Anthony Johnson Career Background
What is your biggest career achievement?
- In November 2020, I received my CAPS (Certified Apartment Portfolio Supervisor) certification. This designation has provided me with additional insight into the industry and a deeper dive into common and uncommon issues in the industry. In earning this designation, I've developed a deeper understanding of the industry and how to better manage my properties and teams. It has allowed me to help to develop our properties, seize updated marketing initiatives, and embolden my teams to become more active participants in decisions regarding our properties.
I feel that while this has been my biggest achievement to date, the knowledge and confidence that it has given me will help our properties achieve so much more.
What is your ultimate career goal within the rental housing industry?
- I aspire to one day become the Vice President or President of our company. I intend to become more involved with property acquisitions, both as a Manager and former Property Accountant, and use my knowledge and future knowledge in the industry to train others and grow our business. While I thoroughly enjoy working toward developing mastery in one area, I would like to grow my knowledge to become an expert in many fields within the industry including, but not limited to, Property Accounting, Acquisitions, Operational Management, and Systems Administration.
What's one rental housing trend you have your eye on?
- Virtual Tours have been an incredible innovation that we began using this past year due to the inability of our team to perform in person tours. This technology has become a very strong driver of our traffic throughout the pandemic. We have also seen the technology with Virtual Tours drastically increase over the past 12 months with 3D rendering of entire units being available at our fingertips 24 hours a day.
Self-guided tours have also started to become more popular as in person tours have become unavailable for the past several months. This has made way for "smart home" units involving Wi-Fi enabled door locks, monitoring, motion sensitive camera systems, and electronic thermostats that can all be controlled remotely. I could see this becoming much more popular for apartment communities in the future for extended showing hours and
Discord and other communication applications have started to take the world by storm. As strong communication platforms for groups of individuals to exchange ideas, ask questions, and provide insights into any industry become more accessible, these types of applications will be integral to the apartment industry. I could see Discord or other popular communication apps becoming more well-known and brought into industry wide events to allow people from all over the nation, and even the world, to gather to discuss current and future topics within the rental industry. Professionals could plan get togethers, create shared documents, share ideas for marketing, ask questions about markets nearby, and keep in touch with other professionals within the industry. I could see these types of platforms becoming more well-known and used to help improve management teams across the nation.
Mobile concierge applications have started to become more popular in areas of high population. The problem that these applications have right now is that only the properties in the most highly populated areas benefit from mobile concierge applications. I could see these applications becoming beneficial to smaller properties or properties in less densely populated areas as new builds and construction continues to rise. As we become more "Mobile Friendly", these applications will play an important role in paying rent, ordering food, scheduling entertainment (such as buying movie tickets or booking a tee time at a local golf course), or even becoming an emergency support application with real time data of location should emergency services be necessary. I think that by expanding these points, mobile concierge applications could be the first step to a fully automated residential living experience.