Ailo co-founder Ben White and Harcourts Solutions Group Property Management Director Jodie Stainton sat down with Real Estate Business to discuss what's really changing in property management. Spoiler: it's not just the technology.

When property managers wake up anxious about checking their emails, when landlords switch to shares because the real estate investment experience has been so poor, when talented team members leave the industry altogether – these aren't software problems. They're cultural ones.

That was the central theme of a recent conversation between Ben White, co-founder and CEO of Ailo, and 

, Group Property Management Director at Harcourts Solutions, on the Real Estate Business podcast. 

What started as a discussion about property management technology quickly became something much bigger: a conversation about reshaping an entire industry's approach to service, culture, and customer experience.

One of the most striking moments in the conversation came when Ben talked about something most property managers know intimately but rarely discuss openly: anxiety.

"I'm obsessed with anxiety in property management at the moment," he said. At industry events, when he asks property managers if they're nervous about returning to the office tomorrow, hands go up across the room.

Cloud

Machines are good at prioritising messages based on sentiment, urgency, and importance. People checking their inbox at 2am hoping to get to "inbox zero" are not.

"Why shouldn't the work be prioritised based on importance rather than time?" Ben asked. "There's absolutely no reason why that can't be done."

For Jodie, this resonated deeply. At Harcourts Solutions, she noticed team members were building elaborate ecosystems around their core system just to do their jobs – Trello boards, Asana projects, Slack channels, even a physical key system.

"We had two people sitting on the front desk every day assigning emails because we had one email inbox," she said. "I can't know how quickly we're getting back to people because who knows?"

These weren't efficiency problems. They were signs that property managers had accepted working conditions no other professional would tolerate.

A running theme throughout the conversation was pushback against the narrative that younger workers are entitled or difficult.

Jodie agreed. If property managers are leaving for competitors, if talented people are choosing other industries, that's not a generational issue. It's a leadership issue.

"Do you want to work for a leader that is pushing the edge, may be wrong sometimes, but at least is pushing?" Ben asked. "Or do you want to work for a leader that says 'I couldn't be bothered, maybe it's a fad'?"

In 2026, people want advancement in their careers. They want to work for leaders with vision. Salary alone isn't enough anymore.

Both Ben and Jodie kept returning to a central insight: in service industries, culture and customer experience are inseparable.

"You can have two identical restaurants serving the same food," Ben said. "If you have different culture in the team and the way they service you, the experience is fundamentally different."

For Jodie, this meant being intentional about every detail. Her team doesn't speak negatively about clients or tenants. Ever. It's not acceptable in her office.

"I had a new team member come in and she'd been there for a few weeks and we had our check-in," Jodie said. "She told me, 'I've never worked in a place where I haven't heard people say that tenant's this or that owner's that.' I think that was the moment where I went, okay, I'm actually doing some good things here."

She extends the same standard to how team members speak about each other.

One of the most interesting threads in the conversation was about transparency as a cultural statement.

Ben talked about inviting an actual customer to sit in on a full-day strategic planning session with Ailo's leadership team and advisers. "We talked about our business warts and all. This person was there and it was wonderful. I think it's one of the best things we've done."

The message it sent through the team: this customer relationship isn't theoretical. We're actually committed to building this together.

For property management businesses, choosing software that doesn't allow you to turn off landlord or renter visibility is a similar cultural statement. You're saying to your clients: we're committed to transparency. You can see what we see. We're on the same team.

"That's not a technology statement, it's a cultural statement," Ben noted.

Both Ben and Jodie acknowledged they're making big claims about where property management is heading. And they're comfortable with that.

"History will judge if we're successful," Ben said. "But we're going to see it."

For Jodie, the proof is already showing up in her business. 

. Her clients are more engaged. Her agency is growing.

White

But beyond metrics, there's something more fundamental happening. Property managers on her team are taking annual leave without anxiety. They're following clear priorities instead of drowning in their inbox. They're building relationships instead of just processing transactions.

Reimagining property management: Reshaping service, culture and customer experience with Ailo and Harcourts Solutions Group.

The future of property management: Service culture and tech that supports it | Podcast

Ben White spent the past year watching property management agencies split into two camps: those leaning into AI, and those in wait-and-see mode.

His theory about what separates them has nothing to do with the technology itself. It's about clarity. 

Ben sat down with Samantha McLean from Elite Agent to unpack why AI is actually a cultural problem, not a tech one, and what that means for the future of property management. 

Watch the full podcast on Elite Agent here.

For years, building new products or features meant long development cycles and significant investment. That created a natural barrier between having an idea and bringing it to life.

