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HABITS OFHIGHLY SUCCESSFULPROPERTY MANAGERS

Best practices forgetting (and keeping) your

properties under control

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As property managers, we often focus our efforts in the business rather than on the business. Due to the nature of the job, we get so caught up in the details and urgency of our day-to-day responsibilities that we forget to zoom out and look at what’s working and what isn’t in a big-picture way. But who has the time to do this on a regular basis, right?

The first step to improving your business is examining your core habits. Effective habits can help you to streamline your processes, become more efficient, and free up time to focus on what matters most—building relationships, increasing revenue, and growing your business.

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So why focus on building habits? Humans are creatures of habit; and habits are easy to break, but hard to develop. The trick is to create what are known as habit loops.

You begin by setting a cue: a visual reminder to trigger a certain action (see example on page 5). That cue will initiate a routine: a consistently performed action. Last, the routine is reinforced with a reward, which links it with a positive feeling or satisfies a craving. (To learn more about habit loops, we recommend reading The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg!)

The best place to start is determining your goal, whether it’s to decrease the time it takes to move a tenant out, conduct inspections, onboard a new employee, or submit reports to owners. Take the time to write out a list of goals you want to achieve, then identify which ones are most important to work on first.

THEHABITLOOP

Cue

Routine

Reward

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Before you know it, you will find it difficult to start your mornings without your new routine. You’ll be more in tune with the industry, and your business will be better off for it!

An example of a good habit to develop in the property management industry could be:

To stay updated on trends and news within the real estate and property management industries.

GOAL

When you see your calendar notification, commit to taking 10 minutes to read through the top articles and headlines that look most interesting to you.

ROUTINE

Set a recurring calendar event for the same time every morning that reminds you to read your favorite blogs and newsletters. Set pop-up notifications so it grabs your attention!

CUE

Make it more enjoyable by letting that be the time you drink your coffee or indulge in a morning treat!

REWARD

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HABITS FOR SUCCESS IN PROPERTY

MANAGEMENT

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TIPS

Collect and share information consistently.

Communication is at the heart of what makes a property manager great. When you think about it, you’re basically the communications hub—between owners and tenants, tenants and maintenance workers, maintenance workers and accountants, etc. It’s your responsibility to make sure that you’re conveying information efficiently and accurately from one party to another.

Make communication a core competency.

• Create templates for everything and deliver news consistently (e.g. move-in emails, late rent notifications, association violations, rent reminders, owner statements, inspection processes).

• Figure out ways to communicate effortlessly (e.g. provide owners and tenants with a portal of their own to view reports and maintenance requests).

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Always be learning, always be teaching.

Schedule time to expand horizons.

Property owners want to feel a sense of reassurance that they’re entrusting their property to someone who knows property management AND the local market inside and out. It’s on you to inspire that confidence.

Be an expert on local rent rates, your state’s laws and regulations,

and general trends in the marketplace.

60% of property owners expect their property manager to be a “professional partner with industry expertise."

(2016 RENTAL PROPERTY OWNERS SURVEY, BUILDIUM)

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But don’t keep all of your knowledge to yourself! Look for ways to demonstrate your expertise through inbound marketing. In case this is a new term to you, think of it this way: Traditional marketing is mostly “outbound” and covers print advertising, TV, radio, trade shows, cold calls, and email blasts. With it, you’re trying to push your product or service on the consumer. Modern marketing combines the outbound approach with an inbound approach. Inbound marketing includes paid online advertising, content marketing, and search engine marketing. Think of this as creating ways to pull consumers toward your website to convert them to customers.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT RESOURCES

• Buildium.com’s Resource Library & Buildium’s Blog

• National Association of Residential Property Managers: NARPM.org and Residential Resource magazine

• Community Associations Institute: CAIonline.org and Common Ground Magazine

• National Apartment Association: NAAhq.org and Units magazine

• National Association of Realtors: NAR.realtor and Realtor Magazine

• Multifamily Executive: Multifamilyexecutive.com

• Inman Real Estate News: Inman.com

• National Real Estate Investor: NREIonline.com

• And of course, keeping tabs on what's happening in your area by reading local business journals is always recommended.

If you have gained above average knowledge in a specialized area, such as green buildings, student housing, senior living, or military housing, then use your expertise to blog about it on your company’s website. This will draw prospective customers to your website and increase your credibility. This will also make it more likely that when a potential customer searches for a particular topic online, it’ll be your website that comes up first in the results. Don’t be intimidated: blogging once every few weeks could be enough to reap these benefits. The important thing is that you’re presenting valuable content to those with an interest in your niche.

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Create a playbook for growth.

Get scientific about planning for the future.

81% of property managers plan to manage more units one year from now than they do today. However, 21% report having no marketing budget; and an additional 50% say they plan to spend $500 or less.

