How AI is Revolutionizing Commercial Real Estate

 What if your next real estate decision could be guided by AI? Tune in as we explore game-changing innovations in Prop Tech. Discover how advancements make property management seamless, from virtual tours to app-based laundry systems and vehicle vending machines. We delve into AI's future in real estate, automating tasks and predicting equipment failures. This episode offers insights on how technology revolutionizes real estate, while also cautioning about potential risks and threats in today's environment.

Transcript

Rachel Oh 0:04

Welcome to Peaks and Portfolios presented by PEG Companies, your go-to podcast for all things commercial real estate investment. I'm Rachel oh, and together we're diving into current events, trends, issues and opportunities impacting the CRE investment space, from dissecting the latest market moves to sharing insights on today's commercial real estate landscape. It's time to maximize portfolios here in the peaks of the Mountain West and beyond. Hello everybody, thank you for joining us today. It is. I don't know what episode we're on, but I will tell you. When we first started this, I wasn't sure how this would go, and I am finding it to be a highlight of my life, so I am so excited for our guest today. We're here, summer's just started, and just a reminder to me of how beautiful the Wasatch Mountains are, so anyone listening here who has never been here, you've got to get out here. Now is the time. So thank you everyone for joining us for this week's episode of Peaks and Portfolios by Peg Companies. We've been talking about different things in real estate investment. We started off with the Fed funds, rate. We've been talking about architecture. We've talked about, like, how to JV with folks. We've talked about bank debt. We've covered a lot of different investment topics that I think are super interesting for the investor. I think sometimes, however, we forget sort of the nuts and bolts of what we do. We haven't necessarily talked about construction I think we'll do that in a future episode but today we really wanted to highlight property technology, or just technology in general that supports real estate, both from the investment perspective as well as at the property levels, and you know, we read in the news these days I mean, ai is a big thing. Turns out AI is also something that we see in real estate investment. So, with everything in you know that I just discussed, and with all these different factors in mind, we wanted to hear from an expert, a true expert that deals with this all the time, and so I am delighted to have as our guest today Jordan E Agnew, who is my good friend and colleague. He is the director of IT for Peg Companies and we are so grateful that you're able to carve time out of your busy schedule to join us today.

Rachel Oh 2:19

Jordan, thank you so much for coming. Welcome. Thanks, rachel. I appreciate it. I'm happy to be here. So have you been listening to my episodes? I listened to the first one I did.

Jordan Egnew 2:27

I also really like your guys' intro. It's pretty fun.

Rachel Oh 2:30

Yeah, well, that is. I mean, we have a great production team. So, yeah, no, it's been great and our listenership has been climbing.

Jordan Egnew 2:46

So we're getting some folks from across the world apparently, so it's actually exciting. So, jordan, you've been here. Now how many years I am coming up?

Rachel Oh 2:50

on my eighth year. Oh my gosh, wow, jordan. I've been here now six years. When I first started, you've always been so helpful, knowledgeable. I have watched you grow in your career. I have also watched Peg grow and it's insane today. So just a little bit about Jordan. Jordan has been in IT now for 13 years across several different industries. He has a background in information systems and, like I said, when I first joined here, I think we were 80 strong and now we are 1100 PEG employees across the nation into Canada, and you basically oversee anything IT related for our $2 billion plus portfolio of commercial listed assets. Am I right.

Jordan Egnew 3:28

Yeah, it's been a fun ride and a difficult ride at different times and it's been exciting to see the growth that PEG has been able to go through and the challenges that have been faced because of the growth and also, just as time has gone on, with emerging technologies and changes in the landscape.

Rachel Oh 3:42

Yeah, I think back to the pandemic. Yeah. I mean before that we were all butts in seats in the office and, for that good, what year-ish or so I mean. Granted, we didn't close down like a lot of groups did, but we had a lot of people working remote with their families and et cetera, and you had to navigate that whole process, like I think back just to that.

Jordan Egnew 4:02

That was crazy. That was a challenge in and of itself. Like to go from hey, everyone's here every day to we are no longer expected to be here.

Rachel Oh 4:10

Yeah, yeah, everyone's on teams Amazing, okay. So you know, one of the reasons, like I said, we want to invite you is because real estate is so dependent on many things to make it, you know, for the investment dollars to make sense, but also the technology supports all of that. I mean, I look at the investment team and all the different platforms that they use, right down to the property level. So what we wanted to do is we wanted to bring you in and pick your brain and better understand that, especially for our listeners. So I'm going to just go super back to basic. What do you do all day long? I know that you do these like phishing attempts and phishing with a PH, by the way, where you kind of see if I'm going to click on an email and like, oh you know, you got to take your IT review course once again. But what does an IT professional do in a real estate firm such as ours, as big as it is and the different types of properties that we support?

Jordan Egnew 4:59

Yeah, you know it's evolved over time. For sure. I feel like when I first started, the first thing that I kind of worked on and did was focus on the help desk. You know, just basic, hey, how do we get computers and email systems and accounts and things like that. And it quickly evolved into cybersecurity, like okay, how do we lock down our environment and protect our information. But, as you know, we've grown and progressed. I've had to learn property management um of PPG and uh for our multifamily and then also for our hospital, which is PEG property group.

Jordan Egnew 5:28

PEG property group.

Jordan Egnew 5:29

And then for PEG hospitality group, um, I've also had to? Um, learn about the hospitality side, like what do you guests and tenants want? What type of technology is important to them? Um, and making sure that we meet those needs. And then also, how do we scale and support all of our general managers and property managers? And so it went from very much, you know, service-oriented, just helping people get access to their computers, troubleshooting, to being much more involved in design strategy, consolidation of vendors, selecting of platforms, integrations into various platforms, so we make sure we have our data all in the right place. So my day-to-day is spent, you know, managing the help desk team, making sure that people are still able to work, access their accounts, all the way to meeting with our property management teams to make sure that we're putting the right camera systems in, that we're leveraging the correct smart home amenities that we're doing the right low voltage design with the construction teams, and so it's grown to be all encompassing of what PEG I think aspires to be that vertical integration moving IT into helping out all the different groups and all the different areas where IT kind of touches.

