An Interview with Taylor Wiederkehr, Founder & CEO of PropTech IQ, with Todd Thorpe of Cambium Networks
In the fast-moving world of multifamily and community technology, one truth has become impossible to ignore: data, not promises, is driving the next era of adoption.
And few people understand this shift better than Taylor Wiederkehr, the CEO and founder of PropTech IQ, who sat down with Todd Thorpe of Cambium Networks, a global leader in wired and wireless solutions, to talk about how third-party data analysis is reshaping technology decision-making across multifamily, student housing, senior living, and affordable communities.
Where PropTech IQ Began: Solving a Pain Point Everyone Felt—but No One Solved
Before founding PropTech IQ, Taylor spent eight years inside two of the top ten NMHC organizations, leading innovation, vetting vendor solutions, and guiding major tech investments.
From the inside, he noticed an industry-wide problem: Vendors could make a strong case, but their message often got lost as it moved up the chain of command. From frontline conversations → to managers → to regional leaders → to executives…the real value proposition would get diluted, distorted, or lost entirely, much like a childhood game of telephone.
“By the time a proposal gets to the final decision maker, the vendor is five people removed,” Taylor explained. “PropTech IQ exists to make sure the truth makes it all the way up, intact.”
This realization, paired with a pivotal moment during a major smart home IoT pilot in 2018, changed everything. After presenting clear, data-backed results to the president of his company, Taylor saw firsthand the confidence and speed that credible numbers could bring to large-scale decisions.
It was a lightbulb moment: If owners could make decisions faster and more confidently with real data, why wasn’t anyone equipping vendors with exactly that?
And so, PropTech IQ was born, not as software at first, but as a consulting practice that evolved into the industry’s first independent, AI-backed impact analysis platform.
The Industry’s Biggest Challenge: Technology Decisions Take Too Long
Today, most owners still follow an outdated process:
- Rely on vendor promises
- Run expensive pilots
- Gather inconsistent results across markets
- Spend 12–18 months trying to make one decision
By then, the tech landscape has already changed.
And vendors? They’re stuck waiting and hoping their message survives the internal hierarchy.
PropTech IQ solves this by delivering independent, implementation-based data that both vendors and owners can trust.
Using real deployment results from real communities, PropTech IQ creates a 3-page standardized impact report for any technology, evaluating:
- CapEx
- OpEx
- Market benchmarks
- Asset type
- Zip-code–specific conditions
- NOI impact
- Operational gains
- Cash-on-cash returns
- 3, 5, 7, and 10-year financial outlooks
It’s essentially a pilot—without the pilot.
Why Independent Data Is a Game-Changer
Vendors often pitch with generic numbers or case studies from other markets. Owners know this, and many have been burned by promises that didn’t materialize.
PropTech IQ changes the dynamic by neutralizing the noise.
“If a property in Texas is evaluating a case study from New York, the numbers just aren’t comparable,” Taylor said. “Every market has different costs, vacancy rates, and operational realities.”
PropTech IQ’s platform uses vendors’ real implementation data to generate impact models that are accurate within ±10%, specific to the exact:
- Market
- Asset type
- Zip code
- Rent structure
- Labor costs
- Cap rate
This creates apples-to-apples comparisons between vendors, something owners and developers have never had before.
One example: Capstone Multifamily, a 3,000-unit operator, used PropTech IQ’s analysis to skip the pilot stage entirely and deploy a portfolio-wide IoT rollout in under 90 days, saving nearly a year of testing and uncertainty.
Reducing Risk, Saving Time, and Eliminating Guesswork
Historically, owners relied on spreadsheets, gut feeling, or “what the last guy did.” PropTech IQ replaces that with:
- Verified market data
- Real performance timelines
- Predictive modeling
- Automated financial projections
- AI-assisted ingestion and analysis
AI plays a big role, not to replace humans, but to eliminate human error and accelerate complex ingestion of multi-property datasets.
And PropTech IQ is now expanding its AI capabilities to evaluate emerging technologies such as AI leasing tools, quantifying lead flow, response times, and verified revenue impact.
Beyond Vendor Evaluations: Helping Owners Build the Right Tech Stack
A surprising evolution of PropTech IQ’s work? Owners began asking for help designing tech stacks before a property is even built. Using the same market-level data, PropTech IQ now helps developers determine:
- What technologies are essential for competitiveness
- Which solutions fit their market and asset type
- How to avoid overbuilding or overspending
- Which vendors offer integrated, unified experiences
- What will truly drive NOI—now and long-term
This helps avoid fragmented systems, like receiving bids from five vendors that would require residents to use four different apps. Taylor describes this as a fractional innovation leader model powered by real data rather than opinions.
The Future of PropTech Adoption: It’s All About Expenses
Rent growth has plateaued.
Operating expenses are climbing.
Margins are thinner than ever.
Owners no longer care about “cool tech”. They want cost savings, efficiency gains, reduced operating burden, risk mitigation, and verified operational impact.
PropTech IQ’s upcoming white paper will highlight early findings: Technology doesn’t just increase revenue; it can also significantly reduce expenses in ways most owners aren’t currently tracking.
“Owners are tired of decisions based on what seems cool,” Taylor said. “They want proof. They want clarity. And they want to know the value is real.”
And the vendors who cannot prove that value? They’ll struggle.
Data is the new truth that carries your story all the way to the top of the decision-making chain without losing its meaning. If you can prove your impact, you won’t just compete, you’ll become the obvious choice.
