Empowering Multifamily Management: MRI Software's Commitment to Seamless Solutions

MRI Software has been in the PropTech industry for over five decades and is a provider of real estate software solutions that redefine the way communities live, work, and play.  The MRI platform assists Multifamily owners, operators, and occupiers in innovating in quickly evolving markets. Based outside Cleveland, Ohio, MRI Software serves more than two million users worldwide with offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

In this episode, we covered:

• 51 years ago, MRI started out as a real estate finance company. They are now a well-known real-estate software company that is committed to providing operators in the multifamily space with solutions to give them more time in the day to work on expanding their business.
  
  
• MRI provides standalone or agnostic solutions for background checks, insurance policies, package delivery, rent payment methods, and calling technology for multifamily properties worldwide.
  
  
• All MRI solutions can function independently or be linked into current client technology platforms, saving owners and investors from having to overhaul their existing systems and enabling seamless integration.
  
  
• According to Andrea and Lori, MRI is assisting in the prevention of fraud with Checkpoint ID, which gives multifamily owners and operators detailed information to safeguard employees and property management from fraudulent residents. Additionally, MRI can help ensure that residents maintain their insurance coverage and do not cancel it once they have their keys in hand.
  
  
• Andrea and Lori state that clients of MRI are relieved by the company's ability to offer so many alternatives that reduce labor expenses, handle difficult conversations with prospective residents regarding background checks, and give staff members more time to concentrate on other elements of the property.
  
  
• Lori and Andrea are thrilled to be attending the Multifamily Women® Summit, as it aligns with the fundamentals of MRI. Seven out of the seventeen members of the MRI Leadership team are women, and they value the opportunity to encourage and recognize other female professionals in the field. In addition, MRI has established an open-to-all Women and Allies club where members can discuss business-related topics and offer their opinions on readings as related to the multifamily industry. 

Want to support the Multifamily Women® Summit and platform and get your very own meet the sponsor podcast? Click here to sponsor.

Connect with Andrea Matheny, Vice President of Residential Sales, and Lori Lord, Sales Director at MRI Software. 

Connect with Multifamily Women®:

Multifamily Women® Summit: https://multifamilywomen.com/
Carrie Antrim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carrieantrim/
Be a Guest on the Podcast or at the Summit: https://apps.multifamilywomen.com/speakingrequest
Multifamily Women® Leadership Series: https://apps.multifamilywomen.com/join

Transcript

Carrie Antrim 0:00

Hi there. And welcome to the multifamily women podcast. I'm your host, Carrie Antrim. And today I'm joined by Andrea Matheny vice president residential solutions at MRI software and Lori Lord sales director at MRI software, Andrea and Lori. Welcome to the show. Thank

Lori Lord 0:18

you. Thanks for having us,

Andrea Matheny 0:19

Hi Carrie, excited to

Carrie Antrim 0:20

be. Yeah, it's exciting to have both of you. I love this dual podcast we're gonna do today. I'm excited about that. We are too very much. Thanks. We so appreciate having the opportunity. Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about the MRI software journey.

Andrea Matheny 0:37

Thanks Carrie. Appreciate the chance to provide more information about MRI software. So MRI started as a real estate financial company, actually back in 1971, believe it or not. So celebrated our 50th anniversary last year 51 years as of this year throughout the course of that time. We've always been open to change. Technology has changed a lot in the last 50 years if you think about it. But we've never wavered on our focus to be the industry's most flexible, comprehensive, open and connected technology platform. Specifically in multifamily, the background in history means that we have a longstanding relationship with the multifamily industry. Even just as much, if not better than a lot of the other players out there today, we serve the top 10 property management firms in the United States. And then also when you look at the NMH C top 50, 90% of those use MRI. So, we definitely have made our mark in the industry, so to speak.

Lori Lord 1:43

I think just, as far as the continuation of our journey into multifamily care, one of the things that we're trying to do. Currently and hopefully very far into the future is really give property managers back some valuable time in their day. We know how the industry is moving. We know how quickly properties need to pivot and how valuable and important it is to have time to be able to do the things that are really important that need to get done every single day. We're really focused on educating the industry in terms of our tools and the things that we have available that can really help give some time back to the properties. So we're excited about being able to talk about that today.

Carrie Antrim 2:29

So let's dive into that. Tell me about the product and how exactly are you giving them their time back? What does that look like?