Rachel Oh 6:36

So Cameron has often talked about and encouraged and challenged the teams to leverage technology, to incorporate technology in everything we do. The teams to leverage technology, to incorporate technology in everything we do. It maximizes at the investment level but also at the property levels for to help us to be more efficient. And I'm just curious how that mandate has sort of spurred you know what you think about and how you approach technology at PEG C companies.

Jordan Egnew 7:00

I think the area that as we grew and we were different companies, there was a lot of silos, a lot of different platforms that people had, and that was a struggle because people were used to these different platforms from our hospitality management, peg hospitality and from our PEG property group and you know it works when they are independent and separate. One of the biggest things that we had to focus on is really bringing in those platforms and standardizing them so that we can get efficiencies and commonalities and common data sources so that we can start to leverage that data and be able to make decisions in real time, understand the cashflow at our properties, understand, like, what our occupancy rates are all those types of things in real time. And that's been one of the biggest areas I think we are starting to realize and we've gotten to is the merging of all those platforms, and I think we're getting to the point where we're starting to be able to create dashboards and live reports and make decisions in real time based on what's happening today.

Rachel Oh 7:58

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. I think dashboards are super helpful and I know that we use it in our own, you know, kind of our investor services areas and all that. So, okay, so technology is obviously like when I first started. I think there was just a couple of you and now the team is, I don't know 10 strong. How many do you have? Now we have six, okay.

Jordan Egnew 8:20

We act like there's 10 of us. That's how much work we get done. I just see all of you, we act like there's 10 of us.

Rachel Oh 8:24

That's how much work we get done. I just see all of you. So okay. So you're, you know you guys are you support, obviously, the 1,100 employees, but then you are supporting our tenants at the different properties, You're supporting our guests. Tell me about like sort of how that then has evolved. As you know, you're addressing our employees' needs, but then you're also addressing the end users. Like, tell me how that works.

Jordan Egnew 8:47

Some of the specific items you know when I first started helping out the hotels, like mobile key. Like a lot of our hotels, didn't have mobile key, so essentially mobile keys, when you go to the hotel you're able to use the app that Marriott, hilton or Hyatt has. And then you can get your key and go up to the door and get in.

Jordan Egnew 9:03

I do it all the time. Yeah, it's one of those things that, like our portfolio, a lot of our hotels didn't have it, and so identifying which ones didn't have it and then pushing to make sure that we get those types of things at the hotels for our guests and for the experience there, and that's just like one example.

Rachel Oh 9:18

By the way, we take all this for granted, I think. I just think that someone just presses a button and it just happens, but it's probably not that easy, am I right?

Jordan Egnew 9:24

No, it takes a lot of upgrades and coordination with many different vendors and the property communication to your guests and or tenants, depending on which asset you are in and it takes a lot and it's definitely a team effort across many different groups. But it is nice and I enjoy that aspect of my job. A lot is how I think about. How does my technology and initiatives impact the guest experience and, like the person living in our multifamily assets, like, what would I want if I lived here? What do I benefit from? And then knowing that, oh, people get to go recreate and have a good time and they can just bypass the front desk. There's a long line, a simple thing, yeah. Or ensuring that you know we have working business centers and things like that all the way down to those, hey, you don't need to print things often, but when you do, sometimes, it's traveling, you got to make sure it works.

Jordan Egnew 10:17

Yeah. And it's been a it's been a fun experience yeah.

Rachel Oh 10:25

So experience, yeah, so, okay, you know, I know we have our 702 main, which is one of our newer uh apartment buildings in downtown Salt Lake city, and what I one of my favorite features when we take a tour around that is, uh, you know, tenants can just buy, just going to the little store pick up something and just walk out Right Like they don't have to do anything. Am I right?

Jordan Egnew 10:41

Yeah, no, it's in a great amenity to have.

Jordan Egnew 10:43

So describe it yeah what Rachel's referring to essentially is we've partnered with a group that essentially comes in and they will offer a kiosk and all the different food like drinks, snacks, even up to sandwiches and different things like that, depending on the size of your property. But you can basically get what you need, check out and walk out and it's open 24 seven. It's available to the residents that are there Um and it's just really convenient and easy for them to access and I do feel like um, based on like what I've talked with our property manager team, that has been very beneficial um as an amenity to offer to people, cause they're like, oh, I see myself using that Um and it's something they want and it's not like there's a low level of theft, or how does that work?

Jordan Egnew 11:24

yeah, so it's actually managed by like a third party and they take on that reliability. They do have some requirements for you as the the management company and having like a door that has fob access and things like that, okay, but they take on a lot of that, those items, and they have like cameras in there. Um, so when you walk in you're being recorded by that, that vendor, and things like that, and so if you do, do, don't you dare steal that cup of noodles or you're going to get fined.

Jordan Egnew 11:46

Exactly, they'll, they'll, they'll. Uh, attach it in some way. They'll the. The vendor reaches out and lets the property know.

Rachel Oh 11:52

Okay, so technology in a in a sense like that is is pretty obvious. So I get it's really cool, it's really slick. It reminds me of kind of like the Amazon grab and go. Yeah, what about some, some technology that may not be so apparent but has been, you think, quite instrumental in, you know, creating efficiencies for either the hotel guest or, you know, the tenant at one of our properties?

Jordan Egnew 12:14

One of the ones that's been really nice is we implemented as a company a system called Yardi is basically like our property management software with a lot of our most of our multifamily assets, and what is nice about this is as a tenant comes and gets onboarded or moves into the property, we've been able to connect many different systems and selecting with our vendors from, like, our door access control to our door entry system, your voice box at the front, your call box and all the way to your parking, and you basically fill out these forms and all this information and day one you're able to walk into your unit. You're able to have an email that gives you your key app access to your room. You walk in, you have internet access already set up for you and configured and you have access to it Just day one you walk in the door. Everything is there and you have access to it. Just day one you walk in the door.

