AIM 2026: What If Pricing Isn’t Actually the Problem?

How shared revenue intelligence helps operators diagnose challenges before reacting with price

At AIM this year, Rentana hosted a live game show on the main stage called The Price Is Wrong.

During our featured game, “Too High, Too Low, or Hold?”, contestants stood on stage reacting to multifamily pricing scenarios in real time. As newer information about each property was progressively revealed, opinions shifted, debates emerged, and the audience started realizing how differently the same situation could be interpreted.

Each contestant approached the scenarios from a completely different operational lens.

Paul Edgeman, Chief Marketing Officer at Thrive Communities, naturally focused on traffic patterns, lead quality, and demand generation.

Carroll VanHook-Weaver, Senior Director of Leasing at JVM Realty, focused on the renter experience, tour conversion, onsite execution, and follow-up.

Mark Limpert, Principal and Co-Founder at Orion Real Estate Partners, approaching the conversation from the asset management perspective, focused on exposure, occupancy pacing, and portfolio risk.

Same property. Same situation. Different conclusions.

Contestants regularly disagreed with one another. Audience votes were often split across all three answers. Very quickly, the debate stopped being just about pricing. The conversation moved into execution, positioning, lead quality, leasing strategy, and renter psychology.

The session reinforced how experienced operators can interpret the exact same situation depending on the signals they see every day. And that is the reality inside many multifamily organizations today.

What became clear throughout the game was that teams already had valuable data, but much of it was isolated across separate systems and conversations.

• Marketing can see shifts in traffic quality and campaign performance.
• Leasing teams can hear hesitation, objections, and sentiment directly from prospects during tours.
• Revenue managers can see exposure risk and pricing pressure building.
• Asset managers can see occupancy pacing, predicted occupancy shifts, and portfolio trends.

And when those signals stay disconnected across teams, everyone ends up making decisions from only part of the picture. Pricing decisions are usually reacting to several things happening at once.

The Problem Usually Wasn’t Price

Across all three scenarios, pricing alone could not fully explain what was happening.

In some cases, traffic was healthy but conversion was weak. In others, prospects were touring but questioning the value. In another, demand existed but urgency was missing.

Each property told a different story: One property had a conversion problem. Another had a positioning problem. Another was struggling with lease-up pressure.

Paul repeatedly pushed the conversation further upstream before reacting to price, asking questions like, “How did we get here?” Instead of immediately adjusting rents, he focused on lead sources, traffic quality, and whether the property was actually attracting the right prospects in the first place.

During our Fort Lauderdale property scenario, Carroll challenged the idea that another concession was automatically the answer. Instead, she emphasized giving leasing teams more tools to create urgency and resonate with the market.

As she put it:

“It’s Ft. Lauderdale… what about passes to an exclusive beach club for the summer? We need to find what speaks to the market if pricing is holding steady.”

Suddenly the conversation wasn’t really about concessions anymore, but about something much more operational: how teams position value, create differentiation, and equip onsite teams to sell more effectively.

In Austin, the discussion evolved even further beyond pricing alone and into how properties create differentiation in highly competitive lease-up environments. Mark argued that in supply-heavy markets, operators sometimes need to think creatively about perceived value and urgency, not just headline rent.

“Given this asset is in Austin, I’d look to do a Yeti package: a cooler, tumblers, backpacks, a $500 value.

The panelists were now debating positioning, renter psychology, operational execution, urgency, follow-up, and how to better equip onsite teams to convert demand. And as additional context was revealed throughout the game, contestants frequently changed their answers entirely. So did the audience.

At several points, the room was visibly split across all three responses: too high, too low, and hold.  There was never really a single “correct” answer.

That is where shared revenue intelligence becomes incredibly valuable. Once teams can connect signals across marketing, leasing, operations, revenue management, and asset management, the conversation changes.

Instead of asking: “Should we change price?”

Teams can start asking: “What is actually driving the performance we’re seeing?”

What Changed Once Everyone Had More Context

One of the most interesting moments during the game was not when contestants changed their answers. It was when they started asking better questions.

Instead of immediately debating whether pricing should move, the conversation became more diagnostic:

• Is this a traffic problem or a conversion problem?
• Are we attracting the wrong prospects?
• Is the value proposition landing during the tour?
• Is operational execution impacting leasing outcomes?
• Is this isolated to one unit type, or showing up across the property?

Once everyone had more context, the conversations became much more productive.

Traffic quality influences tours. Tours influence conversion. Conversion influences exposure. Exposure influences pricing confidence. When operational and revenue signals can be viewed together, teams gain earlier visibility into whether changes are being driven by demand, conversion, positioning, execution, or exposure risk.

Practical Ways Operators Can Create Shared Visibility

The good news is most teams do not need to completely overhaul operations to improve visibility.

In many cases, it starts with creating more intentional visibility between teams already influencing the same outcomes.

A few places operators can start:

• Create shared definitions for core metrics, including exposure, conversion, effective rent, and lead quality so teams are working from the same understanding.
• Review pricing decisions cross-functionally instead of limiting conversations to a single department.
• Look earlier in the funnel before occupancy or revenue shifts appear downstream.
• Bring operational, leasing, and marketing signals into the same conversation instead of evaluating them separately.
• Reduce reliance on disconnected spreadsheets and reporting workflows that slow down decision-making and create conflicting interpretations.
• Encourage teams to diagnose what changed before immediately discussing pricing responses.

Not every team needs to own pricing. But every team should understand the signals influencing it.

The Bigger Shift Happening in Multifamily

The session reinforced something many operators are already feeling: multifamily revenue optimization now requires more than pricing adjustments alone.

The operational complexity inside multifamily has grown too interconnected for pricing decisions to live in isolation. And as markets become more competitive, the ability to interpret signals becomes increasingly important.

That is why more operators are moving beyond traditional revenue management workflows and toward a more connected revenue intelligence approach. The shift is about creating clearer visibility into what is changing, why it is changing, and what action actually fits the situation.

Because ultimately, the strongest pricing decisions rarely come from fragmented perspectives. They come from understanding the full picture before deciding which lever actually needs to move.