"When product was much harder to build, it was a tech problem," Ben said. "Now I think it's a cultural problem."

AI has democratised product development. Anyone with an idea can create something functional. 

(During the podcast, Ben and Sam proved this by live-coding an ROI calculator for solar upgrades in about two minutes! 

The hard part isn't building anymore. The hard part is knowing what to build. And you can't answer that unless you understand how you create value for customers.

Ben offered a framework built on two questions:

Do you think the property manager is at the centre of the story, or the landlord?

Do you believe the value you deliver to customers is going to stay the same, or will it change?

Your answers place you in one of four quadrants, and each one leads somewhere different.

If you believe the property manager is at the centre and the job will stay the same, you're building AI that helps property managers do their current job faster. "If you see your job as taking photos and writing a report, you're in competition with your inspection app," Ben said.

If you believe the landlord is at the centre but the job stays the same, you're headed for the direct-to-landlord model. "That person is putting the landlord at the centre and assuming the future is to take your salary."

But there's another option, and it's the one Ben is betting on. "I think property management is one place where you create and nurture ongoing customer relationships with everyone in the community."

The quadrant you choose determines whether AI threatens your business or transforms it.

Watch the podcast

Ben pointed out something most agencies haven't reckoned with yet.

"If you look at the P&L of a property management business, the most important fee is the fee for collecting rent. It's 80% of the revenue," he said. "Honestly, how much time does it take you to collect rent?"

There's a misalignment between where value sits and how agencies charge for it. 

This is where the opportunity sits. Not in automating what property managers already do, but in systematising the things that actually create value such as risk management, capital improvement planning, energy efficiency upgrades, or maintenance strategies that protect capital value.

Ben believes AI will strain agency culture more than anything that's come before.

"It tests whether or not you're committed to the customer and your commitment to innovate and change," he said.

If your culture is built around doing the same thing over and over, AI will replace you. If your culture is built around judgment, context and relationships, AI becomes an enabler.

"People want to be challenged, push themselves and create something," Ben said.

You have to be optimistic to see the path forward clearly, Ben said.

"A precondition to seeing the future is optimism. If you're optimistic that you can create value, and you can create more value over time, the pathway's a lot clearer than people think it is."

Property management has every ingredient you'd want in a post-AI world. It's built around the most important asset people have. It's local. It's relationship-based. It's full of human dynamics and emotion.

But that only holds true if you believe property management is more than collecting rent and fixing ovens.

Listen to Ben White's full conversation with Samantha McLean on 

Where your agency sits in the AI quadrant (and why it matters)

It's 2pm on a Tuesday, and you've got eight tabs open across two screens. Your property management system is in one tab, your inbox in another, a supplier's quote in a PDF viewer in a third. You're switching between windows trying to remember which owner you need to call back about that maintenance quote, and whether you've already sent the entry notice for tomorrow's inspection.

For most property management software platforms, the approach to workflow management has been the same for years: build tools for different types of work (inspections here, repairs there, lease renewals over here), then add a task or checklist feature on top to help you track what needs doing.

It's more sophisticated than the paper-based systems of the past, but the fundamental problem remains: your tasks live separately from your work. You check a list to see what needs doing, then navigate away to actually do it, then remember to come back and update the list.

 takes a different approach – one that's worth understanding if you're evaluating whether to make a platform change.

The challenge with traditional task systems

Bernadette, one of Ailo's account managers who works with agencies daily, described what she recently saw in an office.

"I was visiting an office on Friday, and they had a new staff member start and he had about eight tabs open because he wasn't using my actions in projects," she said. 

"So I said to him, 'You seem to have a lot of tabs open, why?' And he said, 'Oh, well, I'm working on this, and I'm working on this, and I'm working on this, and I'm waiting for this owner to get back to me on this.'"

Multiple screens. Dozens of tabs. Mental load tracking where everything is.

The issue isn't that traditional task systems don't work. Many have sophisticated features like templates, automation, and visual boards. 

But here's what happens in practice: you still need to leave your task list to do the actual work. You click a task that says "send work order to supplier," but then you navigate away to find the property, pull up the communication thread, compose the message, attach the quote, and hopefully remember to come back and tick the task as done.

You're managing a list about your work, not doing your work through the list.

Ailo took a fundamentally different approach when building projects. We didn't think of it as a task management layer added on top of property management functions. We thought of it as the work itself.

Lav, one of Ailo's product leaders, explained: "Property manager workflows can be really complex – all the steps they need to take, the collaboration required, etc. We built projects to support that complexity."

