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Multifamily budget season is always a challenging time—‘tis the season when property managers are asked to polish their crystal balls, peer into the future, and map out a successful financial path for the coming year. Does predicting the future sound easy? Spoiler alert: It’s not!

Every day, essential multifamily maintenance workers undergo career-ending surgeries, sustain major injuries, age out of their work, or simply experience too much wear and tear on their bodies to continue working onsite any longer.

“Centralization” has been a multifamily buzzword for years. Prior to COVID, there were whispers of centralization in the air, but the height of the pandemic forced multifamily organizations to pivot and virtually tour and lease apartments.

Maintenance has always been a nearly impossible-to-solve piece of the multifamily puzzle. Between a never-ending list of work orders for technicians to tackle and the ever-worsening labor shortage, hiring and retaining top technicians can feel like fighting an uphill battle.

Over the last few years, the PropTech world has been abuzz with a shift to centralized leasing, a move that has improved both property managers’ efficiency and renters’ satisfaction. However, what about after a resident moves in? How can property management companies replicate the streamlined leasing experience with their onsite staff and maintenance crews?

Property Management Systems (PMS) and property operations software have imperceptibly become a necessity, the heart of the multifamily business ecosystem. Every property owner, from small to boutique, corporation to multinational, will eventually come across this conundrum: to build or buy their operations platform, at least once in their career. While it’s true that some larger multifamily ownership groups and property management companies have developed their own proprietary PMS or property operations software in house, it’s definitely the exception, not the rule. Here are the things to consider before deciding to build your own property management platform or operations software.