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There is a long-standing stigma about the character of landlords. TV personae such as Mr. Roper and Mr. Heckles have defined the role to be limited to those who are pushy, over-bearing, nosey, and non-compliant. To make matters worse, there are those tenants who put the “challenge” into property management, and have the ability to bring out our less-than-cheery self.

It’s not only in these times, but in our everyday approach to the task of property management, we need to remember the words of Brian Tracy, a leader on the topic of human potential. He said, “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.”

Here are some simple tips designed to help you gain that control:

• Center yourself. Whether you believe in the power of meditation or not, there is something to be said for what comes of the time we’re able to get by ourselves and focus on our thoughts. The business of property ownership and management is a busy one that often keeps us on the run. If you don’t take time for yourself to regroup and recharge, everything else may suffer; especially our attitude. Find your happy place and spend at least 30 minutes there in solitude—exercising, breathing, or just resting.
• Be thankful. Bad attitudes often come from a build-up of too much negativity. So, instead of allowing it to control your mood and actions, focus on all that you have to be thankful for instead. Make a list and say them each out loud. You can even go the extra step by telling someone why you’re thankful for them. You’ll quickly see that positive attitude grow outside yourself.
• Do unto others. One of the things I feel landlords forget from time to time is that while this is your business, it’s home to the people you serve. When you change your attitude to see things from this angle, it may very well change the way you look at their situation and even their attitude about things. Would you like to go for days without having issues addressed? Would you like to feel ignored? Put yourself in their shoes and then adjust the attitude accordingly.
• Forgive and forget. Forgive and forget. It’s a hard, hard thing to do; and, in many cases, it takes the bigger person. Yet, when you’re holding onto anger, your mental and physical state suffers, influencing everything else in your life. Sometimes, if only to benefit your mental state, it’s best just to forgive and forget the tenant who said something awful or the maintenance manager who botched a job. When done whole-heartedly, the attitude change in yourself will make you wish you had done it sooner.
• Take action when necessary. Sometimes a bad attitude comes when we feel we’re pushed into a corner or don’t have the ability to take action. If you find yourself in such a situation, for instance, where a problem tenant continues to create a toxic environment for you and other tenants, an attitude change may only come once you’ve gained that control. Do your research, seek help, and get control.

Sometimes we find the best way to handle the landlord stigma is to allow a professional to take the reigns. If that’s where you find yourself, Class A Management is here to help. Contact us today to learn more at 817-295-5959 or send us an email to info@classamanagement.com.

While it’s not wise to make sweeping generalizations, it may be safe to say that, to most owner/managers, the thought of conducting tenant surveys is just an awful proposition. Many get earfuls all the time of tenant “input”… why on earth would we want to solicit it?

Would you believe that going after feedback might actually cut down on the amount of “noise” you hear on an ongoing basis, while giving you some insight that could help you manage your property more effectively?

Here’s how:

1. Develop a thoughtful questionnaire. You can do this using the old fashioned paper method, but online tools like Survey Monkey make it possible for you to send direct-to-email for little or no cost. This is often best for the recipient as well. Ask questions about the things you generally should be concerned with as a manager, such as maintenance, payment policies, the competition, management responsiveness, and the like.
2. Make it known. Make sure your tenants know the survey is available for responses and they are given at least 30 days to reply.
3. Take action and provide notifications. Once the responses are in, read through them. Do not take this lightly. The only way this process and its benefit work is if you follow-through by taking them seriously. So, be open to making changes where it seems there is consensus on issues, and especially where something stands to cost you a tenant or worsen your stand against the competition. The survey should be anonymous, but this doesn’t stop you from making changes known to the tenants. You can do so via email, mail, or property bulletin board posts.

When you have a monitored outlet like a survey, which is conducted on a regular and consistent basis (e.g., every 6 months), tenants are less likely to beat down your door with complaints. You’ll find a willingness and gratefulness for an outlet, as well as a natural decline in the number of complaints/suggestions as tenants make conscious decisions about what and what not to report.

Additionally, management gets the benefit of having a finger on the pulse of the property. When handled correctly, it’s a win-win situation.

Need some help with the logistics, or want a professional to take over the process? Learn how we can work together to make the most of your property investment. Contact us at 817-295-5959 or send us an email to info@classamanagement.com.

A living document is one that is continuously changed or adjusted to ensure its ongoing applicability. Editors evaluate and edit it as the environment or situations and conditions demand. In some instances, this means a document will move away from its originally intended purpose or mission, but this isn’t always the case and definitely doesn’t have to be so. A document can be kept alive purely to ensure guidelines, limitations, etc., are always accurate.

More than one definition

A lease is a document that should always be kept alive. But, we mean this in more than one way. A lease should always be editable, allowing for alterations to areas such as pricing, property policies, application guidelines, and maintenance information, just to name a few. Your tenants change, the competition changes, and the environment changes, so it’s important to ensure your lease is reviewed on a regular basis, assessed against internal and external factors, and updates are made when necessary.

Alive and well with tenants

In the case of leases, however, keeping it alive takes more than just reviews and updates. It also requires having conversations about it and helping to ensure it is doing its job properly. It’s easy as an owner or manager to have tenants sign a lease and then expect they will do their part of the agreement and actually read and follow it. But, what we know from research (and human nature) is that very, very few renters take the time to read and understand all the guidelines.