What does that actually mean when you're in the middle of coordinating a repair?

It means everything you need to complete that repair lives inside the one view. You're not going to a separate messages tab to send a work order – you send it from within the Project. You're not navigating to documents to attach the quote – it's right there. When the supplier responds, that response appears in the Project timeline. When you need to update the owner, their entire communication history for this specific repair is already loaded.

"On platforms where tasks are layered on top, you can effectively ignore that layer and do other things. On Ailo, you're actually doing the work as you go through the project, in the project," Lav said.

Lavender

What this means for how your team actually works

The real test of any workflow system isn't how it looks in a demo. It's how property managers describe their day after using it for months. Here's what that looks like in practice:

1. It's obvious what to do next, no hunting for it

In traditional task systems, you might set a reminder to follow up on a repair in 48 hours. But when that reminder appears, you still need to go find the repair, check where it's up to, dig through messages to see what the last communication was.

In projects, when that 48-hour action appears in My Actions, everything you need is right there. The work order you sent. The supplier's response. The owner's preferences. All the context required to actually do the follow-up, not just be reminded it exists.

Bernadette explained: "You're not having to go into a part of the platform and look for what repairs you need to follow up on today. It just tells you."

That's the key difference. Traditional systems tell you a reminder exists. projects tells you what to do and gives you everything needed to do it—in one place.

2. Your team can actually step in when you're away

Taking time off in property management has historically meant one of two things: the person covering you drowns trying to manage double their portfolio, or work doesn't get done and you spend weeks catching up.

Bernadette described how projects changes this: "You can just allocate those 10 actions that need to be done next week into someone else's My Actions and say, 'Can you take care of those 10 things? That's it.' And the person staying behind goes, 'That's it, you want me to do 10 things?' Because usually they're expecting to manage double the workload."

The person covering you isn't drowning. You're not coming back to chaos. Your investors and renters still get great service, because the system showed exactly what needed attention and when.

Cathy, a head of department on QLD's Gold Coast, explained the visibility this creates as game-changing.

3. Property managers finally get proper sleep

Renee, a property manager in WA, described what changed for her:

"There are much easier ways to property manage - and Ailo is the way to do it. I swear overnight I became a brand new woman with an even bigger drive for success," she said.

That's not about having a better to-do list. It's about trusting the system to hold everything you need, exactly when you need it, without you having to remember to go look for it.

4. Overdue actions actually mean something

Bernadette takes a harder line on overdue actions than most, and it's only possible because in Projects, actions genuinely represent the work being done—not forgotten checkboxes.

"If your actions and projects are set up and triggered the way you want your business to run, overdue actions tell you something important," she said. 

"Either the work genuinely isn't getting done, or the person needs support. That visibility helps you have the right conversation – whether that's celebrating wins or offering training."

How projects differs from traditional task management

As Lav put it: "If you go to a repair project, it will have the work order there, it will have the quote request there because that is the way you sent it. You can trust it to have everything you ever need around a workflow."

What's different about tasks and workflows in legacy platforms

Many property management platforms have worked to improve their task features significantly recently. Some now offer visual Kanban boards, automation capabilities that trigger tasks based on events, and integration between checklists and workflows.

These are genuine improvements that make task management more sophisticated than it was even a year ago.

But here's what fundamentally hasn't changed in these systems: tasks, statuses, and the actual work remain separate things that you manually coordinate. Completing a task doesn't automatically update the property status. Sending a message doesn't mark the related task as done. You're still assembling the complete picture from different places.

The shift isn't just technical, it's cultural

When Bernadette trains property managers on projects, she's noticed something important about successful transitions.

"If you can walk out of the office on day one and your property managers go, 'Oh my god, that was so easy. I set up all my routines, I pulled over some repairs and I did a lease renewal' – that's a completely different energy than when they're overwhelmed saying, 'I don't even know where to start.'"

The difference isn't about technical ability. It's about preparation and support.

The agencies that succeed with projects aren't just learning new software. They're embracing a different philosophy about how property management work should flow, and 

 Not because you're trying harder, but because the system shows you what needs doing before problems escalate. You're not firefighting anymore—you're staying ahead.

From individual knowledge to shared workflows.

 Not because you have better checklists, but because 

everyone's following the same embedded processes

. When someone's away, the work doesn't stop—because the system holds the knowledge, not just the person.

From reporting on work to work that reports itself.

 Not because you're generating more reports, but because the work itself creates the visibility. Your team leads can see where things are at without asking, and property managers can prove their value without extra admin.

