E28: The Rise of Leasing Sight Unseen with Matt Weirich, Co-founder & CEO of Realync

On this episode of Sync or Swim, we talk with Matt all about:

• Why six trips to Chicago and 40 property viewings sparked the idea for Realync
• Why he sat on the idea for 2 years before putting together an MVP
• What COVID did for the "lease-unseen" industry
• Why 63% of homebuyers in 2020 bought sight unseen, and what that means for the industry
• Best practices for showing a property over video

If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe or follow Sync or Swim wherever you get your podcasts, Google Podcasts, or conversation today.

Mitch Fanning [0:00:54.0]:
Okay, so welcome back to Sync or Swim. I'm Mitch Fanning with Rentsync, and joining me today is Matt Weirich, Co­-Founder and CEO of Realync, a video leasing platform in the multi­family space. How are you doing today?

Matt Weirich [0:01:03]:
Good, Mitch. How are you doing?

Mitch Fanning [0:01:07]:
I'm doing fantastic. Well, first, thanks for doing this and gonna be talking obviously a lot about video leasing, and here's how it's evolved since COVID, and obviously, we're gonna talk a little bit about COVID, we can't get through a conversation these days without talking a little bit about that. We won't say new normal. We definitely won't say new normal, but... And the whole idea around leasing properties unseen, but before we start, maybe you can tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got in the industry, and how you get the idea for willing.

Matt Weirich [0:01:45.3]:
Yeah, absolutely, so it definitely goes back... 2011 was the origin for the idea, which I can't believe that 10 years ago now, but I was graduating from Purdue University, moving up to Chicago, which isn't a crazy, far distant, about two, maybe three hours depending on traffic. And I was looking for a place to live. I ended up driving up to Chicago six weekends in a row to look at properties, looked at over 40 different properties in person, and it was a pretty painful process, 'cause at least half of those I walked in and instantly turned around and walked out. I knew within seconds I wasn't gonna be living there, so it really made me question why it was such an efficient process looking for a place to live, relatively site­ unseen quote on quote site unseen and see I was still traveling up there, but... Yeah, just the main question, the overall apartment search process, lack of availability to see my exact unit online and what that caused with the in­person reliance, and so it just so happens that May 2011 was when FaceTime came out, which is crazy now, it feels like FaceTime is just a standard part of everyday life and that it's been around forever.

Mitch Fanning 0:03:04.9 S1:
Exactly.

Matt Weirich [0:03:05]:
So, I kind of put two and two together that I absolutely would have used something like FaceTime to connect with my agent or the leasing team or someone to preview the spaces and make my physical in­person touring a lot more efficient, but I ended up sitting on the idea for a couple of years, didn't make any moves on the original idea, but I started my career as a management consultant at Accenture, and as a consultant, I was on the road for three years straight Monday through Thursday, every single week. And one of the trends that I saw repeated time and time again, and it's my colleagues was How hard looking for real estate was not being able to physically be there to tour, and that pain point just kept popping up time and time again in my life. And so finally, I was actually at a work event and my now Co­-Founder, Ani, him and I were
calling out at Accenture and talking about what's next... He was part of a startup at Northwestern University, wanted to do something entrepreneurial, so I pitched in the idea in the very next weekend, we were in my apartment, whiteboarding laying a foundation for what is now Realync.

Mitch Fanning [0:04:16.2]:
So you mentioned 2011, but when you started kind of whiteboarding... What year was that?

Matt Weirich [0:04:22.4]:
Yeah, so that was the end of 2013. And then we brought the very first MVP version of the railing platform to market in 2014.

Mitch Fanning [0:04:32.1]:
When you were looking as a renter, and you would walk into these spaces, of the responses you're gonna give me more obvious, but what were some of the reasons why, based on what you saw, you said, Wait, no, this isn't me, knowing that it was a fit in the initial kind of screening, but then when you saw it... What was the disconnect there?

Matt Weirich [0:04:54.7]:
Yeah, I mean, when you looked at an apartment website, you could see photos of the model unit and typically that was about it, besides a 2D plan and in a big city like Chicago view, natural light, full west facing or east-facing view versus partially obstructed. Fully obstructed, things like that. I'm clearly a big view and natural light guy, that's where I gravitate to, but even things down to the finishing and the quality of the tile, the carpet, is the sliding closet door on track or is it partially
hanging off of the track and just little things like that that you never notice online, but you absolutely. Notice in person, I'm very particular with my real estate and there was... I don't wanna sound too bougie, but there was definitely a laundry list of the boxes that I was looking to check that very quickly would be unchecked by just walking in and see the unit.

