Sign in to Fortress OSWomen Leaders Of Real Estate: Kerri Davis of Fortress On The 5 Things You Need To Succeed In The Real Estate IndustryHere...
Kerri Davis says real estate falls behind for three reasons: resistance to change, too many disconnected tools, and limited thinking. She built Fortress to fix that. One platform for property management operations, not a pile of half-okay products held together by side spreadsheets.
Key takeaways
Kerri Davis built Fortress after her company spent millions on just-okay products that never worked as one connected system.
She names the industry's top problems directly: resistance to change, fragmented tools, and limited thinking about what software can do.
Fortress centralizes operations so property teams stop juggling logins, exports, and side spreadsheets to get basic work done.
The goal was one platform that worked for the whole company, not separate tools built for only one role at a time.
Kerri was featured in Authority Magazine's Women Leaders of Real Estate series for her work building Fortress and pushing the industry forward.
CEO Kerri Davis was interviewed by Authority Magazine and shared her career journey and tips for success in real estate.
Read the full interview on Authority Magazine.
Interview Excerpt
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Fortress is in a rapid growth phase now. Our team has more than doubled, and we are regularly onboarding new clients. Our product roadmap is what is most exciting right now. We already have great software and with our added developers and technical team members, we will be adding, even more, features and integrations in the near future.
Our goal with Fortress is to make property management more efficient and automate repetitive and tedious tasks. This means focusing more on centralization and accommodating multiple workflows. Additionally, the pandemic has created obstacles we are continually seeking to overcome, and we look forward to taking these on.
One of the best features of Fortress is how everything about property management operations exists in one place — communicating with residents/prospects/applicants, managing your Google reviews, writing your variance report. We built the system to be inclusive of all of these very important, but usually ancillary, features. Fortress can do this because of our efficient architecture and modern technology stack. Users can also perform these features from a centralized position — managing communication and Google reviews for all sites in one view. Further, users can automate responses to both communications and reviews.
But it doesn’t stop there. We have the ability to integrate with similarly innovative companies via API connections in a way that property management has never seen before. Property management software users are so used to outdated, inefficient and limited integrations, but with Fortress, these integrations will be holistic, real-time, and easy to use.
Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?
- Resistance to change. Like any industry, if you are not adapting to the times, you are getting left behind. Real estate is notoriously a laggard industry, and it’s interesting how many companies are not fully embracing technology. In my role with a property management company, we were spending millions of dollars a year on just OK products. By building Fortress, we are naturally reforming the industry. We are creating a better solution for the entire company versus just the manager or just the resident or just the owner, which is how many offerings and products are built.
- Fragmentation. While there is an abundance — more than 100 — small, ancillary products available to users, none are supported by holistic integrations. This causes a lot of disruption and fragmentation for the end users, who need to see their workflow and efficiency improved. If the industry would step back and address this issue from a more complete perspective, there is an opportunity to have one core operating platform used by all stakeholders
- Limited perspective. Thinking outside the box can be a daunting task, but if the industry decides to do so, there is limitless potential for growth. At Fortress, in everything from employee onboarding and collaboration to product creation and maintenance, we embrace ideas and change. In doing so, we ensure we are consistently moving forward, along with our users, and stay in touch with all their needs and wants.
Read the full interview on Authority Magazine
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Fortress Property Management Software was built by veteran property managers to deliver a remarkably easy to use interface, real-time insights and best-in-class customer support. Learn more about Fortress from the articles below:
- Fortress: Built by Property Managers, for Property Managers
- How Property Managers Save an Hour or More Each Day With Fortress
- Fortress: Real-time Insights, Not Stale Reports
- GlobeSt.com Names Kerri Davis a Women of Influence
- How Can Fortress Help Manage Your Affordable Housing Units?
Or schedule a demo with our team below and see Fortress in action:
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