My colleague Dominick and I began
our "adventure" one sunny morning last May
by meeting in front of two adjacent six story elevator
buildings in the Gramercy Park area of Manhattan.
The two buildings were part of a luxury residential
rental portfolio consisting of 1,400 + apartments
in 13 buildings that AIMCO was looking at as a potential
acquisition target. As part of the due diligence,
we were charged with doing unit-by-unit apartment
interior inspections. We each had Palm Pilots with
custom AIMCO Inspector Software installed. The software
incorporated a database of values including poor/replace
and fair conditions for the purpose of inspecting
the conditions of kitchen cabinets, appliances, wood
floors, carpeting, bathroom vanities, sinks, and tubs.
The software program assigned a fixed value for each
reviewable item in less than good/satisfactory condition;
e.g., carpet cleaning $75, replace carpet $350; fair
refrigerator $150, replace refrigerator $350; fair
kitchen cabinets/countertop $750, replace kitchen
cabinets/ countertop $2,500; etc. The purpose of this
assignment was to evaluate existing conditions and
determine the cost of improvements necessary to maintain
and further enhance rental rates.
We each paired off with the respective superintendents
and once inside the units our work was simplified
because each building address and unit number was
preloaded. Using our Palm Pilots we noted the condition
of each reviewable item per apartment by a touch of
the stylus to the Palm Pilot; i.e., "poor/re
place, fair, good." In three days Dominick and
I evaluated approximately 450 units.
In addition to the speed and efficiency of this data
organizing method, the true beauty of the program
was that at the end of each day we placed the Palm
Pilots in their cradle and "hot synced"
the data into Excel spreadsheets on a laptop. The
program tabulated in spreadsheet format both the total
cost to improve each item per building and the total
cost to remedy/complete all deficiencies. This provided
AIMCO's acquisition officer with accurate representation,
in spreadsheet form, which could be used to accurately
analyze the deal.
Other state of the art custom property management
solutions include: punch list, service order, inventory
tracking, order tracking, and audit Palm Pilot software.
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