This kind of change can feel daunting. That's why Ailo doesn't just hand you software and wish you luck. The 

 is designed to set your projects up the way your business actually runs, train your team on the philosophy (not just the features), and make sure you walk out of day one with that "oh my god, this is easy" energy—not the overwhelmed kind.

Peter, a business owner on the Gold Coast, experienced this consolidation firsthand as 

So which approach is right for your agency?

If you're evaluating property management platforms, the question isn't "which has better task features?" Many platforms now have robust task capabilities.

The real question is: do you want to keep coordinating your work, or do you want to just do your work?

For agencies looking for incremental improvements to their current way of working, enhanced task features in existing platforms offer real value. Better organisation, more automation, clearer visibility.

But if you're ready for something more—if you want your team to stop firefighting and start getting ahead, if you want everyone to have visibility without constant check-ins, if you want property managers to actually take holidays without dread—projects is built for that.

The property managers who've made the switch? They're the ones telling Bernadette they finally sleep through the night. They've gone from three screens to one laptop. They take time off without coming back to chaos.

Rob's team on Sydney's Lower North Shore doesn't hear "I have too many emails" anymore. Renee woke up feeling like "a brand new woman with an even bigger drive for success." Cathy can see where her staff are at without jumping on their computers.

That's not because they have a better to-do list. It's because they're not juggling a to-do list at all—they're just doing the work, and the system takes care of the rest.

Want to see how projects actually works in practice? 

 and we'll show you the difference between managing tasks on a checklist and getting work done faster, without the mental load, within Projects.

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FAQs: Projects in Ailo

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Projects isn't just a better checklist: how Ailo's workflow tools differ from legacy software

At our recent Ailo x Mecca event in North Sydney, Adam Buchert, Director Stone Real Estate Hawkesbury, opened the panel with a line that landed harder than anything I could have said as host: “Less than a year ago, I was ready to sell the rent roll.”

Every principal and property management leader there knew exactly what those eight words meant. Burnout. Frustration. A business that feels harder each year despite the effort you pour into it. 

Under Mecca’s soft retail lighting, surrounded by luxury fragrances and glass counters, Adam spoke with a calmness that only comes after walking through a genuine turning point. 

What followed was one of the most honest accounts of operational strain I’ve heard from a principal.

The breaking point Adam wouldn’t ignore

Adam explained how a legacy tech stack had quietly turned his rent roll into a liability. A cluster of bolt-on tools promising efficiency but delivering complexity. Wage pressures rising. Trust accounting that felt like "diffusing a bomb every month". Staff spending valuable hours mediating between disconnected systems instead of helping owners and tenants.

"We were haemorrhaging money through systems that promised efficiency but delivered complexity," Adam revealed. 

The proof came when they cancelled just one EFTPOS terminal and reclaimed almost $1,800 monthly. If a single peripheral device was costing that much, imagine what the entire legacy stack was draining.

His team was exhausted. Reconciliations leaked into late nights. New business opportunities slipped past. The business wasn’t underperforming, it was being suffocated by its own tools.

Adam didn’t arrive at Ailo with optimism. He arrived with healthy scepticism, shaped by years of grand promises from legacy providers.

So he trialled exactly one feature: direct-to-wallet rent payments.

The impact was immediate. Real-time payments. No more trades chasing money. Month-end reconciliation marathons vanished. What started as a small test became the catalyst for complete operational turnaround.

As Adam said on the panel, “I expected maybe thirty per cent of what Ailo promised, and that would have been a big improvement, but the reality was that I got more than a hundred per cent.”

When confidence and profit return together

The turnaround metrics tell only part of the story:

: The first month's savings from consolidating tools covered the entire migration cost. Property management shifted from cost centre to profit driver.

: Staff previously trapped in after-hours reconciliations now spend afternoons on proactive outreach. The same team handling more properties with less stress.

: Live performance metrics in listing presentations close new landlords without fee reductions. Numbers sell better than promises.

: Real cash flow visibility replaced optimistic spreadsheets and crossed fingers.

But the part of Adam's presentation that stayed with me was this: Adam didn’t just avoid selling his rent roll. He rebuilt his enthusiasm for property management and mapped an expansion strategy. Same team. Same market. Different platform… and a different outlook.

The quiet revolution in property management

This isn’t a story about software. It’s a reminder that outdated systems are not immovable. They are replaceable liabilities. And for principals contemplating exit plans, the problem is often not the work itself, but the tools making that work unnecessarily hard.