Mitch Fanning [0:06:02.0]:
So we're gonna put a pin on that 'cause we're gonna talk a little bit towards the end about your idea of a perfect touring experience through video, and the idea of being authentic and being transparent, 'cause there's a couple of things that I can comment based on our experience at Rentsync, the other thing too is the whole whole... When the technology comes out, so a lot of times, even giving a... Just a simple example, like social networks, when mobile became a thing, it kinda was the catalyst, because a lot of people started using Facebook on their mobile... I guess my question is, knowing that FaceTime became the technology was... Did you feel like it was partly because you were just doing other things, or did you feel like it was just too early, it was just too early to kinda move on that?

Matt Weirich [0:06:53.9]:
Definitely too early. I don't... I don't know if you remember, even when FaceTime first came out, 4G LTE wasn't even the thing, we were still in the 3G era. And so to use FaceTime, you had to be on WiFi. It actually did not work on a 3G network, and so there were just some of those early barriers about connectivity and the whole home internet and the WiFi extenders and hotspots to our community and things like that really weren't a thing back in 2011, and so, sat on it, A, because I was starting my career fresh out of college as a consultant, but B, because I recognize of the constraints with being able to really fulfill that live, virtual touring video leasing sort of the idea that I had was going to be part of that was going to be outside of my purview and I didn't wanna get into the business of having to help a community figure out their connectivity throughout the property in order to use my platform. And so I was kind of chicken and egg on that a
little bit.

Mitch Fanning [0:08:03.7]:
100%. So 2013, you guys start whiteboard­ing, you guys kick out a MVP 2014. I'm not from this industry. I joined Rentsync a couple of years ago, I'm from kind of the B2B software SaaS space, and from the whole MarTech marketing sales software, we've seen like 2006-2007, like HubSpot, that was kind of the initial... Like the CRM sales force, there was a lot going on, and it's evolved, and I think it still has some runway to go as far as the MarTech space. Just outside of this
industry. However, 2014 starts... You guys start working on your MVP. Give me a sense of what you saw from 2014 to say 2020. Because I think the PropTech space was catching fire, you saw investment, you saw investors wanting more data, wanting ways to streamline their operations. Give me a sense of what that looked like.

Matt Weirich [0:09:09.0]:
It's been incredible when you look at that window over a six­ year span back in 2013-2014, PropTech wasn't even a widely known term, and I don't even know if it was formally coined back then or not, we always, we called ourselves a real estate technology company, and now we would sound so old for saying real estate technology, it's PropTech. It was incredible, the attention that PropTech got very quickly, right after we launched, I would say, about six months after we launched our MVP, there were multiple PropTech accelerators starting up in Chicago, in venture capital groups and investment groups that were turning eyes on it. One of our very early clients and partners, Waterton residential, they even created an internal innovation team and they were looking to partner with some of those accelerators, some of those investors to really help spur, foster, and be a part of innovation in the real estate space, which was a super exciting time to get into it, for sure, but in terms of our journey, it also was... I won't say a slow one, it was a linear one, and from '14 to '19, we saw a really good steady linear growth, but especially for the multi­family space, it was a very educational sales process, and there was a slowly growing percentage of the consumer audience that was looking for a better experience when touring properties, but it wasn't really a catalyst for on­site leasing teams and management teams to change yet, and when introducing video leasing and virtual leasing, they were thinking of it from a marketing standpoint, virtual tours were marketing tools that sit on their listing, sit on their website for people to engage with on their own, and then touring means physically come to the property and tour in a person, and so there was resistance, there was obviously, early adopters as there are with any technology that proved out incredible value on our platform of being able to double, triple, and sometimes even quadruple lead to lease conversion rates by introducing virtual leasing into the equation, and so a lot of us are really starting to open up to it at industry conferences like PropTech. I started to get more and more attention on stage about how the leasing process is evolving and self­guided tours came into space, and there was just a lot more attention on how that part of the resident life cycle can be enhanced. Evolved, streamline, things like that. And so your timeline was a good timeline of '14 to end of '19, because 2020 everything when you talk virtual changed.

