Recorded live at the Builder Innovator Fall Summit, Dallas, TX 2025, featuring industry leaders from PropTech IQ, PointCentral, and Builder Innovator.
When the Market Gets Real, So Does the Conversation
For several years, the multifamily industry operated in a forgiving environment. Rent growth covered a lot of sins. Underperforming technology investments could be absorbed. Pilot programs that dragged on for months were inconvenient but survivable.
That environment is gone.
When rent growth slows, and operating expenses keep climbing, the math changes. Every dollar spent on technology has to justify itself. Every platform on the stack has to prove its place. And flashy demos, polished case studies, and vendor-provided ROI projections no longer cut it.
What matters now is verified ROI. Real-world outcomes that operators can trust. Technology that demonstrably cuts costs, improves efficiency, and protects NOI — not in theory, but in practice, at scale, across actual multifamily portfolios.
That is the standard this roundtable holds itself to. And it is a conversation the industry has been waiting for.
Recorded live at the Builder Innovator Fall Summit in Dallas, Texas in 2025, this roundtable brings together three industry leaders to move beyond marketing claims and focus on what is actually working in multifamily property technology right now.
The conversation is direct, practical, and grounded in real operator experience. No hypotheticals. No vendor pitches. Just an honest assessment of which technologies are delivering measurable impact — and why the ones that are not are getting cut from portfolios faster than ever before.
Featured Speakers
Brandon Savage — Builder Innovator Summit host and multifamily industry connector, bringing together operators and technology innovators to advance the conversation around what actually works in property management and development.
Taylor Wiederkehr — Founder & CEO, PropTech IQ Founder of the multifamily industry’s leading independent proptech validation platform and former head of innovation at two of the NMHC’s top ten largest multifamily management companies. Founding member of the NMHC Innovation Committee and RETA Emerging Technologies Committee. Taylor brings a rare combination of operator experience and data-driven validation methodology to every technology conversation.
Mike Branam — PointCentral Industry leader at PointCentral, a leading provider of smart property technology solutions for single-family rental and multifamily operators. Mike brings deep expertise in IoT deployment, smart home technology, and the operational realities of implementing connected building solutions at scale across large portfolios.
What This Panel Covers
The Technologies That Are Actually Cutting Costs Right Now Not every technology that promises cost savings delivers them. This panel identifies the specific solutions that are generating tangible, measurable cost reductions in multifamily operations today — including leak detection systems that prevent catastrophic damage and reduce insurance costs, smart thermostats that deliver meaningful utility savings across both occupied and vacant units, and predictive maintenance platforms that shift maintenance teams from reactive to proactive, reducing emergency repair costs and extending equipment life.
Centralized and Shared Services Models. Staffing pressure is one of the most significant operational challenges facing multifamily operators today. This session examines how centralized and shared services models — enabled by the right technology infrastructure — are allowing operators to do more with leaner teams without sacrificing the resident experience that drives retention and renewals.
Self-Guided Tours as a Leasing Force Multiplier. Self-guided tours have moved well beyond their pandemic-era origins. This panel discusses how properly implemented self-guided tour technology has become a genuine force multiplier for leasing teams — shortening time on market, accelerating lease-up velocity, and freeing leasing staff to focus on higher-value relationship activities rather than scheduling and escorting tours.
IoT as Enterprise Platform, Not Amenity. The framing of IoT as a resident amenity undersells what it has become. This session makes the case for understanding IoT as enterprise infrastructure — a connected platform with direct, measurable impact on NOI, operational efficiency, and long-term asset value. Operators who treat IoT as a strategic platform rather than a feature set are realizing fundamentally different returns than those who treat it as a line item.
Validated Performance Data and Smarter Decision-Making. At the center of every technology decision is a question operators cannot always answer with confidence: how do I know this is actually going to work? This panel explores how validated performance data — the kind PropTech IQ delivers through independent Impact Analysis Reports — changes the quality of technology decisions by replacing vendor claims with objective, third-party analysis grounded in real implementation data.
Key Takeaways
- Rent growth slowdown and rising operating expenses have made verified ROI non-negotiable for multifamily technology investment
- Leak detection, smart thermostats, and predictive maintenance are delivering measurable cost savings that operators can document and defend
- Centralized and shared services models reduce staffing pressure without compromising the resident experience when supported by the right technology infrastructure
- Self-guided tours have become a leasing force multiplier that shortens time on market and accelerates lease-up velocity
- IoT has evolved from a resident amenity into an enterprise platform with direct impact on NOI and long-term asset value
- Validated, third-party performance data accelerates technology decisions and replaces the guesswork that costs operators time and money
- The operators winning right now are not those with the most technology — they are those with the right technology, properly validated and strategically deployed
Who Should Watch This
This roundtable is essential viewing for:
- Multifamily owners and operators are navigating technology decisions in a tightening financial environment
- Property management executives are responsible for controlling operating expenses and protecting NOI
- Asset managers and investors are evaluating how technology strategy impacts property performance and long-term value
- Leasing and operations teams looking for practical technology solutions that reduce workload without reducing performance
- Proptech vendors seeking to understand what operators actually need from technology in the current market
- Innovation and technology leaders building or refining multifamily technology stacks under budget pressure
- Anyone who has sat through a vendor demo and wondered: but does this actually work in the real world?
Download and Learn More
This session was filmed live at the Builder Innovator Fall Summit, Dallas, TX, 2025.
Learn more about PropTech IQ and how independent validation helps operators make smarter technology decisions at proptechiq.com.
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About PropTech IQ
PropTech IQ is the leading independent property technology validation provider for the multifamily industry. Their Impact Analysis Reports use proprietary data and algorithms to assess the actual financial impact of proptech on NOI and ROI — eliminating the need for costly pilots and replacing vendor claims with objective, third-party analysis operators can trust.
Services include:
Impact Analysis Reports — Independent, data-driven assessments of proptech performance, NOI impact, ROI projections, and operational efficiency gains, generated in minutes rather than months.
Fractional Innovation Leadership — On-demand strategic guidance for multifamily owners and operators, from technology planning through implementation and optimization.
Business Development Consulting — Go-to-market strategy, lead generation, market expansion, and operational scaling support for proptech vendors and technology organizations.
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