If you’re great at your job, you’re naturally going to get some referrals; but you’re not going to see the kind of growth you’d see if you had a targeted strategy and process in place for connecting with new property owners.

(2015 PROPERTY MANAGER SURVEY, BUILDIUM)

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The top two places property owners look online:

When a lead is contacted within 1 hour of filling out a form online, they are 7 times more likely to become a paying customer (Harvard Business Review).

66% of homeowners end up working with the first realtor they speak to (National Association of Realtors).

Recommendation: Make it a point to call leads as soon as they come in.

STEP 1: KNOW WHERE OWNERS LOOK FOR PROPERTY MANAGERS

STEP 2: SPEED WINS

1. Searching on the web

2. All Property Management: The leading online resource for property owners seeking property managers.

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Set processes for recurring tasks.

Document your routines to make them faster and easier to repeat and share.

Create processes and checklists, and document the way that you want your business to operate. This means that you need to create a repeatable process for the myriad of recurring tasks that arise in property management (e.g. posting vacancies, inspecting properties, processing applications, screening tenants, moving tenants in, and onboarding new property owners). It also means that you’ll have an effective way to train new employees as your business grows!

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Need inspiration? Read The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande.

Do an audit of your activities for 1 full month. Identify anything that you do more than 3 times in that month and create a checklist for how it gets done. Keep all of your documents, checklists, and templates in 1 place by centralizing them in the cloud with Google Drive, Dropbox, or Box.com.

PRO TIP #1

PRO TIP #2

SET IT AND FORGET IT: 5 CRITICAL PROCESSES YOU CAN AUTOMATE

Rental listings & syndication

Rental applications

Payment reminders & late fee notifications

Reporting for owners

Maintenance updates & recurring task reminders

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Use technology to stay organized.

Take advantage of smart tools to connect your business.

There are endless tools out there to help you stay organized, but the one thing you really need is a single platform that all of your stakeholders can access. Remember, you’re the communications hub; so it’s crucial to manage communications efficiently and effectively between tenants, employees, vendors, and owners.

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THE TOP 5 REASONS PROPERTY MANAGERS LIKE YOU SEEK OUT TECHNOLOGY:

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Handling maintenance issues Finding good tenants

Staying organized Achieving work-life balance

Searching for new properties to manage

What’s more, 4 out of 5 property owners think it’s important that property managers use the latest property management tools.

• Calendly: For appointment management

• Survey Monkey: For creating & distributing surveys (e.g. resident & owner satisfaction surveys)

• Trello: For task tracking & project management

• Wunderlist: For to-do lists & checklists

• Evernote: For note-taking

EXAMPLES OF FREE AND USEFUL TECH TOOLS

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Be proactive.

Inspect, insure, and inquire before trouble hits.

The old adage still stands: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

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TIPS FOR SUCCESS

Have a recurring inspection cadence. Consider doing seasonal inspections every 3-6 months.

Enable automatic recurring or one-time payments online. It’s a win-win: When tenants don’t forget to pay, it decreases the risk of a penalty fee for them, while making sure that you’re paid on time!

Require renters insurance for ALL of your tenants. According to Multifamily Executive, 84% of apartment companies require renters insurance.

Send out surveys to your tenants and owners to benchmark your business, track your progress, improve your services, gain insights as to why tenants stay or leave, learn how owners rate your business, and use positive reviews to market your business.

Send out reminders (such as rent notices) 5 days before the rent is due.

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Keep calm and carry on.

Don't panic, no matter what happens.

Property management can be chaotic. We get it! Try to remember that stress and chaos often stem from a lack of communication and access to the right information at the right time.

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HOW TO MINIMIZE CHAOS IN YOUR BUSINESS

Centralize information in the cloud.

By storing files and other information online, you and your staff can access them from any location, at any time. Cloud storage is also a smart way to back up important documents.

Optimize mobile communication.

Enable access to important information while you and your staff are away from the office through mobile technology. Also, being mobile-savvy makes it easier for tenants and owners to reach you. Being responsive when they reach out increases the chance that they’ll do so before an emergency crops up—perhaps preventing emergencies from happening in the first place!

Have a life outside of work.

This truly becomes easier as you rely more on technology to centralize all aspects of your business. With the right tools and processes, working from the beach can be just as easy as working from your office!

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So, which habits are you going to start developing right away? We’d love to hear your ideas on social!

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CONTACT US888.414.1988 or sales@buildium.com

ABOUT BUILDIUM

Buildium is the only property management solution that helps real estate professionals win new business from property owners and community associations seeking services.

Backed by expert advice and relentless support, Buildium enables you to outperform across all facets of your business with intuitive software that balances power, simplicity, and ease of use.

Attract and keep tenants with the best services possible. Try Buildium.

Give us a call today at 877-396-7876 or visit our website to schedule a demo.

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