How Carmel Realty’s Estate Management team moves faster and creates cohesion with Nines

Coming home to a property in Pebble Beach or Carmel, California should always be magical – and for clients of Carmel Realty Company’s Estate Management Division, it is. 

The team provides full-service property management, maintenance support and vendor management, and home and concierge services for dozens of properties, ensuring that clients’ homes are always cared for and ready to enjoy. 

When Kristi McClure Huckaby joined the team as an Estate Services Manager, she was struck by the way her team members worked together, constantly learning and sharing new information about each client and each property, so they could provide unparalleled service. 

“I had never worked for such a fantastic team before who is multi-tasking at a rate that is on fire,” says Kristi. “We feed off of the energy of it, and we’re able to help each other out by the information we get and combine efforts with it – it’s just awesome.” 

Empowering the team to exceed expectations 

With seven different team members who all go on site to help with property inspections, Kristi and her team rely on each other to document and share as much information as possible about their clients’ preferences, schedules and properties. 

“Knowing the same information is critical to how fast we can operate and move as a team, and helps us create that consistent, above-expectation experience for our clients,” explains Kristi. “We also want to make sure that we account for everything we’re doing, which is why it’s important that we have Nines.” 

In the past, the team relied on documents and spreadsheets for keeping track of all the details, but switched to Nines to streamline their work across properties. 

“They wanted cohesion – an all inclusive, one stop shop,” says Kristi. “We’re really able to key in on the homes in Nines – all of the people that are working on the home, the vendors, the tasks, the upcoming winter maintenance – it’s key, essential information in Nines for each one of our homes, and our team utilizes that in the field, as well.” 

When Kristi and her team members go on site for a property inspection, they use the Nines app to check the owners’ preferences, keep track of what needs to be done, log any important updates, and find the right vendor for a project. 

“It’s making sure that you can execute your job while it’s in the palm of your hand,” says Kristi. 

Now, rather than taking notes by hand and typing them up back at her desk, she’s able to save time by logging everything in the moment. 

“Being able to take photos and capture that detail right on site, and then easily go back to it, is essential to creating a streamlined workflow – and then you have that extra time to do other things that are also critical to the job,” says Kristi.

A centralized home for all the details 

While Nines is a powerful home for all the details, it’s the comprehensive information the team puts into Nines that makes all the difference. 

“Our workflow is, when we get a new property, we upload that property into Nines, we have a nice cover photo of the house, and we put the most important information in there,” says Kristi. “Who is the lead on the house? We have 2 to 3 leads per house, along with our team members as backup. We add inspection notes, so how many times a week or a month are we going there? Who are we emailing reports to? Specific details that each owner really relies on us to know for each of the homes.” 

From there, they add important dates on the calendar, from preventative maintenance tasks to client and guest schedules. Next, they add zones and assets, followed by staff and vendors for each home. They upload documents, like inspection reports and any documents that are specific to each home. Then, they add tasks, like weekly or monthly inspections, including any important list items, like the gifts the owners like to give out, or a storm checklist to prepare the home for the winter months. 

“In addition to that, we log any critical information as far as when things are done on site, so that if we need to, we can look back at a log and share that information with the owners as well as anyone that needs it,” says Kristi. 

The team keeps careful records of the homeowners’ specific preferences and expectations, so they can easily see and deliver on how a homeowner expects their home to be set up for guests, or what favorites they hope to see in the refrigerator. 

They ensure that every property is in stellar condition whether clients are on site or not, but they always want to go above and beyond before clients arrive, which especially critical for clients who have limited opportunities to enjoy their second or third homes in Carmel throughout the year. 

“We get their homes ready to be lived in and enjoyed, because we want their expectation to be more than met, we want to excel in it,” says Kristi.

Easing the learning curve 

Having easy access to all the details you’d typically find in a household manual not only ensures team members can deliver on clients’ expectations, but also helps new team members get up to speed quickly – especially in Carmel, a town without street addresses. 

“One thing that is crucial is the picture of the house,” says Kristi. “Carmel is quite unique with addresses, so if you’re a new team member, it’s very helpful to actually see where you’re going and know that that is the right street, that is the right house – and it also helps as a reference so we can keep track of anything that’s changed.” 

Kristi says she logged into Nines multiple times a day to learn each of the team’s properties, and as more new people join the organization, they should be able to adapt to the team’s workflow quickly and easily, too. 

“Nines is very user friendly, it’s not intimidating – which is really important when you have people at different levels of comfortability when it comes to software,” says Kristi. “Being able to dive right into exactly what you need, when you need it, is really important.” 

An ever-evolving historical record 

The Carmel Realty Estate Management team’s Nines account is always evolving as they add new properties and make updates across their portfolio. Plus, as Nines adds new features based on real-world use cases and feedback from clients like the Carmel team, managing a number of different properties in one platform continues to get easier.

“We love working with the team at Nines,” says Nancy Whitman, Vice President of Client Services for Carmel Realty. “They have helped develop the software further to support our intense growth and continue to improve upon it for our specific use.”

Recently, they started using connections to tie relevant pieces of information together, which means they can enter information (like a vendor’s contact information) once, then see it in a number of different places, saving time and limiting the need for duplicate work. 

The team also made an effort to go deeper on assets, documenting small details, aggregating photos, and noting where things are in the home. 

“Now, if something’s wrong with the refrigerator, you have the serial numbers and all the other information, and you can communicate effectively with the vendors and get your job done,” says Kristi. 

Next, they plan to focus more on zones, adding details and photos for each zone across all of the properties in their portfolio. 

And on a daily basis, everyone pays it forward for fellow (and future) team members by taking detailed notes on work that’s been done, changes at a property, and clients’ unique expectations. 

“Now, it’s my responsibility to be that team member who works along with my colleagues and puts information into the system so it’s up to date,” says Kristi. 

Moving forward, as they add more properties and more team members to take care of them, they can maintain their high level of service with an ever-evolving, comprehensive historical record.