Jordan Egnew 13:05

Everything is there your door access, your amenities access your parking, along with your internet access and your cable, and that's been really efficient, because then residents don't have to take a week to get the things that they need.

Cybersecurity Risks in Hospitality Industry

Rachel Oh 13:16

Yeah, that's amazing. I don't think I realized. I mean, we obviously track our investors' investments through RDA. I didn't realize that it was all the way down to the property level. That's very slick.

Rachel Oh 13:26

Okay, okay, very cool, okay. So we've got interesting technologies like that. Tell me, then, what else like keeps you up at night, like what? What does your team focus on? I know it's not just implementing technologies that make life more efficient. I imagine there's a lot more serious type things, and I'm thinking like cybersecurity and fraud and all those things. Tell me a little bit about that.

Jordan Egnew 13:51

Yeah, some of the things that we've been seeing at our sites, it's been changing a lot, to be honest, in 2020, the things that we're facing now in 2024 are completely things that I did not really even run into. So tell me, what are we talking? Yeah, some of those items would be very sophisticated and targeted like fraud where they have information. For example, our hotels have seen a huge rise in just telephone fraud, which has been surprising, like you wouldn't think that'd be a normal way that someone would get in.

Rachel Oh 14:23

What is?

Jordan Egnew 14:23

telephone fraud yeah they just call the front desk at different times throughout the day and a lot of times they're targeting when they know that management has left, so usually post five o'clock. Okay, they call the property and even sometimes your night auditor, where they're the one person on property. They call them and they create a sense of urgency around some type of thing. Hey, we're going to turn off your power. Hey, we're going to do this because you didn't pay a bill and if you don't get that done, then you're going to not have power essentially.

Jordan Egnew 14:52

Or you know, we're doing some system updates and testing and we need to make sure that your payment processing is working correctly. And you know, and those have gotten. We've never had any instance so far in our portfolio where we've run into loss, but we've gotten to a point where employees have gotten close to that and, without proper education and training, stopping that, where they don't follow through with that action, and it is a little scary just the rise and the amount that you're getting At the hotels you have. You know, a lot of younger people who are first time jobs and making sure that they are educated and aware of these things, because they just want to do what they think is right. And they're like oh, IT's calling me, Hyatt, IT's calling me, I need to make sure I get them into my system and they can check this. But in reality it's all just a ruse to get them into your system, to have them basically take action against you.

Rachel Oh 15:45

So crazy so they'll just call someone unsuspecting. They're trying to do a good job, so like, oh my gosh, I need to be responsive. And then who knows what happens.

Jordan Egnew 15:53

Okay, and the thing is, they also have very specific information, like intimate knowledge, so they seem like they are legit. They sound like they're from Marriott, they've got like an employee ID and they know like a name and they're just usually spoofing an employee that's in IT, that's really employed with them, and they pretend to be them and they have working knowledge of the systems and it's a little different than what we used to have.

Rachel Oh 16:15

So what are we talking then? Like I mean, are they wiring monies to these people? Like, what kind of things are they actually able to?

Jordan Egnew 16:22

Yeah, one of the things that they try to attempt to do is a penny test so they'll get into the property management system, or they'll attempt to get you to get them into the property management system and have you do a penny test. But what happens is they kind of the way they're talking to you in urgency, they usually encourage you to add, like an accidentally add an extra zero or a couple zeros, and you think you're just doing like a one penny test, the way that they like explain it. You think, oh, I'm just doing one penny. In reality, they're trying to do like $10,000 to $1,000 transactions at a time and they usually try to get you to do that multiple times. Wow, wow.

Jordan Egnew 16:55

And people fall for this. Yeah, it's been falling, I mean even so, much so that now in the past month, all of the property management systems, when you get into, like Hyatt, and you log into your PMS every single day, there's a big red box that says Hyatt, it will never call you to ask you to perform any payment processing items. So, like the brands are taking it very seriously PEG, we're trying to take it seriously, where we send out monthly emails just reminding people about the reality of this and that IT is never going to do that. We employ Ninjio cybersecurity training program and we rolled that going to do that. We employ Ninjio, a cybersecurity training program and we rolled that out to all associates and it's a monthly video that's three minutes long and they just goes over some cybersecurity and keeps it at top of mind, because that's usually how you can best defend these things. It's always a cat and mouse game.

Jordan Egnew 17:43

They're always going to figure out a new way to get in. And so just keeping it top of mind and educating. So you're staying on top of that and you're critically thinking about is this potentially someone trying to get me to do something I shouldn't do?

Rachel Oh 17:54

Yeah, Well, it sounds like to me number one thing don't answer the phone, I'm sorry, no you got to answer the phone but, like to your point, they will never reach out via phone.

Rachel Oh 18:04

So then, how? I mean, obviously these brands and banks and things have to communicate with the properties. How do you train or what are the? I mean, what are the things that you train, uh, these folks to be aware of? And I imagine I can glean a lot of that too, because my bank also, when I log in, says we will never call you for information, like you literally have to log into the site or you have to call this number, like we'll never reach out, right.

Jordan Egnew 18:31

Yeah, so what? Yeah, and that's usually what it is. It's creating proper channels in which to verify things, and so usually it has to be a secure place, right? It's a place that you're logging into, usually behind, like a multi-factor authentication or something like that and it's going to alert you or let you know that something's going to happen.

Rachel Oh 18:47

Oh yes, the multi-factor authentication In advance. Exactly, I'm very well aware that you put it on everything I do, but okay, okay.

Jordan Egnew 18:53

Exactly, I know, it makes life so much harder.

Rachel Oh 18:55

I get it, but that's why right, exactly so it's to protect Okay.