If you’re standing at that crossroads, Adam’s journey offers a clear signal: transformation doesn’t require a leap. Sometimes it starts with a single test, a small shift, or the courage to question the systems you’ve tolerated for too long.

The real question is not whether to modernise. It’s whether you’ll wait until the exit paperwork is drafted, or make the shift while growth is still well within reach.

If you're wondering whether your rent roll represents an anchor dragging you down or an asset ready to soar, Adam Buchert's journey offers compelling evidence that a single platform decision can transform the equation overnight.

The question isn't whether to modernise anymore. It's whether you'll wait until you're drafting exit paperwork, or make the move while growth remains possible.

From exit plan to expansion: How Adam Buchert's turnaround proves legacy systems are replaceable

You're setting up a new property. It's 3pm on a Friday. You've done the property condition report, sorted the keys, followed the landlord instructions. Now you've got 14 minimum standards to check and document before you advertise it.

Electrical safety? Heater in the main living area? Window latches? Laundry?

Which system was it logged in? Actually, someone might have emailed the electrical safety certificate last week. This might take some digging...

When compliance lives separate from your workflows, things slip through.

"This is the fanciest footwork I have ever seen!"

Kayla Symons, Senior Property Manager at Belle Property St Kilda, doesn't have that problem.

Before Victoria's updated compliance enforcement rules came into effect on 25 November – requiring properties to meet 14 minimum standards before listing – the Ailo team released some updates to the platform.

"I can't thank you guys enough for how quickly you built this,” said Kayla. 

“This is the fanciest footwork I have ever seen! We have confidence and peace of mind now knowing our properties meet minimum standards."

When Kayla's team sets up a new property in Ailo, Victoria's 14 minimum standards (plus the new blind cord anchor requirement taking effect 1 December) appear in the Projects workflow – right where they're already working. Not on a to-do list in another tab.

Fixed heater: Required ✅ (certificate uploaded)

Window locks: Required ✅ (checked during property condition report)

Smoke alarms: Required ✅ (certificate uploaded)

The Project requires compliance to be addressed before progressing to the next stage, so nothing slips through the cracks.

 For every property, Kayla can see at a glance what's compliant, what needs attention, what doesn't apply. No more wondering if something's been missed or just doesn't matter.

 Compliance certificates, documents, notes, and next scheduled check dates live against each property. When a landlord asks if their property is compliant, she can pull up the property record and show them. No digging through emails. No piecing together spreadsheets.

 lives in the same system, too. When compliance checks require property access, there's a complete audit trail of who held keys and when they were returned.

What this looks like on a Friday afternoon now

It's 3pm. A property manager is setting up a new management. The compliance checks appear in their Projects workflow. They mark what's required, upload certificates, mark what doesn't apply.

Everything's documented. They list the property knowing compliance is sorted.

A month later when the property owner asks if everything's compliant? They can pull up the property record and show them. No separate login. No spreadsheet. No scrambling.

"So many Victorian agencies will benefit from this," Kayla said.

Want to see how compliance works in Ailo?

Most property management platforms treat compliance as a bolt-on – a separate app your team needs to remember to check. With Ailo, compliance isn't something your team has to stress about remembering. It's built into the workflow itself.

If you're tracking Victoria's minimum standards across spreadsheets or separate portals, there's an easier way. Book a demo to 

How Kayla keeps on top of Victoria's 14 minimum standards in Ailo

So many property management agencies are stuck playing defence. The phone rings with a maintenance emergency. An investor calls asking for an update. A renter has a question. Before you know it, your entire team is just reacting.

But some agencies have flipped the script entirely.

Recently, Ailo ran a competition to find the best 

 templates across the thousands of property managers using the Ailo platform.

The entries revealed something striking: the agencies delivering outstanding service had figured out that in property management, sometimes your systems 

But what was even more striking was what happened next: The moment winners were announced, agencies across the country started asking for their templates, and the winners wanted to share them. Because these aren't just property managers using the same software – they're a community that believes when one agency gets better at service, it lifts the entire industry.

Check out Projects

Bernadette O'Sullivan, Ailo's resident Project specialist, reviewed every entry.

"We focused on the level of service participants were delivering to their clients," she said. "We were particularly impressed by workflows that included multiple client touchpoints to keep communication clear and proactive."

Translation: these property managers built transparency and communication directly into their workflows. No chasing updates. No clients left wondering. No scrambling. These teams turned their workflows into their competitive advantage.

The best templates kept everyone informed without property managers having to chase anyone. Investors could see progress in real-time. Team members knew exactly where things stood. Clients never had to ask "what's happening with my property?"

11.12.25 | Release Notes

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