Published on August 29th, 2012
By Aimee Miller
You and your property management team are professionals. You are the ones that keep things flowing smoothly for your property owners and their residents. However, there are times when you may feel as though you could benefit from the insight of a third party; namely, a property management consultant. A property management consultant can step in and help you determine how you can tighten up your operations by offering you the following types of feedback.
An Evaluation Of Resident Concerns
in the world of property management (and any industry, really), you will encounter people who have complaints and claim to be dissatisfied with services offered. A property management consultant can give you an unbiased perspective regarding common resident complaints so that areas for improvement can be identified if necessary.
Feedback On The Efficiency Of Your Operations
This may only be necessary if there are legitimate resident concerns, and a general level of resident dissatisfaction. A property management consultant can help you identify specifically why things are beginning to fall through the cracks. For example, you may be failing to keep up with routine maintenance because you don’t have a maintenance tracking system in place. That is something that can be quickly identified and remedied to alleviate the impact on properties and residents.
Overall Feedback On Your Property
A new set of eyes can find things that you are missing. Even if your day-to-day operations aren’t impacted by some of the items identified. Keep an open mind to suggestions that are made, as things that you’ve always deemed unimportant might make a significant difference.
Help With Leasing Or Marketing
This can be extremely valuable when looking for ways to improve your leasing process. Hiring an expert in this area can expose opportunities to increase revenue and that is always a benefit!
Remember, even when you are great at what you do, there is always room for improvement. So, bringing in a property management consultant is something to consider whether you have been having issues or not. You may find that it inspires you to approach your operations in new ways, or that it stimulates your staff to go the extra mile!
Jason Hull
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I consult struggling property managers every week… Some might be new startups… some maybe have been around 20 years. Regardless, they all learn tips and tricks to cut operational costs and get more leads. I figure if I can save you the cost of a single, minimum-wage, full-time employee annually – that is over $20,000/year in savings then it is a no brainer to spend some money on consulting. It is also no brainer if I can, in addition to saving you money, double your leads.
What is surprising to me is how many property managers hate their business and hate getting up to deal with problems, when it doesn’t have to be that way.
Free tip: Use technology instead of people to lower operational costs. Appfolio is a great example of software that can lower your operational costs and cut down on data entry and manual work.
Alexis Hammond
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Excellent point, Jason! It’s important to look at overall ROI by factoring in cost per employee vs cost for things like property management software. Many property managers find that the use of technology in the right ways can significantly decrease time spent on day to day tasks, in addition to generating more leads with less manual work.