What do successful property managers do that separates them from less-successful property managers? To answer this question, you must understand that success is not always the outcome of a person’s knowledge or abilities. Success mostly happens because of people’s lifestyles.
In other words, successful people work to cultivate daily habits that align with their highest goals. Instead of occasionally doing things that impact their success most, they do them every day. Unlike other people, they focus on how to execute what they know.
While most people think they need more money and information to succeed, successful people try to do more with the money and knowledge they already have. Their focus is on maximizing the effects of the resources they already possess.
These resources include their time, skills, relationships, capital, and more. Successful property managers do not believe they will automatically find success when they land the next big client. They work to succeed with their current clients to land the next big client.
Suppose you are looking to move your property management company from its current level to where it is considered one of the top property management firms in your location. In that case, we have compiled a list of habits you should work on to help you grow your property management company.
8 Habits of highly-successful property managers
1. Prioritize systems and processes
So many moving pieces are involved in managing a property that it is easy to get overwhelmed, lose track of essential tasks, and make mistakes. You must invest in creating, managing, and updating your systems and processes. Use techniques to reduce effort, minimize errors and cut waste. Procedures and functions make it easier to handle repetitive tasks. They let you assign complex tasks to less-skilled persons without compromising quality.
2. Be organized
The higher up the ladder you go regarding the quality of owners/tenants your property management company serves, the more efficient your systems have to be. Higher-quality customers are often affluent individuals who place value on their time. They are used to getting things done on time and right the first time. To satisfy the demands of this section of the market, your business must become more organized.
3. Keep close tabs on maintenance
Efficient property maintenance determines the comfort of your current tenants, the attractiveness of your property to prospective renters, and the operational costs of your buildings. One of the best ways to keep up-to-date with maintenance is to conduct regular inspections of the property. Make scheduled maintenance one of the clauses in your lease agreements. Make a well-maintained property one of the essential pillars of your marketing strategy.
4. Be on time with tasks
Successful property managers make the best use of their time. They value timeliness as a mark of service quality and deploy it as a tool for cutting costs. Dealing with problems on time ensures minimal disruptions in tenants’ lives. It helps you to catch problems before they degenerate into costly emergencies. Being on time with communications can help minimize rent delays and vacancy rates.
5. Communication Is Key
As a property manager, it is better to over-communicate than leave room for assumptions or misinformation. Part of that communication is the education and orientation of incoming tenants. It is also the proper training, retraining, and supervision of your workers. It is a timely and relevant update to the property owners. It is sending reminders to tenants at the right time. It responds quickly to incoming communications.
6. Build rapport with tenants
You want tenants to feel that their well-being matters and are not simply concerned about how much money you can make from them. That means taking a genuine interest in them and going beyond what is required or what they expect from you. It also means creating systems that make it easy for tenants to report problems and quickly respond to them.
7. Adopt new technologies
Invest in property management technologies and learn how to use them. Most property managers who invest in technologies must learn how to maximize their use. Be among the few property managers who do differently. That may involve paying for quality training on the systems, but this investment usually pays off. In addition to investing in technology, you want to participate in various online communities in your industry.
8. Build a great team
Understand that property management is a team sport, and the quality of your company depends on the quality of the people you hire or partner with. You don’t save money when you employ low-quality handypersons and tradespeople. What you think you reserve in cash, you will pay for in lost time, unnecessary stress, and costly reworks. Be a quality person by hiring only quality people in your company. You must be a quality property manager to attract quality investors and tenants.
Lastly, the key to becoming a successful property manager is the willingness to give more than you get. Make it your goal to please customers, and those customers will go out of their way to promote your business to others.
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