Andrea Matheny 2:37

I think it. Keeping them in mind, keeping all the distractions that they have in their world residents coming in phone calls packages being delivered. So, efficiency and. Trying to think about the intuitiveness of the system. So they're not spending time figuring out where do I go next. It's very readily available and easy for them to figure out from a bigger picture standpoint, really what we're trying to do with the solutions is. We'd like to be able to put the choice of which specific solutions these companies can choose from in their hands. If something works specifically for their needs and their business, they have the ability to do that. And so the approach that MRI is taking and a little bit different than a lot of the other solution providers out there is we'll work alongside maybe other solutions that they have in their tech stack. Or ultimately, we're happy if they wanna use all of MRI solutions. So we're putting the choice in their hands. What makes the most sense for their business needs? If I could

Lori Lord 3:42

just, expand a little bit upon some of the things that Andrea just touched on. It is about being open and connected and being flexible, but we can offer solutions not only. To manage, property management software as the core of what is being used every day. But we can also offer agnostic or standalone solutions that can help properties manage things like calls to their residents. As Andrea alluded to earlier, package delivery paying their rent. Acquiring renter's insurance policy. And then taking even a step back, even further when properties are trying to decide who to allow into their communities from a residential perspective, we allow them to Do background checks and make sure that they're using, the latest in background screening technology and things that are powered by AI and as well as vetting and verifying IDs through our checkpoint ID solutions. We've got call max from a calling technology. We've got rent payments. Our rent payment solution. We've got multifamily insurance, we've got checkpoint ID and we've got background checks and we lump all of those sort of ancillary products into what we call MRI living. That's our brand. We reintroduce that at NAA this year. And we've got a lot of great feedback and it's through the use of those plug and play. Solutions that people are able to take advantage of technology and gain some of that time back in their day.

Andrea Matheny 5:14

I was just gonna add on, so Lori mentioned several of the solutions going back to the. Beginning of the answer to your question, all of those solutions can be used standalone, and plug into a client's existing technology stack, or they can be used in conjunction with MRIs technology stack. So checkpoint ID from a fraud standpoint, insurance rent payment from an online payments perspective are a couple that she referred to. So, just wanted to reiterate we have some clients using those standalone. We have others plugging them into their existing solutions today, but definitely a good differentiating point for us.

Carrie Antrim 5:51

And so with all of these different solutions that you offer, what would you say is the challenge that you're solving in the industry, is there anything in particular you.

Andrea Matheny 6:01

I think we touched on it a little bit, but fraud is a big one. Laurie mentioned the ability at the very beginning when a prospective resident is approaching a property, some interest in leasing, there's a couple of factors there. One are they who they say they are, we want to obviously protect the property management company from maybe someone who's not legitimate, but also protecting their staff. That's a big part of it too. I think a lot of property management companies are aware of this challenge and this risk or some it's happening to, and they don't really realize it until we get into some of the stats and, it's a real thing. Another one is efficiency in the office for leasing staff in terms of the way that they're handling payments to the property in terms of rent utilities or anything else. Trying to offer a solution that gives them some time back automating some of that, making it easy for the residents to make their payments. And then to tie that back into, the financials behind the scenes. So there's less burden on the site staff. Providing rent reminders and things like that to residents giving them the ability to pay by text. I think the bar's been set higher from a resident perspective in terms of what their expectations are when they're going in to look at a property and make those leasing decisions. So it's nice to be able to give them those modern capabilities and at the same time, going back to Lori's point before, giving them more time in their day to do their job instead of, handling technology stuff.

Lori Lord 7:37

I also think that our solutions really help. From a compliance perspective, Carrie, there's FCRA compliance first and foremost, when you're screening your applicants to decide, who to rent to and who not to rent to. From a background screening perspective, we actually do the due diligence and make sure that we're vetting through some of those records that come back so that we are not reporting that an applicant has say a criminal history or some criminal records when it's really not them. Our staff is doing that and our clients, because they don't have to do that. Find tremendous value in. Or in that part of the process. And then also even on renter's insurance, our managed program helps our clients ensure that their residents are keeping those insurance policies and they're not canceling them after they move in right after they get their keys. So I think compliance is a huge value add that you gain by using some of MRI's products and.

Andrea Matheny 8:42

And when we make those points to clients, the relief on their faces, is the satisfaction that wow, this is really going to improve, their world, their site staff's world. So, that's always rewarding to see that and be able to offer that.

Carrie Antrim 8:59

My next question was gonna be, what are you hearing from your clients and customers? What's the feedback you're getting.

