The Final Boss Battle

This issue of Pillow Talk, our weekly newsletter, went out by email on August 13, 2026. Get the next one.Editor's note, October 2026: The live events mentioned in this issue have already taken place.

Hey friend,

Welcome to the 50th weekly edition of Pillow Talk! This is where I share my unfiltered thoughts on life, business, and property management.

This week, I’m sharing a big prediction about property management technology.

The Technology Waves of Property Management

You may have noticed that technology comes in waves. As soon as someone figures out that a new type of product can make money, companies flood the market with their version of it. It happened with the TV, the computer, the cellphone, and many other things. They really do feel like they come in waves. As soon as you get used to the current brand new life-changing thing, BOOM, you’re hit by another.

Those are consumer products, but property management technology has this in its own version. As I see it, property management has already gone through two waves of technology, and today is poised to begin the third and final.

The Process Wave

Single-family property management has existed for generations, but it really only became a viable business with the invention of the personal computer. Prior to that, it was mostly a part-time gig taken up by real estate agents for a few clients. There were few fulltime property managers, and even fewer if any to reach any sort of scale.

When the personal computer reached mass adoption in the late 70s, PMs could suddenly manage way more homes than before with a smaller team and less overhead. And an industry was born. In 1987, 10 years after Radio Shack released the TRS 80, NARPM elected its first President, Ralph Tutor. The first national convention was held 2 years later.

People realized that with computers and other revolutionary office equipment, property management could actually make a profit. But it wasn’t a given. Between the late 1980s and 2010-ish, the focus was process, process, process. To this day, a huge percentage of PM educational and marketing content focuses on process because PMs know you’ll never make money unless your business is efficient. That has to come first. And today, with the help of cornerstone solutions like PMS vendors, CRMs, and workflow automations, property management can now not only be profitable, but a really great business.

The Resident Wave

Once they created some breathing room, PMs could think about expanding into other revenue streams. Between the 2010s and today, PMs poured time and money into the resident experience. This triggered the second technology wave, which was a generation of resident-focused point solutions for benefits, screening, leasing, rent collection, and others.

Property Management’s Final Boss Battle

The first wave of technology was process-centric, the second was resident-centric, and my big prediction is that the third and final wave will be client-centric solutions, like owner retention software. I believe that between now and 2035, we’ll see an explosion of client-centric vendors similar to the explosion we’ve seen of resident-centric vendors.

Technology coming in waves is one of the trends I noticed that inspired me to co-found Blanket. It just makes sense. For so long we’ve focused on everything but the client and now we have software vendors for everything except the owner experience. The client side of things is a huge gap in the industry. There is a ton of opportunity in that gap for vendors AND property managers, just like there was in the resident gap.

Join Me and 110 Property Managers

Over 40 Broker/Owners showed up to our live event last week where we unveiled the Owner Experience Management Certification Course. This is the first Client Success training program for residential PMs.

To get your company certified, your owner-facing team members have to complete their role-specific track. To help you generate buy in, we’re hosting role-specific events this month! 110 folks have already registered.

• Tuesday, August 18th: For BDM Teams - Love at First Impression
• Tuesday, August 25th: For PM Teams - From Service Provider to Trusted Advisor

Send the links to your team so they can get registered!

The Roundup

Content worth the click

• A good example of platform risk
• It’s time to play Fix. This. Listing!
• Keep an eye out for this phishing scam

Good night 😴

Lior Abramovich
Co-founder, CEO