The implications of renters who don’t read their leases is damage, broken promises, and more. The outcomes can be mild, but they can also wind up costing the property significant amounts of resources, including both time and money. If, in keeping the lease alive with tenants, you knew you could help reduce the risk of such outcomes, wouldn’t you do it?

The how-to

Here are some suggestions:

1. Schedule time for reviews. It’s so easy to rush an applicant in and out of the process and just get them into a unit. But, setting some time aside to really stop and go over the most important aspects of the lease is critical. You can and should do it at the time of signing, but you can also offer individual or group “sessions” as well.
2. Send reminders. Utilize email newsletters and other communication methods to provide brief reminders. You don’t have to take up a lot of space or time – just commit to communicating one or two important lease requirements each month.
3. Offer reward. We all know how far incentives go with renters. Leverage this knowledge to get more commitment and response with regard to the lease. You can do something as simple as offering a 10% discount off one month’s rent when a tenant sits through such a session.

Let someone else handle it

Sometimes it’s just better to let a professional management company assume the worry and responsibility. That’s what Class A Management is here for, and we’d love to help. Contact us today to learn more by calling 817-295-5959 or sending an email to info@classamanagement.com.

Finding new tenants, and quality tenants at that, is an ongoing challenge and concern for every multifamily manager/owner. The standard is to focus on marketing and curb appeal, and then sit back and hope for a steady flow of passers-by. But who says property management has to be so docile? Why not take a more direct and actionable approach to attracting the tenants you desire?

Here are a few suggestions:

Become a Host

When a real estate agent wants to market a property, a must-do on his or her list is an open house. There is a strategic plan, lots of marketing, invitations, and food and drinks that go into each event. Interested parties are ushered in to view all the property has to offer. So, why shouldn’t this be a strategy for multifamily management?

Simply set your date, send out invitations, talk about it on social media, post signs in and around the property, and know how you are going to move people through the grounds. Of course, it’s imperative that you also have at least a model unit to show as well as a property that is well maintained and ready for recruiting.

Go to the Goods

In addition to bringing the tenants to you, it’s also a wise idea to consider going to them. Just think of the places you might most likely be able to find people in search of a rental. Colleges are a good place to start. Laundromats, schools, and grocery stores may also offer bulletin boards and similar platforms where you can advertise. Yet another idea is to make a list of the employers in your area. Producing fliers, mailers, email campaigns, and like to be distributed to local employees through approved partnerships with these employers is a great way to reach the local market.

Find Complements

If you’ve ever studied marketing, you know the rationale behind leveraging complements. Yet, even if you haven’t it’s easy to understand how people are drawn to a service or product when it naturally “goes” with a product or service they already subscribe to, purchase, or use. Consider the tennis racket and tennis ball. These are complements.

For multifamily properties, you want to make a list of the possible complements tenants would also gravitate toward. Think about relocation service providers, rent-to-own furniture outlets, and the local insurance agent. Partnerships with businesses like these are strategic in nature and have the ability to produce great revenue streams, especially if you both agree to a business-both-ways type of arrangement.

Hire a Professional

The key to making tactics like these work is to abandon the fear of aggression. You want good tenants, you need be where they can see you. These tips will help; but, if you would like a professional in your corner who knows the ins and outs of recruiting success, contact us today to learn more. You can reach us at 817-295-5959 or by email at info@classamanagement.com.

Preventive maintenance. It’s defined by the Business Dictionary as the “systematic inspection, detection, correction, and prevention of incipient failures, before they become actual or major failures.” It’s immediately apparent why this is so important to keep such a strategy in place. If you don’t, the contrast to this action is corrective maintenance, and that can be much more time consuming and costly than doing what is necessary to try and prevent issues from the outset.

If you have yet to put such a plan in place, there is a strategic way you should go about it. Here are the 5 preventive maintenance tips you should keep in mind:

• Create a checklist. First and foremost, you will want to create a list of all the items that need to be included on your regular preventive maintenance schedule. Items will include roofing, HVAC, plumbing, weather seals, foundation, and much more. However, there will be variations in frequency. Your HVAC won’t need to be checked as frequently as the playground equipment. Multihousing News has created a detailed checklist that breaks down a list of items and categorizes them according to frequency. See the list here.
• Make a schedule. Now that you have a list and you can see the recommendations for frequency, create a detailed schedule for you and your staff, and then put it on your calendar. Use the alarm feature on your smartphone or tablet if need be so nothing goes overlooked.
• Establish assignments. Know who is responsible for each inspection from the beginning. Monthly items may be equally split among responsible staff members. However, for the items requiring professional inspection services, such as is needed for the foundation, you will want to make those reservations ahead of time. The last thing you want is to get stuck in a queue for a month or two and have an emergency pop up in the meantime that could have been avoided with earlier detection.
• Take notes. Keep a detailed log of what has been done and when. If services are hired, then keep receipts and transaction notes created by the inspector.
• Use your reinforcement. Don’t forget that a lot of preventive maintenance help can and should come from tenants. Just to be clear: you should never allow tenants to assume such a task for management. However, tenants have the ability to detect and report incidents or issues as they occur within the unit. Leaks, cracks, mold, and fire detector issues are just a few of the things they’re able to keep an eye on for you and report when needed. Make sure these instructions are included in the contract and pointed out (frequently, if needed).

If you would like some help creating your strategy or would just like someone to take all the worry off your hands, the professionals at Class A Management are happy to help. We have been providing these services to properties across Texas and beyond for nearly 3 decades and we’d like the chance to partner with you. Call us today at 817-295-5959 or send us an email to info@classamanagement.com.