Mitch Fanning [0:12:26.9]:
It changed 100%. And so it's interesting, again, coming from the outside and looking at just different how... How a vertical adopts a technology, if you will, kind of just being a student of that. The other thing too, and correct me if I'm wrong, but one thing I noticed was the tech hubs for PropTech seemed to me to be in... Going from east­west, it was New York. It is Texas, it's Chicago. I'd say Chicago is a good one, and it's a Seattle, just kind of due to the Redfin and Zillow, where a lot
of them more outside of the Silicon Valley, a lot of them. And so that's kind of an interesting thing. So I see, did that... I guess my question or my comment, did that kind of help or do you see that, like that connection to that kind of hub... Was that a connecting point?

Matt Weirich [0:13:22.6]:
Yeah, absolutely, and I love that you recognize that, 'cause it's an interesting call out, and I can't necessarily put my finger on exactly why it's that way, in my mind, there's some sort of disconnect between the real estate vertical and pure B2B SaaS go­to­market strategies on it's definitely a different space with different good market strategies to be able to hit it, but it's definitely evolving, and I think the real estate space is becoming more accustomed and attuned to that pure B2B experience, an expectation. I also think there's something to those that you called out, there's an innate hunger to prove oneself, I guess there's no over­inflation evaluations or building a business purely for the multiples, it's building the next business to be successful, make an impact and make a revenue... Be sustainable businesses and things like that versus simply building for the round and about saying All Valley­ based businesses do that, but I think there is a blue-collar is not the right word, but there's a grittiness to a lot of PropTech companies.

Mitch Fanning [0:14:48.0]:
Yeah and the other thing too, we talked a little bit about the idea that the investors want more data and that's kind of been pushing it, obviously, on the renting side, people are used to booking an Uber, getting their Starbucks through the mobile, not everything is almost product-led, it's almost like more... They want digital. But I also notice as well, these companies, whether you're a property management company, whether you're an owner-operator or even an asset manager, you're starting to get these people inside that are becoming real professionals, like marketing and leasing professionals, and as a result, you're starting to see that actually be an evolution as a professional, because five years ago, they didn't have all of these technologies that had to integrate, so now you're seeing that somebody has to come in as a marketer and pull these things all together, there's teams within those operation that I have to now understand that whereas five, 10 years ago,
they didn't. So it's almost becoming almost a profession unto itself and it's expanding what that profession looks like, which I think is great.

Matt Weirich [0:16:03.0]:
Yeah, absolutely. And even when you look on­site, the profile of a successful leasing agent today is very different than it was five, 10 years ago, and the leasing agents that are adopting technology and evolving and shifting to consumer demands and trends and things like that, are the ones that are seeing a lot of success, and I think it is a testament to the industry and stepping up and stepping into this new season, I won't say new normal and be willing to shift and try new things, which is super exciting.

Mitch Fanning [0:16:52.9]:
Absolutely. Now, kind of shifting gears, are kind of moving forward in the conversation, definitely has experienced incredible growth as a result of 2020, as a result of covid people accelerating the need to go digital, of course. I guess the question is, what's been your biggest takeaway from all this? I'd be curious, we talk about this a lot internally, just... We've been fortunate enough to have that kind of same kind of trajectory because of the environment we're in, partly. What's been your biggest takeaway?

Matt Weirich [0:17:27.7]:
Yeah, it's interesting, a lot of times you hear about something being a catalyst for change, and that's 100% what covid was for our industry in a lot of ways, and while the industry was shifting and was adopting new technology, it was happening slowly, and you would see a lot of owners and managers that would try things out on a property or two, but there was really no plan beyond that property or two of... Well, what does success look like here? And once we see that, does that mean you're rolling this out to the rest of your properties or what does that mean? And I think now we're seeing companies approach it from more of a top­down corporate­wide strategic approach of, Okay, all of our teams need access to this technology, not just our lease­-ups and leave the stabilized properties out to dry and solely 'cause we're maximizing the NY on them. All of our teams need access to this baseline package of technologies and offerings, and we're going to marry
that up with training and support and things like that, and so it's really been incredible seeing the shift from a lot of the corporate teams as well as the onsite teams of how they're leaning into adopting, integrating and implementing technology. Not with that, we'll try it out, mindset, diversities, a solution that they know they need for their business to thrive moving forward, and even as we come out of shelter in place and quarantine and all of that, we're seeing teams keep that mindset of being equipped to provide the experience that the consumers are looking for, no matter what that experience is, whereas before, I feel like personally, I feel like a lot of owners and managers and on­site teams try to fit the
consumer into what they wanted to offer, and now they're looking at the other way around as well, What do our prospects want, and how can I provide that?

