this year we introduced "online applications" that can be completed 24 hours a day by prospective applicants.

Looking forward, we are taking great strides to continue providing the user-friendly technology and service that our clients and their clients have come to expect from On-Site.com. I have no doubt that with the continued advancements and our cutting-edge philosophies, our product will always be well received within this industry.

And we have a distinct advantage: Because our strict focus remains on serving multifamily professionals, we need not be all things to all people--but we do pride ourselves on being an intricate part of their working lives.

JAKE HARRINGTON, CO-FOUNDER ON-SITE.COM