Jordan Egnew 19:10

So you know that what you're going to get that information and making sure to verify via those channels is the way to eliminate those things. So if anything ever comes from a channel you're not used to or is from as in text, call a random email, you want to make sure that you verify it through a secure and verified way, that you know that other person is going to reach out to you a predefined path and that can vary upon different organization and group, but that's an important thing to always make sure that you think about is okay. How am I normally engaging?

Jordan Egnew 19:37

and finding this information.

Rachel Oh 19:40

Okay, so I could see that being an area of concern. What other things keep you up at night?

Jordan Egnew 19:46

Yeah, I mean with AI, and I think a lot of this has been fueled by AI. Ai is a wonderful tool.

Rachel Oh 19:53

Ai is everywhere. It is, it's everywhere and it's down to this level too.

Jordan Egnew 19:57

It sounds like, yeah, I mean you have to think if the billion dollar industries and multinational companies are utilizing it. You know the other groups that are bad actors across the world are also leveraging these same tools and developing ways to utilize it.

Rachel Oh 20:12

So you're saying fraudulent, active and all that is also leveraging AI. Yep, wow, they're so smart, okay so now.

Jordan Egnew 20:18

I mean, you can be someone who does not speak English or even has an accent or anything like that, and you can essentially sound just like anyone else you want to sound like and hide your real identity, and you can use vocabulary and things like that that you wouldn't normally know because you hadn't necessarily studied English to the depth that many people know it, and you can often the areas in the old adage where you know look for spelling errors in your phishing emails or look for weird formatting or when you're talking to someone if they're not able to communicate very well, or things like that. Maybe that's a sign that maybe you're not talking to the source that you think you're talking to, but with the advent of AI and the tools that are leveraged, that's gone.

Rachel Oh 21:04

That's all gone. So then, how do you? I mean so the old techniques or skills, or you know? Cues that you could go off of are no longer valid. So then, what I mean? What? What's left?

Jordan Egnew 21:17

Yeah, the next, the phase there then you have to do is you implement just higher verification processes. So I know that PEG has like a anytime, like wiring of money is going to happen. We've instituted a phone call to a predefined contact that we know and have validated in advance of the wire and we validate with them. And the reason that we do that is because you can't necessarily always trust a team, an email coming in from somebody verifying things, or if there's last minute changes, we're always going to verify. Anytime any wiring instructions change, Anytime there's any changes, we have to verify with one of those predefined channels that we have. And even that area we're looking to even change potentially here at PEG is because you can even start leveraging. I mean, this is a little, it's a little scary here, but like there's SIM hacking where someone can essentially I'm sorry what SIM hacking on your phone, SIM hacking. Yeah, so every phone has a SIM card.

Jordan Egnew 22:14

It's the thing that communicates back to your provider and gives you your service. In some instances, there has been a rise in bad actors being able to copy your SIM through notorious methods, as in contacting T-Mobile and pretending to be you, or your T-Mobile account is not secure, and they get into your T-Mobile and they order an extra SIM card. They get a SIM card delivered to wherever they are. They put it in their phone. They essentially are receiving the same text messages and calls that you are getting, and now they know when you're getting a call from someone to verify a wire transfer, they can pick up and they intercept your calls or your text messages. And so that becomes worrisome because now it's like okay, can we trust our phones? Like, what do we do next? Right.

Jordan Egnew 22:58

And so some of the new adages or things that are coming out around this are having like a code word, essentially with your bank. That's like your banks, right. They say, hey, when you call in, what is your passphrase? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're like blah, blah, blah, blah. I love lemonade, or something like that. It's because it's a rant. Now, I know yours, I know I'm just kidding, be careful, but you got to be careful because I passphrase that you and that person know.

Jordan Egnew 23:32

So, it verifies you. And that's somewhat the level that we're heading to, because AI not only can it now do very good written explanations, but there's also tools to now do voice, where in real time, I could be speaking to you, rachel, and I, rachel, and if you spoke Korean or something like that, I could just be talking to you in Korean and you'd have no idea that I'm just speaking English into an AI translator that's spitting back out a voice that is Korean.

Rachel Oh 24:01

Oh my gosh, that's like a scary world.

Jordan Egnew 24:03

In real time.

Rachel Oh 24:04

I feel like I don't even know what's real or what isn't real is what you're saying.

Jordan Egnew 24:09

And it's getting more difficult. There are tools, and there's lots of, you know, agencies and defenses being enacted by platforms that scan, for example, like social media, when people upload a video that's been altered by an AI tool, there are ways in which they can look at the metadata or the information that's tied to that video and look for changes and manipulation.

Rachel Oh 24:29

What if AI gets so smart that they can mimic? You know, I mean.

Jordan Egnew 24:33

Yeah, I know I mean then you just hope that we're keeping up on our tools to be able to discover it.

Rachel Oh 24:36

I feel like we're going to go back to some sort of weird analog world.

Jordan Egnew 24:40

I don't know where that's heading.

Rachel Oh 24:42

You just can't tap into the phone line.

Jordan Egnew 24:45

I think one of the big areas is biometrics. You're seeing a lot of like biometric type things, like your phone with face ID is kind of the beginning of one of those things, right?

Rachel Oh 24:53

Well, they do thing at the airports, right.

Jordan Egnew 24:55

Yep Now when you go to the airport and then you scan your driver's license there. I think that's kind of where we'll be heading, is where you'll have to do biometrics. I'm even seeing it integrated into, like DocuSign and Salesforce, where you can use your thumbprint to essentially sign in to those platforms to access information. So you're seeing enterprise level big organizations starting this.

Rachel Oh 25:15

I feel like I need to invest in some biometrics now.

Jordan Egnew 25:16

Yeah, and the reality is we're moving away from a password, moving to a passwordless future, essentially.