Mitch Fanning [0:19:49.9]:
Yeah, and it's kind of, again, just in my world, that's reducing the friction of the whole life cycle, in a lot of cases, you look at how somebody becomes from a lead to a customer and you expand it and you try to reduce friction, and I think what video does in many ways is it reduces the friction, it's an easy thing to do. Get your head around, speaking of use cases and trends, when I was doing some research for this conversation, one interesting use case that I found video, I was a customer testimonial and a customer used willing to verify an applicant's proof of ID, I believe, by getting them to actually, when they were having real­time conversations in the video, they're getting... Actually getting them to hold up their ID to prove that, because in most cases, they're not comfortable actually sharing that either via email or they can't come to the physically to get into that conversation. For one reason or another. So the question is, what other interesting use cases have you or your team noticed, there's the straightforward ones, like the marketing, what are some of these interesting ones you're like. It's an interesting use case.

Matt Weirich [0:21:09.3]:
Yeah, that's what's so fun about it. We don't limit the creative possibilities of our clients on the platform, we really leave the creative direction up to them of how they use Realync to create their prerecorded videos, use it for live towards, you name it, and we've seen some really creative virtual open houses. We sell a team out in Maryland, Maryland, they did a price is right themed virtual open house, which was a fun and creative, they dressed up, got really into it, and it was a really cool way for them to engage with their audience online and host the large number of people through their property at one time, but in terms of those really cool different use cases that teams might not be thinking for with video, we saw a huge increase in maintenance videos, teams including very simple how­to videos of How to program your HVAC. How to reset a tripped breaker, care tips for your in­unit washing and dryer to clean up the lint trip and things like that. We even had a student property that had a heavy presence of international students that didn't know they needed shower curtains, and so they recorded a video about why you need shower curtains in the bathroom, and so it's a really cool way to just communicate a message and help people understand something I'd say another really interesting use case that was client­driven for us and opened our eyes to a cool use case was self­ guided towards self­-guided tours are really growing in popularity where consumers want to come to our property, but they don't necessarily want the leasing agent there, throughout the tour with them, and there's an abundance of self­ category companies and platforms to make it safe, secure access, all of that, but the pain point with that is there's no voice of the leasing team guiding that prospect through the tour and answering their questions and things like that. And so you're seeing a growing number of teams create QR codes on signage that they'll place throughout that self­guided to a path, and the QR codes link to a video of the leasing agent in that room or in that amenity talking through the upgraded countertops or the... Beautiful sunset views or how you can schedule and book this amenity and things like that, so it's keeping the voice of that leasing team in that self­ guided, our path without the... Physically be a part of it, which is really cool.

Nicolina Savelli [0:23:59]: 
Like what you hear so far, make sure you never miss an episode by clicking the subscribe button now, this podcast is made possible by listeners like you. Thank you for your support. Now, let's get back to the show.

Mitch Fanning [0:24:04.1]:
So I wanna mention one thing, and I kinda hate to come back... I've been thinking about this for a couple of days, I guess is why it just keeps coming back into my conversations about this, and product leg growth is something that is more on the software side. Most people in multi­family probably don't even know what that means, but again, what you told me, when you start getting maintenance videos, how I see it is resident success, it's knowledge base, now it's the marketing, it's the leasing, but now it's like there's a reservoir of videos to not only help your residents solve problems, which has its own use cases or business cases in terms of why you'd wanna do that as an operator, but then there's the whole side of retention or like less turn... So it's interesting, just in this conversation how you can apply that video strategy across, right from the marketing and leasing, but also resident success.

