TL;DR: Ailo co-founder Ben White reveals why property management’s future isn’t about collecting rent – it’s about becoming the essential service provider for entire communities. From turning compliance into profit centres to why your property managers should earn 50% more, this conversation challenges everything you think you know about running a modern property management business.
There’s a moment that changes how you see an entire industry. For Ben White, it happened at his very first property management conference in 2005.
“Someone was on stage talking about fees,” Ben recalls. “This person said they’d had this innovation – they just changed everyone’s statement fee from $2.50 to $5, waited for complaints, and when only five people called, they apologised and changed those back. Everyone started clapping.”
Ben says he sat there thinking, ‘Imagine if your landlord were in the room listening to how you talk about them.‘
That moment sparked a 20-year journey that would see Ben transform Ray White’s property management division into the largest in the country, before co-founding Ailo – a platform now processing transactions for nearly 250,000 users nationwide. But more importantly, it crystallised his belief that property management needed some reinvention.
The Service Revolution: Why Property Management’s Third Wave Changes Everything
Ben’s “third wave” isn’t just another industry buzzword. It’s a complete philosophical shift in how agencies think about their role in the market.
“Property management is a customer relationship with everyone in the community,” Ben explains. “It’s not collect rent and fix things when they break. That’s the narrowest possible definition.”
The Three Waves Explained:
- First Wave: Transaction-focused (collect rent, find tenants)
- Second Wave: Process optimisation (systems and procedures)
- Third Wave: Service expansion (community-wide value creation)
“We’ve got a fee structure disconnected from how we create value for customers,” Ben notes. “Collecting rent in newer systems is zero work. Producing a statement is zero work. Yet that’s how we charge.”
Technology as the Great Enabler (Not the Great Replacer)
While many fear AI will eliminate property management jobs, Ben sees it differently. Technology’s role is to enable personalised service at scale, not replace human relationships.
“You have two [different] landlords,” Ben illustrates. “One says ‘I pay you all this money to never contact me.’ Another says ‘I pay you all this money – why aren’t you telling me everything?’ They’re paying the same amount, but their perception of value is totally different.”
Technology allows property managers to satisfy both without running “a thousand different ways.”
Ben’s vision for AI in property management focuses on what he calls “agentic AI” – technology that helps navigate competing interests:
“You’ve got landlords with certain objectives, renters with certain objectives, tradies with certain objectives. How do you help navigate and automate as much of those steps as possible so each party’s objectives are met?”
The Context Revolution:
In five years, Ben predicts we’ll laugh at the idea of juggling multiple applications and emails to complete tasks.
“You’ll be in context. Everything you need to do your thing will be there, whatever that thing is.”
Action Item: Audit your current tech stack. How many different systems do your property managers need to access to complete one routine task? Each additional step is friction that technology should eliminate.
From Fighting Regulation to Finding Gold: The Compliance Opportunity
Here’s where Ben’s thinking becomes truly revolutionary. While most agencies see increasing regulation as a burden, he sees it as the industry’s biggest untapped opportunity.
His greatest regret? How the industry handled smoke alarm legislation 20 years ago.
“Everyone was obsessed with ‘How do I get my landlords to pay the $60 fee?'” Ben reflects. “I wish I could go back to myself then and say, you’ve got that fundamentally wrong. Instead of seeing this as another bill to process, you should see this as your agency is now in a new business – managing compliance.”
The shift is profound:
- Old thinking: How do we pass through the $60 cost?
- New thinking: How do we charge $150 for a compliance management service?
“With regulation, you can fight it if you want,” Ben says, quoting his brother Sam who is in the mortgage broking industry, “but the one who wins is the one that accepts it the fastest and leans into it.”
Compliance Revenue Opportunities:
- Smoke alarm management services
- Pet compliance programs
- Property condition reporting
- Insurance compliance coordination
- Regular property health checks
Each new regulation isn’t a burden – it’s a new service category waiting to be created.
The Culture Crisis: Why Your Best People Are Leaving (And How to Stop It)
Perhaps Ben’s most striking observation is about industry compensation.
“There’s no reason why property managers who operate effectively shouldn’t get paid very well. Fifty percent more than what some people are getting, I think is justifiable.”
But it’s not just about money. It’s about breaking the isolation that makes property management “a very lonely job.”
“If you’re on a team with three or four people, that’s it,” Ben explains. “Your mentorship is going to come from those people. It’s [sometimes] good luck or bad luck on how that goes.”
The agencies Ben sees thriving share an important commonality: leaders who can hold two ideas simultaneously – pride in their current performance and openness to improvement.
“They can hold pride and a sense of ‘I want to be better,'” he notes. “Some people think if they’re proud, they have to reject change. The ones who can hold both ideas – they’re the ones you walk out of thinking, ‘I’d work for that person a hundred times out of a hundred.'”
Building a Magnetic Culture:
The best feedback Ben receives isn’t about revenue growth. It’s when property managers say: “I just enjoy my job again.”
Key Culture Builders:
- Create professional development pathways beyond “senior property manager”
- Connect isolated team members with broader professional networks
- Align compensation to value creation, not just portfolio size
- Celebrate service excellence, not just efficiency metrics
The Community Vision: Property Management’s Expanding Universe
Ben’s ultimate vision extends far beyond traditional boundaries.
“Property management is everyone’s a customer. Every property, whether it’s owner-occupied, rented, vacant – anything – is a customer.”
This goal isn’t unrealistic, says Ben, agencies already have:
- Physical presence in communities
- Trusted relationships with property owners
- Access to homes (literally holding the keys)
- Understanding of local property needs
“If you came from Mars and looked at what type of business to be in,” Ben argues, “you’d say the home is the most important asset everyone has. Who’s the one person near it, who has a business that services them and has all the keys? That’s the business I want to be in.”
Expansion Opportunities Already In Play:
- Mortgage broking integration
- Bookkeeping services for investors
- Pet management programs
- Cleaning and maintenance subscriptions
- Property data and valuation services
- Insurance coordination
- Utility management
Why This Conversation Matters Now
The property management industry stands at an inflexion point. Agencies face a choice: continue fighting over shrinking margins in traditional services, or embrace a world of expanded, service-based value creation.
The best agencies aren’t waiting. They’re already:
- Redesigning fee structures around value, not tasks
- Investing in technology that enables personalised service
- Turning regulatory requirements into revenue streams
- Building cultures that attract and retain top talent
- Expanding their definition of who’s a customer
As Ben challenges:
“If you can’t ring some customers and ask how you’re going, or talk to your team about how to be better without feeling threatened – you have a problem.”
Your Third Wave Action Plan
This week, Ben challenges you to:
- Call three landlords and get past the polite “everything’s fine” conversation to understand what they really value
- Have an honest chat with your team about improvement without it feeling like criticism
“If you hear those two suggestions and think ‘I don’t want to do either’ – that’s your signal,” Ben warns. “You have a problem.”
Resources Mentioned
- Third Wave Property Management Course – Free 5-day program with Ben White
- Ailo Platform – Technology enabling third-wave property management
Join the Conversation
What’s your take on the third wave? Are you already implementing service expansion in your agency? What’s working? What challenges are you facing?
Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
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