By Rush Blakely

Recently, I had the privilege of participating on a panel at the AIM Conference to talk about “Why Big Owners and Developers are Switching to Buying Internet in Bulk.”

It’s no surprise that the past year has truly shown us how dependent we are on having reliable Internet for working, schooling and shopping from home. For multifamily residents, this extends to being able to have consistent and uninterrupted WiFi at a friend’s apartment or even in common areas where co-working spaces became the norm—as well as filling in the gaps for cell phone coverage “dead spots.”

For operators, reliable WiFi also enabled mobile apps, smart locks, touchless leasing and more. In essence, property-wide managed WiFi has become the foundation for technology—and the most important amenity—as well as a viable way to earn ancillary income.

As the demands for bandwidth have increased, record numbers of developers and owners of existing properties are building or switching to property-wide managed WiFi; however, the decision for what technology to implement and how to do so isn’t always easy.

For example, if you were to issue an RFP and five vendors responded, there is no […]

A distinguished multifamily owner-developer in the Northeast recently had a happy surprise thanks to two members of our finance team, Megan Jackson and Jen Klein. Our client recently completed construction on a Class A, urban development. They chose to offer their residents a mix of telecom providers, and had contracted with Comcast to provide telecom services.

The surprise began when Jen audited revenue share payments for that client (who prefers to remain anonymous). She realized that payments due to our client had not been triggered. When she investigated further, Jen discovered that Comcast had not been notified by the developer that the properties were completed once the Temporary Certificate of Occupancy was received. This is the step that would have initiated the upfront payments on non-exclusive marketing agreements. 

All phases of development are complex, and in the busy period following the issuance of the TCO, it’s easy to overlook an item on a long list of to-dos. In this case, it was an oversight that resulted in a significant payoff.

By closing the loop with Comcast, our team recovered more than $217,000 of unpaid telecom revenue for our client.

This is just one example […]