Support your local property manager

Working with an in-house management firm gives an asset manager a healthy appreciation for property managers and their daily obligations. Consider this partial list of weekly duties for a property manager with a stabilized property:

1. Schedule move ins
2. Ensure units are made ready
3. Schedule and supervise contractors
4. Weekly reports to supervisors and ownership
5. Supervise maintenance and leasing teams (typically 2-8 personnel) plus contractors (landscaping, security, utility)
6. Review and approve all invoices and leases
7. Manage resident satisfaction
8. Review and re-price units on a weekly basis
9. Recommend changes in leasing or marketing profile
10. Operate a multi-million dollar enterprise

In short, property managers supervise a small team, reprice and reposition their product on a regular basis, plan for capital expenditures, oversee sales to potential residents and outreach to neighboring businesses, provide entertainment and service to hundreds of residents, work with law enforcement, collect and dispense tens of thousands of dollars each week, and complete a thousand other jobs unknown to the owner.

Some management companies grant more or less responsibilities to managers than this list. Some want them to focus solely on leasing and resident satisfaction while others rely on the property manager as the mayor of a small town. Certainly that was the role I expected a manager at a 700-unit property in Georgia to fill. Managers respond to different challenges; some excel at lease-up properties but become so bored by stabilized properties that they let too much slide while others efficiently manage stabilized properties but overreact at the first sign of crime or occupancy slippage. Although most property managers have an AA or BA, they frequently start off as a leasing agent and work their way up, requiring an immense amount of training and on the job learning.

For all these tasks they are paid very little. Excluding benefits and bonuses, I think the highest paid manager in my portfolio makes about $59,000 for a 640-unit property and the lowest paid full-time manager is paid about $22,000 for a 170-unit property.

One of my midwest properties has turned into a tremendous time suck. It was poorly run for about 15 years by a local firm that gave it no time at all. We’ve uncovered astonishing failures of leasing, maintenance, and operations that would sound libelous if fully recounted. The arrogance and obliviousness of the prior management firm left us with 2 years of work to corret. This year it was my distinct ‘pleasure’ to introduce the manager to the joys of yoga. In that spirit, I recommend this article about the stresses of property mangement from The Cooperator: Stop, Drop and Breathe.

Title HT: Mr. James Garner