Smart Home technology can help with inspections and occupant turnover while data mining can help find suitable renters
The city of the future has been a subject of fascination and speculation since there have first been cities. As technology advances, our guesses about future cities become more educated. While we don’t know if the metropoli of tomorrow will be filled with flying cars and giant neon ads like in Blade Runner, we can safely predict the cities of the future will be Smart Cities. Using augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), spatial geolocation and more, the cities and towns of the future will create integrated experiences that make our lives easier, more automated, and more efficient.
What does the smart city mean for multifamily housing? Certainly the Internet of Things and intelligent systems will play a big role in the creation of Smart Homes that improve daily living by learning, streamlining and anticipating occupants’ habits. Access to amenities can be automated and incorporate digital queuing to make sure everyone gets their turn. Smart Home technology can even help with inspections and occupant turnover while data mining can help to find suitable renters. Every microcosm of urban life will benefit in a myriad of ways from the smart, connected world of tomorrow, and multifamily housing is no different.
Of course, smart spaces aren’t just about day-to-day life but also the logistics of travel and convenience. For example, something like parking — such a regular part of getting around in any North American city — could benefit from smart technology. Easily one of the greatest annoyances of driving, machine learning, predictive analytics, and augmented reality could take the pain out of parking by guiding drivers to available spaces. This could mean streetside parking spaces or public lots. On busy days, especially as the COVID recovery continues, public spaces could fill up. Which means smart technology could filter cars into unused parking spots in multifamily communities, generating extra income for the building’s owners.
Many multifamily buildings have more parking spaces open than they or their residents use at any one time. These open spaces represent money left on the table in a smart city where drivers can easily be funneled into convenient available parking. Using apps or an AR interface, a driver looking for a parking spot can easily reserve a space in a multifamily garage or lot. Suddenly a space that was just standing open is generating income. The fact that this also exposes new visitors to a multifamily property — and may inspire some of them to even inquire about housing — is just a bonus of converting unused spaces into profitable assets through an app or service.
With COVID-19 still at large, the pandemic is continuing to exert change over how our Smart Cities will evolve. While we may see a continued move toward expanded public transit, personal cars will remain a central facet of transportation for the foreseeable future... Offering underutilized or unused parking spaces in multifamily communities provides a valuable service using assets they already have.
Smart parking will be a fixture all over the Smart Cities we will all see in the future. New innovations will change how we move through our urban spaces, including how we park. By investing in parking apps early, multifamily housing businesses can be ready for the smart parking revolution, and profit off the assets they already have.
Author
Jeremy Zuker is the co-founder of WhereiPark, a technology company that enables multifamily residential and commercial property owners to discover new revenue sources through innovative solutions that leverage unused parking spaces.
