The Canadian Housing and Renewal Association / l’Association Canadienne d’Habitation et de Renovatoin Urbaine (CHRA/ACHRU), held its 50th National Congress on Housing and Homelessness in Ottawa, Ontario from May 24 to 27, 2018. Yardi was proud to be a Congress Partner on this milestone year for the event. Peter Altobelli, Yardi vice president and general manager, spoke at the opening session and at the Yardi Awards Luncheon. Altobelli highlighted Yardi’s 20-year relationship with CHRA and focused on the importance of collaboration in the social housing industry. “At Yardi Canada, we have always been deeply connected with initiatives to help build our community and our industry. It is with the fruit of our growth that we further fuel the industry by supporting organizations such as CHRA / ACHRU that strive to bring a voice to affordable housing providers on a national level,” Altobelli said. Samyukta Jaishankar, team lead for Yardi’s Canadian marketing efforts, caught up with Jeff Morrison, executive director of CHRA, during the event. During their conversation, Jeff provided a behind the scenes look at how the 50th anniversary of the congress came together, what the internal goals were for the conference and how attendees would have the ability to shape the future with CHRA. “This year the challenge was that we had to do two competing things: reminisce and celebrate our evolution and success as an organization, as well as look forward to see what we can do with the future,” Morrison said. As part of the retrospective portion of the event, CHRA presented a video production which featured a historic look at the organization. Originating in 1968 as an offshoot of a National Association of Housing Redevelopment Officials chapter from upstate New York, CHRA/ACHRU has since grown to represent Canadian social housing providers...

Yardi returned as title sponsor and presenter at the Canadian Federation of Apartment Associations’ (CFAA) Rental Housing Conference, Canada’s premier event for apartment managers which took place on May 14-16 in Vancouver, B.C. “Yardi is proud to support and participate in educational events that bring together real estate industry leaders and managers to help further growth and innovation for businesses of all sizes in evolving markets,” said Peter Altobelli, vice president and general manager for Yardi Canada. This year’s conference focused on game-changing technology for the apartment industry, and Yardi was excited to participate in four dynamic educational sessions. Altobelli joined a roundtable to discuss the present state and future of technology in the rental housing industry — and how property managers can prepare for disruption. Tech Round Table: How to Surmount Barriers to Technological Advances Altobelli joined industry leaders Darren Henry, president at National Efficiency Systems Inc., Jeremy Jackson, vice president of marketing at Killam REIT and Geoff Younghusband, vice president of residential properties at Osgoode Properties, to address barriers that impede property managers from adopting useful new technologies, and how to surmount them. They covered getting the information you need to make informed business decisions and how to encourage your team to accept change and new ways of accomplishing tasks in your organization. For managers, they discussed how to gain quick wins with new tools and convince owners about the value of technology to reduce costs and gain new operational efficiencies. Online Platforms, Resident Services, Payments and Blockchain: The Future in the Rental Market Yardi’s  Regional Director of Canadian Sales, Heather Brady spoke about new cutting-edge technologies that are rocking the rental market — focusing on online platforms with resident services including payments —and was joined by David Janoawski, founder and CEO...

Collaboration. Community. Social responsibility. These might not be the first words that come to mind when talking about most global businesses, but for the people who work in the offices that comprise Yardi Canada Ltd., they come up often. Now celebrating 20 years in Canada, we talked to leaders in each office and asked them what it means to be “Team Yardi.” Beginning in Toronto “When I first started collaborating with Yardi to help establish the company’s footprint in Canada, our business was a four-person operation,” said Peter Altobelli, general manager and vice president of sales at Yardi Canada Ltd. Based in Toronto, Altobelli set up Yardi’s first office in Canada in 1998 which has grown to a staff of 200. With a vision of working to create a market in Canada through educating the industry about technology, Altobelli worked with Yardi to hit on a winning strategy. Through helping to establish new standards and best practices for real estate management companies, Altobelli is dedicated to helping Yardi clients in Canada prepare for and take advantage of the quantum changes brought on by tech disruption and innovation. And while helping clients grow and thrive is a key focus of Yardi’s mission, supporting staff to grow in their roles with increased knowledge and move forward on their career paths is also vitally important. Altobelli said, “We support our staff with learning opportunities and challenge them to grow into roles and expand their careers.” Synchronized in Saskatchewan The second phase of expanding into the Canadian market was Yardi’s acquisition of Point2 Technologies in 2010. With headquarters in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Point2 developed, marketed and supported web-based marketing software for real estate as well as inventory management, with customers in over 120 countries. About the transition to Yardi,...

