It's that time of year again. Next week, RETTC OPTECH will bring down the curtain on a busy year of conferences for those interested in multifamily operations and technology. For the last few years, this blog has published an analysis of the OPTECH attendee list. It's a useful way to see what's changing—and what isn't—in multifamily technology. The mix of attendees, by company type, always offers clues about broader industry trends.
What's changed...
For the last few years, little has changed in the makeup of OPTECH's audience. In particular, the much-discussed ratio of suppliers to property managers has been remarkably consistent. The complaints that "There are more vendors than ever this year" seem to be renewed each year. But the data stubbornly shows otherwise—the proportions have barely budged for years.
This year is the first that OPTECH has been a members-only event, so it should be interesting to see whether that would alter the composition of the audience. So, what's different in 2025? Practically nothing.
The chart above looks remarkably similar to each of the last few years. 11% of attendees are neither property management companies (PMCs) nor vendors. Of the remaining 90ish percent, the ratio of software vendors to PMCs is about 2:1.
The table below shows the "progression" in audience segments over the last three years. A whopping 0.2% increase in the share of property management companies came at the expense of a tenth of a point each of attendees representing either vendors or firms that are neither vendor nor manager.
OPTECH Audience - Three Year Progression
Please feel free to invoke these datapoints whenever you hear anyone at the event whining about how the makeup of the audience is changing. It isn't. And it hasn't for years.
Another useful analysis is the vendor breakdown by number of attendees per company. These numbers serve as a proxy for expected meeting volume at the event. Companies typically require attending staff to book a minimum number of meetings, so the number of attendees from each company can be seen as an indicator of what meetings are taking place at the event. The breakdown and year-over-year comparison are summarized in the table below.
Comparison of Vendor OPTECH Attendee Numbers by Vendor Type ('24 vs '25)
Once again, the numbers are strikingly consistent with 2024. Connectivity remains the largest category, while Smart Tech and FinTech each slipped slightly. The biggest change is the addition of a new "Operational AI" category, which is now necessary because AI companies are increasingly performing services that span multiple categories in the table. This year, 4% of attendees represent companies that fit the "Operational AI" description. That figure seems highly likely to grow in the coming years (unless the AI replaces conference attendees!)
Something other than déjà vu
What is new and genuinely exciting at this year's show is a paper that I'll be presenting on Tuesday morning in the Connected Buildings session. A year ago, in collaboration with RETTC, I published The State of Multifamily Connectivity, a paper that laid out the key considerations affecting Wi-Fi investment decisions: business drivers, costs, legal factors, and so on.
That research made it clear that the industry has a major blind spot when it comes to understanding sentiment. Owners invest heavily in managed Wi-Fi, the economics of which are compelling. Yet those underwriting connectivity investments tend to treat all Wi-Fi as the same, whether it's a basic bulk-to-unit setup or a fiber-backed managed network. What we haven't known is how residents value these options or whether they affect leasing or renewal decisions.
That gap has existed for good reason: traditional survey structures make it nearly impossible to develop actionable insights about sentiment. Questions about how Wi-Fi quality affects leasing or renewal choices throw little light on the matter, which is why we need a new toolkit for understanding sentiment.
A new piece of research, produced in collaboration with my friends at ResiDesk, used conversational AI to interview a sample set of 30,000 residents about their experiences with the Wi-Fi in their communities. The results are fascinating, offering a new and much richer way to understand resident sentiment—an area with huge potential to improve decision-making in multifamily housing.
Anyone interested in customer experience, amenities, capital allocation, or simply wanting to know more about attitudes toward multifamily Wi-Fi should join the session on Tuesday morning at OPTECH. I hope to see many of you in Las Vegas next week. Safe travels, and I look forward to sharing my recap after the show.