Leaders from Arqline, Avanti, and Morgan Properties share what pushed them past the traditional 1:100 structure, and how they customized their journey to work for all owner and management structures. 

SCOTTSDALE, AZ — For years, the traditional 1:100 operating model defined how multifamily communities were staffed and how work flowed day to day. But as renter expectations rise, margins tighten, and operations grow more complex, many operators are finding that the old blueprint doesn’t deliver a quality renter experience or stretch as far as it once did. 

At Forum, we brought together leaders from companies with very different ownership structures and scales to talk candidly about what happens when the legacy model starts to show its limits, and how they’re experimenting with more flexible ways to run their portfolios.

Moderated by Cameron Skaff, VP of Enterprise + Chief of Staff at Funnel, the panel brought together operators who are actively redefining how work gets done across their portfolios:

Poll: Has your company centralized any operations? What is your company’s ownership structure?

63% – YES! We have specialized roles and centralized teams.
17% – Not yet, but we need to…
3% – No.

Alfred/Arqline building Property Management 3.0 from the ground up

Alfred’s platform has expanded rapidly in recent years. In fact, just a day before appearing at Forum, Alfred launched Arqline, a national operating platform managing over 50,000 multifamily and build-to-rent homes across 31 markets.

Arqline brings together decades of property management expertise with Alfred’s technology platform, unifying RKW Residential and A Residential, formerly Quarterra Living, under one operating model and management identity.

CEO Jessica Beck has watched the industry transform from what she calls Property Management 1.0 (local, human, manual), to 2.0 (professional PMCs + scale), to our current state, Property Management 3.0, when we reimagine how technology, operations, hospitality, and data work together from the ground up. 

“Our background, our DNA has always been resident experience. So we came to this from a resident engagement, resident experience standpoint…[but] at the end of the day, we have three stakeholders. We have residents, we have our teams, and we have our clients. And whatever we’re designing really has to work for each. So I would say we probably led with resident experience, but as we’ve grown and matured with a lot more operator capabilities and owner outcomes. And today we really think it has to really work for all three or it’s not going to be the sweet spot for what we’re trying to do.”

And the outcomes speak for themselves. With Property Management 3.0, part of which is powered by Funnel’s renter-centric® CRM and agentic AI, Arqline saw a 13% increase in renewal rates, a 24% reduction in onsite payroll hours and 25% increase in resident satisfaction. 

Arqline’s three questions that change how work gets done

In the process of redefining what Property Management 3.0 looked like for Arqline, they examined every task and asked three questions:

On the surface, the framework is simple. In practice, it creates a completely different way of designing operations. Instead of defaulting work to onsite teams, it forces a deliberate decision about where each task belongs and why.

But Beck emphasized this isn’t a rigid formula or a universal blueprint. The answers look different for every operator, depending on portfolio, ownership structure, team makeup, and business goals.

“If it doesn’t require human judgment, automate it. If it does, ask if it needs to be local. If not, centralize it,” Beck said. 

As Arqline adds more automation and AI, 3.8% increase over 2024

As Arqline continues to layer in automation and AI, renter behavior is shifting alongside it. The team saw a 37% increase in tours booked after hours, up 3.8% from 2024, a signal that prospects are increasingly comfortable engaging with AI, and will use it to move forward in the journey when it’s most convenient for them.

Faster leasing starts with Avanti’s focus on friction

Avanti Residential is a Denver-based, vertically integrated owner-operator navigating change across a focused portfolio of about 12,000 units across seven states.

As SVP of Innovation and Analytics, Ian Andrews uses data to analyze Avanti’s approach to extend beyond leasing conversations into the full renter journey, with a clear focus on reducing friction at every step.

With Funnel’s Online Leasing solution, Avanti reduced the time it takes renters to move from signing to a fully executed lease by 30% in 2025.

“For us, the focus has really been on the reduction of friction throughout the renter journey, and lease signing is a great example of that,” Andrews said. “Before moving to Funnel Online Leasing, the process was very disjointed, both from an integration standpoint and from the amount of human intervention that was needed.”

To address that, Avanti paired technology with team structure, introducing centralized groups with clear ownership over specific parts of the process and holding them accountable to defined KPIs.

“We set KPIs across each centralized department, and time to sign was a big one,” Andrews said. “We saw friction both on the technology side and in how the work was being handled. By removing that friction and having a specialized team focused on that one area, we were able to drive efficiency and performance much faster.”