Rachel Oh 25:21

Thank goodness, my passwords I don't. I'd much rather touch something than have to remember my password, so I'm actually okay with that.

Jordan Egnew 25:30

So it might be nice for you not to remember the 1,300 passwords you have across all your different platforms. You can just use your face. That would be nice.

Rachel Oh 25:37

No, I love that. I wish I could open my door with my face, but maybe we'll get there. Okay, so we've talked about mitigating the risks associated with AI, more specifically around cybersecurity and things of that nature. At the property level, what are the good things about AI that we're able to leverage and how are you doing that with? Maybe even the prop tech? I mean, I don't know, but, like you know, at the PEG level, with our investments. So the investment team, real estate development team, the construction team, down to our tenants that are just living like, or you know, at a hotel. What are the good things about AI that we're able to?

Prop Tech and Virtual Leasing Innovations

Jordan Egnew 26:15

leverage you know some of the areas that we're trying to leverage or look at. Ai is like on a lot of our websites. We'll have a chat bot where it interacts with our property management software, yardy, where it understands, like what policies and general availability that units have, and it can actually communicate as people ask questions like what units does this place have available? And it can actually communicate as people ask questions like what units does this place have available? And it will actually be able to check and let them know in real time what's available via a chat. If they don't necessarily want to like navigate through the entire website, you can also ask it just various questions about the property and it can kind of highlight things. Those items are kind of in our beginning stage, I believe, and I feel like over time future modifications and improvements will be added to this to really facilitate a leasing experience that would be virtual.

Rachel Oh 27:06

Yeah, you keep mentioning that, so explain that to me. You're saying there won't be like this cheerful leasing agent that's going to greet me. I'm going to come and I scan what. I scan a QR code, I get access and they'll just something, will walk me through or tell me how that works.

Jordan Egnew 27:21

Yeah, some of the areas that I'm seeing that groups are exploring. It's not necessarily that they don't have a leasing agent per se, but you don't depend on a leasing agent, you don't always depend upon that person If they're on like a tour or it's after hours per se.

Jordan Egnew 27:33

You can have a location or like a kiosk that's in an open location that potential people could walk in on like a Saturday evening later on when your office is technically closed and they can see your availability, and they would be able to essentially do a complete virtual tour via this kiosk and interact with this kiosk and ask questions like what are the fees, what are your policies here? And it's able to all check those in real time and communicate those to you via written text or even audio back to you.

Rachel Oh 28:03

So this is all just via chat. You're just sitting at home and you're able to do it. This is if you came into the property.

Jordan Egnew 28:09

Oh, you come into the property, yeah, and it'd be like a kiosk or type of interface that you can actually interact with via voice and talk to.

Rachel Oh 28:16

Can you walk around the property too?

Jordan Egnew 28:18

So some of the groups are exploring that that one has some additional layers of security problems, so on that one.

Jordan Egnew 28:23

They would have to take a pre-verification where they've submitted their driver's license via secure portal. You know who they are and then those people can get essentially an invitation if they're not able to come, like during normal operating hours, or maybe they don't feel comfortable always interacting with the property staff. Some people just enjoy doing their own thing and figuring things out themselves, and so to help connect with those people, you could present up essentially a virtual meeting. You've authenticated who they are, they can come in and via an app, they would get temporary access to be able to come into the property and go tour a unit without necessarily always interacting with the leasing agent. Of course, the leasing agent's always going to get information, they're going to follow up, they're going to make that human connection with that individual and ensure that they feel welcome. But it really helps with those people who may not always want to go that route. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jordan Egnew 29:19

And it kind of extends your business hours too.

Rachel Oh 29:21

Yeah, no, I could see that being highly beneficial because, again, you know, labor is always a big thing just across the board and being able to maximize after hours and not having to employ additional folks and offering that and ease of convenience for our tenants and whatnot.

Jordan Egnew 29:40

One area we're like a little bit not exactly doing this, but in a slight way is our Avia residencies. We've actually, their hours are a bit reduced, they're our hotel, they're more of an extended stay type hotel asset and their hours, I believe, are from eight to eight. So what that means is there's people usually checking in, sometimes after eight o'clock, right. So we've been able to set up a process in which the office can close at eight o'clock but, via smart technology and different integrations with different tools, those guests are able to actually come to the property after hours, access and get their keys, the property map, the information that they need and go directly to their room without having to have a front desk person necessarily there. And this isn't like a hotel that's linked with a major brand like Marriott, hilton. This is something that PEG has kind of created ourselves and a process in which we've created based on a need in an asset category.

Rachel Oh 30:35

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know that in our meetings a lot of times you talk about prop tech, property technologies. Tell me a little bit about that, because I feel like you talk about that a lot yeah.

Jordan Egnew 30:47

One of the recent areas that I've been more involved with I'd say in the past year and a half two years at PEG is I started to learn our development construction process. I just found that we weren't always standardizing some of our vendors and platforms and I really wanted to get involved and understand. What can I do from a technology perspective to try to standardize our not only our employees experience and how they interact with the tenants and the tools that they have, but also how do I make sure that our tenants are getting items that they want?

Jordan Egnew 31:18

and that they work the way that they're intended to work and we're getting all the features that we paid for essentially, and so some of that.

Rachel Oh 31:26

So like explain, like what do you mean?

Jordan Egnew 31:27

Some of those, items are, like your smart home technology, that are inside of your apartments Okay, from your door all the way to your thermostat smart lights, to being able to walk around the property and have property Wi-Fi, where you're actually connected to your personal network, all the way back in your unit.

Jordan Egnew 31:47

And you can interact with your smart devices even though you're at the pool, and so, basically, they've been able to create these networks at hotels and multifamily assets that, no matter where you go on the property, you're still technically connected to your home network, which really helps you as you want to interact with your IOT or your smart devices back at your apartment in real time.

Rachel Oh 32:14

So that's, they probably hadn't contemplated that in the beginning, but that's something that's morphed over time. Is what you're saying?

