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 There's been a lot of talk in multifamily technology lately about compliance. It's worth understanding for what it tells us about a disconnect between sellers and buyers of technology.

For the last few years, centralization has been one of the biggest stories in multifamily operations. We have seen substantial progress in property admin functions and some movement in leasing. But, as the last few editions of the 20for20 Annual Survey have demonstrated, little progress has been made on maintenance centralization.

 There has always been a strange characteristic about revenue in multifamily housing.

 An interesting theme has been developing for much of this year about how AI is changing how leaders think about the technology they are using.

For a number of years, AI has promised to sweep everything before it. In tech terms, it probably will, but we are clearly in the early innings of that transformation in multifamily. Expectations remain relatively immature, and while AI is already ubiquitous in multifamily technology stacks, it remains far from clear what AI is actually supposed to do for operators.

Today, NAA Apartmentalize wraps in New Orleans. It was a fun few days in the Big Easy, despite some particularly colorful summer weather. I could have done without the tornado warning early on Thursday morning, but that's life on the Gulf Coast!

Each year, the release of the 20for20 Annual Survey generates fresh perspectives on what is happening in the multifamily industry. Beyond the paper’s focus on leaders of operations and technology, it is from reviewing findings with institutional owners, technology company founders and investors, for example, that some of the most interesting ideas emerge.

 We think about years a lot in business. It is the period of the P&L, the period over which we think about tax, salaries, bonuses, you name it. Our focus on what happens over the course of 12 months can sometimes obscure the longer narrative that plays out over multiple years. That has been the experience pulling together this year’s 2026 edition of the 20for20 Annual Survey.

A flurry of legal activity last week has pushed multifamily revenue management back into the news cycle. It's worth taking a moment (and a slightly longer-than-usual article) to understand what happened and what it might mean for our industry.