Matt Weirich [0:25:13.3]:
Exactly to your point about that, the really cool thing with video is how it really does play throughout the entire resident life cycle, and it's such a... I think you use these words earlier, transparent and authentic way to communicate a message, and we're seeing teams create move­in videos instead of sending a packet of information of what to expect on move­in day, they're adding a voice to it, and that voice provides empathy, humanize the message and it gets clicks, people want to engage with video and some other really cool use cases on the resident engagement side of it, we actually have some affordable government subsidized sort of properties using Realync where they have on­site service coordinators and that on-site service coordinators sole job is to empower the residents to teach them new skills to help them create and fine­tune resumes to get jobs, to do things like that, and they've been using the Realync platform to host enablement sessions, training sessions, empowering resident events and things like that, which is really cool, they're using it to just feed into the residents and help empower them to grow and... So yeah, videos, videos, so powerful in a number of different ways beyond just marketing and things like that.

Mitch Fanning [0:26:39.4]:
Kind of switching gears, what kinda comes to the topic of the day is... The interesting trend is, and before we do get your thoughts on it, I'm gonna share a couple of stats that I heard recently. In 2020, Redfin claimed that 63% of home buyers, so this is on the home buying side, bought sight unseen, which when you think about that for a second is amazing, and there's a Zillow stat that claimed that 40% of millennials were comfortable buying homes online. So again, this is on the for sales side, of course, but I think it translates very nicely that you're not buying, and I think there's a correlation there. This whole idea that people are signing leases without heading physically toward the property, I guess. Do you see it continuing and where in your mind, if you just had to throw out a prediction, are we gonna get to a point where it's like 60%, 80%, you're gonna start to see without actually even seeing the place...

Matt Weirich [0:27:54.3]:
Yeah, it's super interesting. The stats you gave being on the for sale side of the industry, I would say it's probably a factor higher than that for apartments, because the home purchase process is a lot bigger of a commitment than a 12-month lease, and it is super interesting, even back pre­covid. So I think it was November of '19, the Kingsley report came out, and that fall of 2019 was the first time in the Kinglsey report that they reported on a % of consumers no longer wanting to visit a property in person before signing a lease and back then fall of '19, in that report, I believe the stat was 14% or something like that. Obviously, that's only grown through 2020, and I'm with you, I feel like moving forward out of 2020 and 2021 and beyond, it is gonna be the trend as long as authenticity and transparency are in that virtual leasing experience, I think as long as a consumer can see what they want to see, meaning the exact unit that they might be living in, and have their questions answered and have trust instilled in that virtual process, I think we'll see it continue to rise, and there's always gonna be the people that want to physically see it before they move in and there will be the hybrid where they want to maybe preview three or four units before visiting the property, and then they've down-selected and they look at one unit in person before they set in the lease. But I really do think it's going to continue to increase. We'll see this, not battle between physical and digital for multi­family, but we'll see... We'll see a balance and it'll be a marriage, and it really should be a fully integrated leasing experience, where there really is no difference, no gap, or no extraneous circumstances for a prospect that wants to be 100% digital or prospect that wants to be 100% physical, it should all be streamlined, efficient, integrated, and very transparent leasing experience for them.

Mitch Fanning [0:30:16.9]:
Yeah, it's gonna obviously depend on the product, if it's a class A downtown, you're gonna have younger people, they're more used to the video, you're gonna need that probably plays out all through or pulls it when you need it, in some cases, just top of the funnel, just keeping it so that people can kinda make a decision and get to a decision­making process is like... Yeah, they wanna reach out. And you have all that information. So you mentioned a couple of things, and I'm not looking for a top 12 checklist, but it's... We've brought up the whole idea around being authentic and transparency, and I do think that's important, and again, it dovetails with... People are having to learn new skills, video creating skills, which goes back to a comment I made about being professional and having to learn their new skills, but what are the best practices that you can apply across all base cases to make that kind of perfect video touring experience some best practice may be, where should people start pre­versus or in­person recording what are of back of the napkin, three to live things that people need to do in order to actually be authentic and transparent.