Jordan Egnew 32:18

Yeah, and that's been definitely since the since, like the pandemic, everyone went home and people were just there all the time. A lot of things, yeah.

Rachel Oh 32:28

I'm not one of those, by the way. I literally leave my home in the morning and I'm either at work or out and about. Leave my home in the morning and I'm either at work or out and about, and I do not come home until it's dark.

Jordan Egnew 32:36

So I am not one of those people yeah, and I I think there's I think it's two people in two different camps. Usually I'm the same way. I don't love. I like to be outside my house a lot of the time, right, I like coming to the office and seeing people, but there's so many individuals and people that have needs for that and they, they want to be at home and they just enjoy being in that location, and I think the reality is is like a lot of people and that kind of leads me into like some of the amenities I guess you can offer with the smart home or prop tech.

Jordan Egnew 33:04

One of the other things that we've seen technology-wise is like your fitness room, making sure you're getting like Fight Camp, which is like a I'm sorry, what camp yeah? So Fight Camp is like.

Rachel Oh 33:13

I've heard of Fight Club, fight Club, but this is Fight Camp. We don't talk about Fight Club. We don't talk about Fight Club, just kidding. Fight Camp, fight Camp.

Jordan Egnew 33:20

Yeah, it's basically think of Peloton and like an online personal coach that walks you through running, biking, whatever it is. It's specifically to like boxing and it gamifies and makes it competitive with a bunch of people to do boxing. So you have like these mitts on that have sensors and then you have a boxing pad that has sensors and it knows where you're hitting it, how hard you're hitting it Really.

Rachel Oh 33:44

Yeah, we have this at our multifamily.

Jordan Egnew 33:48

We haven't implemented it yet but we are looking at that. We've implemented some other ones, like Peloton, echelon, yoga Mirrors, but those are the types of things people are looking for because there are expensive items like right and people don't necessarily have the funds to always go out and purchase those. But when you add these features into, like your gym, even if you don't have a lot of space, and you put these types of high-end, high-value items, people are like, oh, like that's some value for me.

Rachel Oh 34:13

It adds value to their experience, their living experience.

Jordan Egnew 34:16

It's not just a treadmill and a regular bike right, yeah, yeah yeah, they're like. Oh, even whether they use it or not, it invokes a stronger emotional connection and want and desire to live in a place that has those types of things Interesting.

Rachel Oh 34:29

You should get, we should get robots. I don't know if robots are technology, but how about robots that give massages, that we?

Jordan Egnew 34:35

should get robots. I don't know if robots are technology, but how about robots that give massages? That would be nice. We have implemented at some of ours in the health and wellness, because that's been another huge area. Not that this is like necessary technology, but those water massage chairs oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, I've seen those and those are super nice. Those are amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rachel Oh 34:57

No, I did try one once and it was amazing.

Jordan Egnew 34:58

Okay, so that's what you mean by prop tech, then, like, how about something even as boring as like laundry?

Rachel Oh 35:01

Yeah, we usually have in-unit laundry but like some of the areas that we've done, we're nice, we give people in laundry, exactly.

Jordan Egnew 35:05

But some of our assets don't like our Avia brand.

Rachel Oh 35:08

Oh, yes, a lot of them. The former hotels.

Jordan Egnew 35:10

Yeah, the former hotels, a lot of those. The renovation didn't have room to necessarily add in that type of equipment into each unit, but what they did is they created laundry rooms, obviously, but they removed um, like the cash, it's all like qr based. It's app. So you walk in, you select what, you scan a qr code, you select which dryer washer you're using and you can just pay digitally. Nice, and it also will let you know when things are done and and updates you okay, yeah, so you don't have to like sit there if you know you feel comfortable at that.

Rachel Oh 35:39

but so I imagine then in the in-unit ones, aren't those also wireless, or do they have any Wi-Fi technology that they could? They could, I don't operate them.

Jordan Egnew 35:48

We could. I don't believe any of ours that we have explored, but that's actually a really good point. Um, there are a lot of washers and dryers that do have. They're, uh, connected to iot which is iot is just internet of things. It's just any device that kind of connects to the network and has some type of um interaction with it. That could be a, a fridge, a toaster, whatever. Everything is iot nowadays really, if you want to find it, you'll buy it.

Rachel Oh 36:10

You bring up a really good point for because I am my own IT manager at my house right. I am my own chef, I am my own house, like I am everything. What's nice is, if you're renting and you're renting with a group, you know, that has those kinds of things, that's actually a huge advantage, because then you are my IT person, I don't have to do it all.

Jordan Egnew 36:28

Exactly, and someone's designing that infrastructure for you and having those items for you and you don't have to manage it.

Rachel Oh 36:35

So it sounds like, in addition to cybersecurity and the advent of AI and how to mitigate those risks, you are also concerned about the actual property level experience, the tenants making sure they're able to leverage the most available, the best available technologies. It sounds like in the living experience. Yeah.

Jordan Egnew 36:57

And another one of those areas I felt to mention is like our package lockers. Even Just partnering with like Amazon and having like smart package lockers where Amazon can come put things in a secure location that tenants can access and also return items directly back to Amazon. It's just like one of those really great features you don't always think about but as you market it and advertise it and show it to prospective tenants, they really enjoy that and there is a value added to their experience.

Rachel Oh 37:24

I think that's so interesting. Again, when we first talked about this, I think we started off with data and whatnot, and what you touch and the decisions that you make and the strategies that you implement are so far reaching right.

Rachel Oh 37:41

Not just for someone like my experience. But again down to the hotel guest who is able to, you know, use a key card to get in and not even have to interact with the front desk, Cause I come into properties sometimes at like two in the morning and I just go to my, I mean that's awesome. And then you know, down to um, the tenant at one of our properties that can get a virtual tour or, you know, just be able to walk into their home and turn on the lights and have it already done, and that's amazing when it's almost becoming an expectation of people.

