Jay McKee is the Founder and CEO of Lessen and the CEO of SMS Assist. Lessen is a tech-powered, end-to-end solution for outsourced real estate property services, delivering consistency, quality, and speed at scale. Lessen enables its clients in the single-family and multifamily rental industries to overcome labor shortages, reduce headcount and overhead, grow and scale their business and benefit from our supply chain and buying power to secure project materials — Lessening burden, and saving clients time and money. Lessen is based in Scottsdale, Arizona, with offices in Seattle and Miami, and field operations in 40 markets.

Jay created Lessen because he recognized an opportunity to modernize the property services space leveraging technology to automate and streamline project management, increasing efficiency, and transparency. Prior to Lessen, Jay helped pioneer the institutional single-family home rental industry as co-founder of Colony American Homes. With nearly two decades of experience in property management, property technology, real estate development, construction, and sales for start-up technology operations, consulting companies, and homebuilders, Jay has helped reshape the U.S. real estate landscape.

Jay has served as a board member for both Genesis Capital and the Masters of Real Estate Development Program (MRED) for the Arizona State University MBA Program. He’s also served as an advisory board member for both Elevation Energy Partners and Avant Stay.