Matt Weirich [0:31:37.4]:
Yeah, that's a great question. I think the first thing people need to do is get over themselves, that's the first top everyone... Everyone wants it to be a masterpiece, they want it to be perfect, show the property in the best light, which obviously you don't want it to look bad, there's basic foundational things that you can do to make your video look good enough, pans slowly. And that is the number one thing people pan too fast. Hey, the person watching the video, I can't even see you, what you're trying to show them, you probably gonna make them sick and it doesn't look good. So pan slowly, we always tell our clients, stand and pan. A lot of people will just walk through the space and they're always moving and walking while recording them is innately shaky, and if you just position yourself in the corner of the room and do a slow pan of that space without walking is gonna show... Well, you'll be surprised how smooth you can pan, just using your phone, no anti-shake me or anything, and then from there, it's really just piecing it together with some basic editing functionality, so the number one thing that we really focus on is individual clips of video, which obviously, does require having a platform to edit all that together, the Realync allows that stitching your clips together, whatnot, but by not making it one long continuous video, you can cut out the transition time of walking from one space to the next, you can really add a nice look and feel to it by having those transitions... Space to space to space. And it really allows you the record the creator of the video to... I think it's forgiving that way, so if you're doing one long continuous video clip and you mess up three minutes into it, well crap, you have to start back in the beginning all over again, whereas if you're 12 seconds into a 20­second video clip, you just re-
record that clip and you're not another three minutes, and so there's a lot of those basic things that you can do to make it a more simple and forgiving video creation process, but my number one tip of getting over yourself, so many people don't want to... They sound on video, they don't wanna be in the video, they don't think it's quality enough, but just take 60 seconds and scroll Facebook, 90% of the videos that you see on there are shot an iPhone, and that's what consumers consumers are used to seeing today. It doesn't have to be some full production, staged lighting, microphones, sort of
production to add value to your prospect, so that's ultimately what immediately comes to mind to me, and we do provide our clients with a DJI Osmo Anti-Shake Gimble, I will say, for the Price... Dollar for dollar, it is the single most beneficial investment to make it truly smooth out the video gives it that drone­-like floating look and feel, and the nice thing about it is you really can't pan too fast using that gimble 'cause it will slowly catch up even if you whip the camera around, so it really does help increase the quality of it and just gives people confidence in what they're shooting when you put something like that in their hands. 

Mitch Fanning [0:35:15.4]:
Is that something that you white-label or Can you do buy that on Amazon? If so, I'll put it in the show notes.

Matt Weirich [0:35:21.5]:
Yeah, absolutely, there are a growing number of gimbles out there, and the number one thing to consider if someone's looking to purchase their own is the weight of your device, not all gimbles are created equal and the motors can burn out very quickly. And so the reason we partner with DJI on the Osmos is because they can actually handle the most weight, so when you look at plus­ size devices and screen size getting bigger and all of that, the Osmos our opinion, the quality, durable performer of the mix, but there are some more affordable ones, if you have a smaller SE device or something like that, there are some more affordable options on the Amazon that you can get that we'll do just fine as well.

Mitch Fanning [0:36:09.9]:
So I wanna keep respectful of your time and I wanna sit... One more question before we bring this to a close, not to put on the spot, but... So obviously, when you create a video, and I'll just use YouTube, 'cause everyone kinda knows that there are specific analytics that they provide, and there are also video platforms that aren't industry­specific to multi­family that I've done that and they have different use cases and why you should create video, and you're not gonna bring them up, but...Different analytics. So the question really is, are you providing industry­specific analytics or is a bit of both. I guess the question is, why should somebody use that versus another platform?

Matt Weirich [0:37:01.4]:
Yeah, I always say being built from multi­family is a big consideration for anyone looking to integrate video into their processes, and built for multi­family means multi­family specific functionality when creating the videos, hosting the live video tours. There's a lot of reasons why FaceTime and Zoom and some of those platforms have some gaps compared to a built­for multi­family live video to solution, but at the end of day, the number one thing I'll say is FaceTime will never integrate into Yardi or Entrata or your lead management system, it's just not going to...Whereas something built from multi­family is going to have those integrations from your top of funnel ILS Website marketing integrations through your lead management system, your resident engagement app, and platform, it's going to be an integrated solution, pushing and pulling data and putting things where you need it, to be an efficient process, but also a tracked compliant process and one that your company can all collectively operate within those not built for multi­family solutions. There are a lot of PMCs that have created really good defined around them, but it still leaves room for variability from property to property, person to person, and if it's not fully integrated solution that can be tracked to make sure that people are doing exactly what they need to be doing in it. And so with Realync, obviously built from multi­family fully integrated throughout the entire resident life cycle, all the different places, but one of the nuances and call out to the data point that you mentioned, YouTube will show you macro leads and you can see how many views are on a video, but with Realync, we actually have unique link tracking, and if I send you five videos to preview a property, and I actually did notifications in real-time and analytics in our platform that tells me what video you're watching when you're watching it, how many times you're watching it. I know exactly what you have or haven't engaged with as a leasing professional, if I have 35 active prospects and 10 of them have ghosted me for two weeks, all of a sudden I see that someone's engaging with the content. So I'm gonna pick up the phone and call that person to follow up, I know they're engaging, they're thinking about it, and things like that, and so there's a lot of leasing automation and leasing insights that can be garnered from the interactions and the activities that someone takes with your videos at the top of funnel on the website, how that trickles into the leasing process, how they're engaging with that and things like that, so there's a lot of data that can be pulled to make a leasing professional and a property manager a lot more targeted and effective and efficient in what they're doing...