The result wasn’t just a faster process;, it was a more focused one. Teams weren’t trying to do everything. They were getting better at the things that matter most.

Avanti is building toward a 10x future with centralization

Andrews sees operations from a data lens, evaluating changes based on both current impact and future potential, prioritizing initiatives that reduce friction and create measurable gains across the renter journey. But more importantly, they wanted to scale quickly. 

But the legacy operating model was holding them back. 

“For us, the traditional operating model prevented that scalability,” Andrews said. “We approached it like, we want to 10x our business, how can we take advantage of technology and create a plan in how to monetize that. The limitations in the default operating model didn’t provide the growth or take advantage of the efficiencies that exist.”

One way Avanti is unlocking that efficiency is through Funnel’s Insights AI call scoring, using performance data to guide where teams focus and how they improve. 

Over seven months using Insights, Avanti agents increased their closing score by 13.5% and improved their introduction score by 4%, creating a stronger experience for renters.

“I think what [Insights] really gives us isn’t just the understanding of where we need improvement, but also it gives us that ability to see what’s going to have the biggest impact. So we’re able to really make these data-driven decisions from our training and our approach to each of our different centralized teams,” Andrews said. “For our lead management, for instance… by really being able to focus on that, it really helped us drive our conversion that much more. And because we have that specialization and [teams focused on a] single task. And we make that impact at a rapid pace and achieve these results in a very short period of time.”

How Morgan Properties realized the problem wasn’t time, it was focus

Morgan Properties reached a major milestone last year, surpassing 100,000 units during its 40th anniversary and securing the No. 3 ranking on the NMHC Top Owners list. Now operating across 22 states, the company continues to expand its footprint nationwide.

As Vice President of Customer Acquisition, Brandon Gaeta is rethinking how work is structured across leasing, marketing, and onsite teams.

For Morgan, centralization didn’t start as a cost-saving initiative. It started as a focus problem.

Early on, the team realized that simply giving time back to onsite teams wasn’t enough to drive better outcomes.

“We went into this thinking we were trying to save onsite teams’ time,” Gaeta said. “But what we realized is people will just fill that time with other things that don’t necessarily move the business forward.”

Instead, Morgan restructured around specialization, clearly defining roles across the leasing journey and aligning teams to focus on specific parts of the funnel.

“If people are specialized, they can really maximize every interaction that you put in front of them. So we really wanted to focus on tasks that serve retaining those residents and assets. From a numbers perspective our traditional sales funnel focused on the phone call, follow-up, etc, and put folks in place to lease apartments without bothering onsite teams.”

After what Gaeta described as the “longest Funnel pilot ever” to ensure the right decisions were made, referencing previous technology implementations that were less than efficient (and induced Excel sheet PTSD). 

But the results were worth the wait. 

“Why now? What gave us the confidence to do this? The bottom line is the data tells us that we have created a more efficient customer acquisition funnel. We’re able to more effectively care for our renters. We’re more effectively able to market, sell, qualify people and I think the numbers on the screen really speak for that,” Gaeta said. 

“At the end of the day we’ve seen faster conversions from inquiry to application—31% faster. We’re decisioning applications 55% faster.”

Why Morgan prioritizes intent over volume

As Morgan leaned further into centralization and AI, the team began to rethink what the leasing journey actually needed to look like.

Historically, the industry has been built around the assumption that every renter needs an in-person tour. But Morgan’s data told a different story.

“We’re seeing upwards of 90% of customers willing to lease without completing an onsite tour first,” Gaeta said.

That shift changed how Morgan structured its teams. Instead of prioritizing tour volume, they focused on intent, using centralized teams to nurture leads, understand renter preferences, and set onsite teams up to close more effectively when a tour does happen.

Leasing became less about managing volume and more about maximizing each interaction.

Life after the default operating model starts here

Across Arqline, Avanti, and Morgan, one thing was clear: there is no single path forward.

Each operator is building their own version of what comes next, shaped by their ownership structure, portfolio, and goals.

But the foundation is consistent.

The future operating model is not onsite-only. It is not AI-only. And it is not built by layering technology onto legacy workflows.

It is built by rethinking how work gets done, combining human judgment, centralized teams, and automation to create something more flexible, more scalable, and more aligned to today’s renter.

The operators making the most progress aren’t waiting for a finished blueprint. They’re starting with one function, one workflow, one decision at a time and refining as they go.

Because life after the default operating model isn’t something you arrive at. It’s something you build.