AI Helps South Jersey Apartment Landlords Minimize Grunt Work

As artificial intelligence proliferates, multifamily landlords in South Jersey are using it to streamline their operations.

The technology can be used for everything from virtual leasing assistance to prospecting and lead generation, speakers said Tuesday during Bisnow’s South Jersey State of the Market event at the Fellowship Corporate Center in Mount Laurel.

“We are all over it,” Michaels Organization Regional Vice President Nick Cangelosi said. “If you are not 100% in AI, you’re going to be behind the eight ball pretty quickly.”

The company partnered with Google on the Gemini 2.5 program, which tracks demographic, economic and geospatial data to help the Michaels team plot future developments.

Michaels also uses the AI-based prospecting platform Bluebird, which was acquired by Salesforce last month.

“We upload our entire asset management platform — again, 600-plus communities, almost $18B under management,” Cangelosi said.

From there, the tool can identify everything from anomalies in rent growth to utility cost exposure. Cangelosi estimated that Bluebird carries a workload that would require a team of 20 people.

“We give it to the machine learning tool to evaluate everything from where we're seeing anomalies in rent growth, where we're seeing utility cost exposure, where we're seeing differences in all types of line items throughout our portfolio.”

Genesis Capital also uses AI to free up employees who would otherwise be burdened by time-consuming, repetitive tasks, CEO Gowtham Reddy said. It has cut down the company’s workload by more than 50%.

“You have to train it a little bit, but it gets there,” Reddy said.

He is also piloting an AI-powered leasing platform a third party created for prospective tenants. Getting them a quick reply is important in a competitive market.

“If they don’t get a response within 12 minutes, they move on to another one in their list,” Reddy said.

He plans to roll out the program at all of Genesis’ properties. The technology doesn’t come cheap, but Reddy said it does make economic sense.

“Expensive is subjective,” he said. “What we’re saving on payroll more than makes up for it.”

Technology like this is a good way to handle what Bel Canto Asset Growth Fund CEO Jennifer Nevitt characterized as a labor shortage.

With young workers moving in and out of positions at a faster pace than previous generations, she sees AI as an important way to maintain stability.

“This generation likes to stay about a year or two,” she said. “Without AI, you would be so inefficient.

“We need the consistency in our brand, and that’s what we value more than anything,” Nevitt added.

But technology like this is less accessible for smaller firms like Nexus Properties, Chief Investment Officer Shawn Field said.

He looked into AI leasing models like what Genesis is piloting and similar programs for the property management team but wasn’t able to make it pencil. Nexus’ marketing team has used the technology to put together content for the company website, Field said.

“I wish we used it more,” he said. “I hope to grow our portfolio to make it more economical.”