Mitch Fanning [0:39:58.8]:
Yeah, you had me at integrations again, I can't stress that enough. We're seeing that to the whole of ops side and the tech stack. Again, people in these organizations, there's gonna be emerging role just focused on ops, to be quite honest, and it maybe already kind of exist, but they're not called that specifically, but making sure that all these things are integrative, whether natively or custom, getting more and more important. And it's something we're also seeing, so as we kinda
moved to a smooth landing and a couple... One question, and then a couple of quick-fire rounds, and then I'm a big fan of giving people back more time in their day, so what does the next three to five years look like for multi­family in your view? Maybe Realync, maybe just video touring specific as a category.

Matt Weirich [0:40:52.3]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think the last question was a perfect segue for Realync on that front, it's helping teams be more efficient and make smarter, informed decisions, so there is a lot of data being collected based on the actions and activities and feedback that prospects and clients are giving throughout the entire process from the very first touchpoint at the top of the funnel, all the way through to then become in residents, and there's a lot that we can pull to help make leasing teams more effective and efficient to do things like lead scoring and automated follow­up and touchpoints and personalized follow­up and things like that, so there's some really cool things from the leasing insights and automation standpoint, as well as leaning into the resident engagement side of it more, as well as being a more integrated solution, helping optimize the operations for communities. Like you said, product life, growth, so there's some really fun opportunities there for us in
particular, but as an industry, it's so hard to say, had you asked that question a year and a half ago, it'd be very different than the answer today, and so I'm excited with the speed of improvement, the speed of innovation in multi­family, and I think that's only going to increase. We're seeing a lot of big moves by big players, both on the tech side and the owner
manager, PMC side, and like you said, there's gonna be some new positions brought into these companies that are going to really help integrate, streamline and enhance what's happening with technology. What's happening on­site? And I'm excited about it because we based a lot of our roadmap based on client feedback, and I think the client is becoming a lot more educated and specific in their ask, and it's really helping drive the how fast that innovation is happening. So I think it's gonna be good. Like I said earlier, I think a theme that we will see is that combination of physical plus digital, that's in my opinion, going to continue to be a theme that we see iterating and we collected a quote from one of our clients in 2020, and I feel like he really sum it up and hit the nail on the head, he said, It's not my job as a leasing agent to tell a prospect what he or she can or can't do, or does or doesn't wanna see, it's my job to provide the opportunity. And I feel like that's going to be a mindset that we see more and more of in our industry, is having that service mindset of catering to the prospect, providing the opportunities to experience the space and have the experience living at that community that they're looking to have so, I'm excited for all that.

Mitch Fanning [0:44:10.7]:
I think that's a great place to end, to be honest with you, and where can people find out more about Realync?

Matt Weirich [0:44:19.6]:
So you can definitely catch us online, realync.com, check us out, we can also be reached in sales@realync.com, marketing@realync.com, contact@realync.com, You name it, all the general inboxes, but we're also very excited to get back to some physical in­person conferences and events and start to be in person with our industry again, we miss it.

Mitch Fanning [0:44:48.3]:
I think we're all in that same boat, and we're all looking to do fist pumps again, or at least elbow bumps. Well, that's it for another episode. Matt, thanks so much for doing this. And then next time, keep swimming. 

Matt Weirich [0:45:00]:
Appreciate it, Mitch.

Nicolina Savelli [0:45:05.1]:
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