Rachel Oh 38:11

I think, and when you don't have it, it's then I'll become, become subpar.

Jordan Egnew 38:15

Yeah, it was like frustration built up.

Rachel Oh 38:22

Yeah, no, I like that. Okay, so we've been talking about some of the things that are available. Now Tell me some of the things that are coming. Like, what does the future look like? I was joking about robots doing massages. Know, what is this brave new world going to look like? Like, what are we talking about in terms of, uh, things that you're seeing that are future state but are likely to come?

Jordan Egnew 38:45

yeah, and and I want you to blow my mind like, tell me, like what are some crazy things that are going to happen, stuff yeah, like I mean just stuff that you've seen, like yeah um, obviously some of this will be just like me, speculating about potential things based on what I know. So, whether it happens or comes to fruition, full well, time will tell, right. But some of the areas that I do feel that AI is going to really benefit not only the tenant guest experience but also the operational side. It all kind of connects back to taking off all the automated tasks that we have to do to day-to-day submitting a report, automating emails to residents, automating notifications.

Rachel Oh 39:28

So you're talking at the property level, for the property managers and the regionals and all of that. They're going to have more automation built in. Something's going to actually tell them what to do or it'll get done.

Jordan Egnew 39:38

Or take care of it for them essentially. Another area that I'm seeing is in maintenance. We're seeing different AI sensors, different sensors being integrated into maintenance items.

Rachel Oh 39:49

You know, my Google Home tells me when to change my. Air filter, air filter, and I don't even know how it knows yeah I've changed it like how does it know?

Jordan Egnew 39:58

I think that that one does a combination of time and then also like the pressure in which the air is passing through.

Rachel Oh 40:03

Okay, and so then it's creepy. I'm like how does it know, but it'll be like time to change your air filter and I'm like whoa, you're like, okay, well, same thing with that.

Jordan Egnew 40:12

Like think of your big like boiler rooms and all of your different HVACs and your different systems. So actually what they're able to start doing is, with the AI, they will know basically which products you're putting into your asset whether that be the type of furnace, the type of air conditioner unit, all the way down to your door access and your doors, all the way down to your door access and your doors.

Jordan Egnew 40:34

They can basically start tracking these devices and these different items and comparing that to the many different properties all over the country and the world that have done that and start extrapolating that data.

Rachel Oh 40:45

Oh my gosh, that is so crazy.

Jordan Egnew 40:46

They can then start saying, ok, we're starting to see these start to fail, and in real time you can start getting alerts, saying, ok, it looks like model three of your air conditioner unit that you've installed at this property is starting to see some issues on year three and it can alert you in real time. Maybe you haven't seen it at your property yet, but it starts happening, and so then you can start predicting maintenance requests and then you can also start. I think what that eventually lead to is understanding which is the best system to put into places. Yeah.

Jordan Egnew 41:17

And you have data to say okay, we don't want to choose that type of air conditioning unit because we've seen a failure rate at this rate. Yeah.

Jordan Egnew 41:24

And so you can start making decisions, not only basically throughout the whole process, not only how you're maintaining it, but you can choose what you're putting into a building and hopefully making better decisions on the systems you're putting in it. But you can choose what you're putting into a building and hopefully making better decisions on the systems you're putting in, but then also being able to proactively start planning maybe a year or two in advance of when you know you're going to have to put some equity into your property.

Rachel Oh 41:42

That is so interesting. That is amazing, because we don't have to do anything, I don't have to remember stuff. It's going to evaluate for me. It's basically just going to tell me what to do. That's, I think, pretty crazy.

Jordan Egnew 41:56

I think it's crazy too, but I think the caveat on the question I think I come back to in that, well, if I wasn't worried about this, what other things could I solve? Could I be more creative in my job if I was able to take out some of the tasks of remembering things? Would that facilitate me to be more strategic? And I think that's where we should all focus, you know, as individuals, as organizations, as companies is how can we take some of this low-hanging fruit and items that we have to be so reactionary to all the time and cause fires? How to be a little proactive so I can save myself time, so I can remain strategic, I can be creative and not have to have these stressful situations happen as much no-transcript.

Rachel Oh 43:01

Excellent job doing so. I think that's super interesting. Okay, anything else I've missed is we've been talking about technology, about AI, about cybersecurity, about all these things as it relates to real estate investment that I think people are probably maybe not as aware of.

Jordan Egnew 43:17

Yeah, I think. One other one is like electric vehicles. Right, it's not maybe a strictly IT type of thing, but there's a lot of like grant money and money going around right now to implement and put in infrastructure around EV charging infrastructure around EV charging and so we are trying to get access to that grant money and models so that we can have EV chargers offered as an amenity at minimal to no cost at the property setup.

Rachel Oh 43:44

And that would involve solar or something, wouldn't it? Because wouldn't you have to have some sort of alternate energy source in order to provide electricity and to minimize costs for?

Jordan Egnew 43:54

it. Yeah, so on that one, it's actually pulling from the grid and then going into your car.

Rachel Oh 43:57

Okay, what if we pulled from solar?

Jordan Egnew 44:00

I haven't seen that. On that, because usually these are like the think of the ones where you go to like the grocery store and it's like a little like stand.

Rachel Oh 44:06

Yeah.

Jordan Egnew 44:08

To charge your full car. Yeah, that's more where I have seen that piece, because you get like the solar.

Rachel Oh 44:13

to charge a car is quite a bit of energy it would take, you know but if you could capture solar energy and not go into the grid and have that right, you could do that. That's fair and I and you know you are saying what do I know?

Jordan Egnew 44:25

no, no, and actually you are seeing, like ikea, for example, or a weird example, they've installed, I think, or are installing essentially, solar panels on all of their stores around the world, and the idea is that they will utilize the energy created by that first and then they'll tap into the grid.