Technological shifts are revolutionizing business.  Few other industries embody this reality more completely than the office and retail sectors, according to Heather Brady, national director of sales for Yardi Canada.  Brady gave a presentation about how industrial, office and retail companies can use innovative technologies to improve decision-making at the recent International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) conference in Whistler, British Columbia. Brady’s presentation, “Embracing the Future through Technology and Business Transformation,” focused on the value innovative technologies can deliver for real estate companies seeking to improve decision-making and enhance competitiveness.  Examples include automated solutions for deal making, customer relationship management, energy consumption controls and business intelligence. Brady noted that growth in shared workspaces and flexible work schedules epitomizes office innovation today.  Full-time and part-time freelancers, independent contractors and on-demand workers are expected to account for up to 45% of Canada’s workforce by 2020.  “This trend will increase demand for shared workspaces, which in turn will drive an increase in the number of tenants and the length of leases.  The technology needed to manage shared workspaces will in turn become increasingly important,” she said. Meanwhile, e-commerce has penetrated 65% of Canada’s retail economy, led by books, movies, music, games, clothing and consumer electronics.  In 2013, e-commerce was responsible for 4.5% of total Canadian retail sales; the forecast for this year is 8%.  Around the world, the longstanding model of a mall anchored by a big-box retailer is no longer sufficient to draw foot traffic. “Bricks and mortar aren’t going away, but visiting a mall is starting to encompass more than merely shopping.  Retail is transforming into an integrated, multichannel customer experience, including a strong digital presence and warehouses to support demand,” Brady said. “Also retailers are making their space “entertainment centers” featuring restaurants, clubs,...

Peter Altobelli, vice president and general manager at Yardi Canada Ltd. and Sean Bremner, maintenance director at Baptist Housing, presented a session on Social Housing Technology to a packed room at Housing Central. The conference was held in Richmond, BC and hosted by the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association. During the presentation, Altobelli and Bremner explored how technology can improve organizational management and generate cost savings with high returns on investment. The presentation also gave attendees advice in preparation for change as they implement new technology. As vice president of a software provider that works with social housing organizations across Canada, Altobelli provided insight into the latest technology geared for non-profit housing managers. “The crucial value-adds that an organization will realize with the use of technology are automating tasks, improving the user experience with better tools to increase productivity, and simplifying staff management,” said Altobelli. Altobelli spoke about how automated processes are most effective when based in the cloud and optimized for multiple web browsers, including tablets and smartphones. Putting those solutions in the cloud makes it easier to create effective access for tenants and prospects, property and financial management and maintenance management. “When you are able to access accounting, budgeting, inspections, maintenance, energy and resident management data all on one system, it enables increased productivity for your entire team,” Altobelli said. Bremner presented a case study of how his organization, Baptist Housing, overcame internal challenges with technology. Focusing on maintenance workflows, Bremner described how former processes that required manual, handwritten notes often omitted relevant details, made it difficult to access active maintenance requests, created scheduling challenges and limited the capability of Baptist Housing to report on current and past maintenance requests. “We adopted a cloud-based software solution that drastically changed our maintenance program....

The spotlight shone on Yardi Canada for much of late November and early December at major industry events in Toronto. The company was the closing roundtable sponsor at the Global Property Market Real Estate Forum and sponsored the Toronto Real Estate Forum’s keynote session. Yardi Canada was also the top-level Title Sponsor and staffed a booth at PM Expo, the property managers’ exposition portion of The Buildings Show, Canada’s largest event for the design, architecture, construction and real estate communities. Yardi was also the Platinum Sponsor for the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) 2017 MAC Awards gala, a dinner and awards show that recognized excellence in rental housing advertising, construction and renovations, environmental excellence, customer service and other categories. Peter Altobelli, vice president of sales and general manager for Yardi Canada, presented at PM Expo’s “Disruptive or Transformational Technology: Understanding the Impacts for Property Managers and Owners” session. Peter began the session by clarifying that disruption may be defined as an outside force that mobilizes technology transformation within an organization. We have seen these types of disruption in the way we access and use data analytics to inform business decisions and the way in which we store information in the cloud. An organization’s ability to transform through technology is the key force in maintaining their competitive stance in the market. “It’s all about changing a mindset and using advanced technology that can perform various business operations in new ways,” he said.  “Disruptive automation technologies can give property managers new insight into leasing, energy management and other operations that improves decision-making.” Yardi Canada was active in another session at PM Expo as Martin Levkus, regional director for Yardi Energy, Sales, moderated a discussion among three building energy management experts in the “Energy Data...