Andrea Matheny 9:07

The reaction, like I mentioned wow, really, you could do this, you could save us that time. You could help us with some of the things we talked about, the compliance it's a relief to them. Mm-hmm when we're gonna handle that, we're gonna take that I think even back to screening, sometimes you get into some difficult conversations. If a resident prospective resident doesn't meet the requirements that the property is set forth in terms of guidelines around background and credit, and those can be difficult conversations. And a lot of time, the burden of that is on the site staff to deliver that message. But we actually take that on ourselves and take that off of their plate. So I guess that would be an example of another kind of relief, but as far as feedback that we're hearing from customers the efficiency is experienced. It helps their day. It helps them put focus on giving their residents a better experience. So we're hearing all of that. They appreciate the opportunity to be able to pick and choose the solutions that they want for their business, as opposed to doing a full upheaval and reimplementing everything. If we can solve for, one thing and it plugs in and the data integrates back and forth without heavy lifting, from an IT and operations perspective. That's huge, especially if we have the ability to give them reporting without these disparate systems. So from a technology and operations standpoint, we get a lot of feedback in that area as well.

Lori Lord 10:31

Yeah, we also get a tremendous amount of feedback around helping prevent fraud. I can't tell you countless conferences. That I've been to and trade shows where somebody, a client, a checkpoint ID client or multiple clients will come up and say, we love checkpoint ID. Like it was a game changer. It's a lifesaver. I can't imagine not having it. And then we're also now talking to a lot of our clients about verifying income and taking that onus off. The site manager's plates. And gosh, when people hear, they actually say, wait a minute you're saying you would help us to verify somebody's income so that we don't have to, tell me more. And so that we're hearing some really great and very positive things and they're embracing us. And, we have more and more clients that are learning about all the different ways that we can help them. And the feedback's been really.

Carrie Antrim 11:26

How exciting. So you mentioned, various conferences in places you guys are going you're all over the country, I'm sure. Talking to different people and having all these meetings. What made you excited about supporting the multi-family women summit and platform?

Andrea Matheny 11:41

Very excited about it. Just a couple weeks away, Laurie and I are planning to attend we've scheduled all of our travel and very excited about it. So I think one of the reasons why it was something we wanted to be involved in is going back to our company core values we have several that we've put together, published, everyone on the team is aware of them and strives to achieve those and keep those in mind as we're working day to day. But, making the pride proud, making MRI brand, something that's noteworthy in the industry, we feel it's important to contribute in this area from a, not only a multifamily standpoint. Just providing other women in the industry as well and providing that support and acknowledgement. Seven outta 17 members of our leadership team are women. It's really important to us to have that diverse perspective from a leadership standpoint I would also say we've formed in the last year or two, a group called Women and Allies at MRI it's open to anyone who wants to join, actually, not just women, if you know, any men wanna join, they're welcome to as well. But the idea here is anyone who's interested to get together talk about topics in the industry we've had some guest speakers, we've had some book suggestions and then reflected on that. We also have an MRI foundation. It's our nonprofit foundation that was formed from MRI. And some specific focused, maybe related things would be giving some attention to girls who code, for example the Malala fund and NEO, which is Northeast, Ohio stem, which impacts the education and professional development of women. Those would be some examples that we've contributed to and will continue to contribute because we feel it's very important.

Carrie Antrim 13:30

What is the best way for our audience to get in touch with both of you with MRI? If they have further questions or just wanna meet you?

Andrea Matheny 13:38

Appreciate you asking. We can definitely plug the direct number here. (800)321-8770 alternately MRIsoftware.com uh, wealth of information out there in terms of our products, our services some of the events that we have going on news things like acquisitions are out there as well, and there's contact us. So if anyone didn't catch that phone number, that's out there, we will be at the event coming up here in early September. So for anyone who's attending, that would welcome the opportunity to speak with you further about your needs or what I can offer.

Lori Lord 14:14

Yeah, I'd also say, look us up on, on LinkedIn. Andrea and I are both on there, but we also have an MRI Living page on LinkedIn and we just reached a thousand followers. So I'm sure there are some listeners out there that are following us now, post NAA, but take a look at us there and we respond and monitor that constantly. So it's another great way to reach out

Carrie Antrim 14:36

to us. Well, Andrea and Laurie, thank you so much for spending the time. This was a great conversation and I just appreciate you both being here today.

Lori Lord 14:46

Thank you so much. It was great.

Andrea Matheny 14:47

Thank you very much. All right, listeners. I also appreciate you tuning in today and I'd ask you to please subscribe and share this episode. If you know anyone that's building a healthy organization in multifamily, we will see you in the next episode.