Jordan Egnew 44:41

And then that's equaling savings for their operations side. So I think we'll start seeing that happen more and more and potentially, I think maybe we'll start seeing it in the real estate side on our area and, by the way, I have no interest, like I have no economic, financial interest in solar companies or anything.

Rachel Oh 44:56

It just came to mind when you were saying you know minimizing costs at the property levels. Yeah. And in some states electricity is expensive. Yeah, Our primary Mountain West region is not so bad, but I know California is expensive and I think Florida maybe I don't remember, but yeah.

Jordan Egnew 45:12

Okay, but offering the amenity of the EV charging and then trying to not pay for it yourself, I think, is a good strategy too. So you don't have to come up with it Because they're expensive little units. I think I saw that they're like $300,000, something to get like one of them Is that much. Yeah, oh Because it's like there's a lot of like licensing and not licensing, but permits and regulation around it that you have to pay for.

Rachel Oh 45:34

So one of those things are $300,000?.

Jordan Egnew 45:36

They can be up to that much, yeah.

Rachel Oh 45:38

But not the kinds that are in the homes, right, that's different.

Jordan Egnew 45:41

No, that one's different. These are like your supercharger type stations.

Rachel Oh 45:44

It charges your car in like 20 minutes or something. Yeah, okay, yeah. Okay, supercharged Okay, okay.

Jordan Egnew 45:52

Yeah. Well, okay, okay, well, and actually since you know, as we're kind of winding this down, the other thing too is we do have those car stackers, right, and that's technology enabled right, because I know that you can call your car quote guess, type of thing, and that was really, I think that was needed to make that project even move, like we had to go with that we did because we didn't have the room.

Rachel Oh 46:20

Yeah, but the parking requirements. So, for those of you who haven't seen this, we have at one of our properties a parking system that's actually enabled by technology. Right? You use your app, I think, to call the car, so will you describe that for everyone?

Jordan Egnew 46:35

Yeah, essentially like you. Let's say, you're in your apartment, you're ready to go, we'll start at that point. You basically can call your car and schedule that. Like just via an app, yep, via an app, and let it know like you're heading down to go grab your vehicle. It will, essentially. And now your car is sitting in a big six story, seven story, stacked on, stacked on, stacked. I think it's like three cars deep, seven cars tall.

Rachel Oh 47:01

It's literally like a. I've seen it. It's like a vending machine.

Jordan Egnew 47:04

It just kind of Tetris's your car, exactly, and it takes your car let's say your car's all the way to the top, it'll move it down, move it over, move it down again, and it kind of moves its way down until it gets to the point in which it's delivered to you.

Rachel Oh 47:14

And it just spits out right.

Jordan Egnew 47:17

It pulls into like a car part that you then walk in, get into your car and drive out, Wow. And then it goes ahead and reorganizes and puts the car back up and it's ready for the next person.

Rachel Oh 47:30

How long is that process? From the time you call the car and to when you get?

Jordan Egnew 47:35

in the car. It depends on where your car is located inside the parking structure, but it does give you, like an estimated time on your app to let you know like about how long you can expect. So if your car you know, if you ran in put your car in and you ran inside your house and you needed to come right back out to grab it, it's not going to take nearly as long. But, if you went and parked your car and you waited two weeks it might take, you know.

Rachel Oh 47:55

I don't know exactly how long, but I would say like 10, 15 minutes potentially for you to get that car, which would make sense that you call it when you're starting to leave, and that'd be in the case where there's like multiple people who have also like cued their car order, but that'd be like your worst case. But it gives you a time estimate.

Jordan Egnew 48:09

Yeah, dude, I love that, I want and it's nice because again you can build these nice assets in a highly dense location.

Rachel Oh 48:16

Yeah, where parking is tough. By the way, when we built the parking garage at Paperbox it was the largest covered parking vending machine, if you will, in the West. Isn't that crazy?

Jordan Egnew 48:30

That is really cool.

Rachel Oh 48:31

In little old Salt Lake.

Jordan Egnew 48:32

And I think when they announced it too, it was one of the first ones here in Utah ever.

Rachel Oh 48:36

Yeah, I think there was another group that had one in theirs, but ours was the first freestanding Freestanding and therefore the largest, because we were able to do much larger than the other ones.

Jordan Egnew 48:47

Well, you know, rachel, I think we talked about a lot of different things today, A lot of these new emerging technologies and a lot of these really exciting things, and I'm I'm really excited for a lot of them. I think what it will do and facilitate for everyone is just better lifestyle and like more less drudgery and like the day to day of like these tasks that you're like no, you're right.

Rachel Oh 49:08

You're right, Simplifying things and, uh, automation and being super smart. I mean that's and dude, if I can call my car from a phone, that's pretty slick, I'm pretty excited. That's amazing. That's awesome.

Jordan Egnew 49:22

And I'm really excited to see where it all goes. And I think it could. It's changing literally every day. There's a new company announcing some feature and a new organization implementing AI into their platform, and I think that we're just really in the beginning phases of seeing where it all will go. And while there are those challenges and initiatives, I think that every good thing comes with its challenges. So we're going to see some great things.

Rachel Oh 49:46

Awesome, Well, and and I don't have to worry about it because you're protecting us with all your cybersecurity stuff so you know, I think technology is one of those things that we take for granted. You know really truly, but I love hearing about the different things that you're thinking about, things that keep you up at night and the policies that you've implemented, and I pretty much just don't open any emails anymore unless I know who it's from. So you've taught me that, Perfect, You've taught me well, and now I'll never answer the phone.

Jordan Egnew 50:11

So no, you can have so much more time.

Rachel Oh 50:13

Yes, yes, no, it's so good. Okay. Well, Jordan, thank you so much for joining our little humble podcast today and for everyone that's been listening. We so appreciate you tuning in. So, again, from the peaks of the Mountain West, we're so grateful to have you all in Joining us for this week's episode of Peaks and Portfolios by PEG Companies. And so until next time, thanks everyone.