Ron Kutas, CEO of OneWall Communities, sees the conversation around AI in property management as polarized between those who think it will eliminate most jobs and those who dismiss it as hype. He finds neither framing useful. “Property management is still very much a human-first industry,” Kutas says. “Let AI do the things that you’re using computers to do anyway. And allow humans to do the things that only humans can do – which is human-to-human interaction, authentic, real, genuine relationship building.”
OneWall Communities has been investing in its tech stack for years, and Kutas is direct about the value it’s created. The clearest example is data. Running a growing portfolio of workforce housing communities across multiple geographies, the practical challenge isn’t collecting information – it’s having the capacity to act on it. “AI gives us the ability to have full visibility into every data point within our portfolio,” he explains. “It provides insights so that we can be proactive rather than reactive. It allows us to see the data in real time and project forward-looking trends so that we can stop problems before they occur and add value in ways we haven’t thought about before.”
For OneWall’s asset management team, that means analysts can now oversee more properties with more efficiency. Not because headcount was cut, but because the work that used to consume analytical capacity – pulling data, running comparisons, building reports – now happens faster. That frees up the people to focus on interpretation, relationships, and decisions. Kutas is careful about what he’ll promise on this front, but his general principle is consistent: “Let AI help us where we need the computer anyway.”
Where Kutas draws a hard line is on the operational functions that determine whether a workforce housing community actually works – leasing, maintenance, community management, resident relations. These are roles where the quality of human interaction isn’t a soft benefit; it’s the business model. OneWall’s technology implementation reflects this. When the firm built out its resident app and onboarding platform, the goal wasn’t to reduce staff contact. It was to free on-site teams from administrative overhead so they could spend more time doing the work that builds community. “It allows our on-site teams to spend more time being resident-facing,” Kutas says, “rather than pulling information, sitting behind a desk, constantly answering questions, looking over data.”
That distinction – technology enabling people rather than replacing them – shows up in how OneWall thinks about growth. The firm has added roughly 16 properties since October. Rather than solve the scaling challenge by reducing headcount, Kutas moved up a planned investment in learning and development, hiring a dedicated head of the department to ensure new employees have what they need to be effective immediately.
Rapid growth puts pressure on more than just systems. It puts pressure on people. Kutas is candid about a management shift he’s made that he considers significant: learning to meet his direct reports where they are rather than where he wants them to be. “As an entrepreneur, everything is urgent. I want to get things done at speeds that are unreasonable for most people,” he says. “I used to just continue to add to the priority list for my direct reports without really helping them grasp what is a priority. If everything is a priority, nothing’s a priority.” The change came when Kutas noticed that some of his strongest team members were starting to drop things. His instinct was to address it with them, but what he realized instead was that the pattern pointed back to him. “Once I started noticing that multiple superstars are having things fall through the cracks, I realized the problem is me, not them,” he says.
The practical adjustment was straightforward: more explicit direction on what’s actually highest priority, and clarity on what gets pushed when a new priority comes in. The Monday team meeting now includes a shared project management view where everyone can see what’s in flight. One-on-ones include a standing agenda item: what are the challenges you’re facing, and what can I do as your manager to support you? It’s a model that scales in a way that pure directive management doesn’t – because it builds the kind of clarity and trust that lets a team move fast without waiting for the next instruction.
Kutas sees the same principle playing out at the industry level. Operators who understand their real estate fundamentals, have built scalable systems, and know when to deploy capital, are going to be positioned well as the market continues to shake out. Those who have been cutting corners on people, data, and operational discipline are going to find that the window for getting away with it is closing. “The first disruption that happens is that workers and people who understand AI are going to replace workers who don’t – before there are mass layoffs or anything like that,” he says. “So I think that’s the first thing: learn the skills, be familiar with the technology, and start to adopt it.” For OneWall, adapting doesn’t mean letting technology redefine what the company is. It means using technology to do more of what the company has always been – an owner-operator mentality that treats residents as neighbors, manages expenses like it’s their own money, and builds communities that people actually want to come home to. That, Kutas would say, is the part no algorithm is going to handle for you.
