5 Ways to Ease Your Management Pains

May 12, 2022

Resolving the Worst Pains of Property Managers

Finding better ways to improve operations efficiencies is likely the number one objective of smart property management pros this year.

Why? Because reducing workloads cuts costs which allows you and your staff to get to those tasks and projects that matter to business success. Business success is everything.

As we progress into the summer of 2022, you’re seeing more tenant activity, repairs and workloads. Continuous toiling can prevent you from moving your business forward.

“Every problem is a gift — without problems we would not grow.”
– Anthony Robbins — transformation consultant and best selling author.

For some unfortunately, the return of normalcy could bring added financial and management discomfort. A few property managers would say their job is comprised of putting out fires that keep restarting. These repetitive work tasks are a big drawback of this business, so it’s worthwhile to solve them now )and get your summers and weekends back).

What to Do First

First and foremost, identify your actual pains, then trace them back to the source. What would you say the core source of your problems is?

insufficient staff or labor issues
inadequate and disappearing operating margin
inefficiencies and micromanaging maintenance and repairs
higher tenant churn and evictions
disrespectful tenants and property damage
HOA/unit violations
inflation, shortages, taxes
poor management tools
current business model just isn’t working

Accounts, Profits, and Work Enjoyment

For landlords, the biggest challenges in 2022 are likely containing fast rising costs at every level, keeping tenants leased to avoid churn losses, raising rents appropriately, managing evictions correctly, and lowering tax loads.

Property managers may have a more specific set of business pains including:

uncooperative tenants who complain, waste your time and damage property
keeping to budget despite staff departures, rising fuel costs and equipment failure, and rising wage costs and taxes
coordinating maintenance work to avoid expensive time wastage
turning over units and finding good tenants
finding good contractors
insufficient revenue to maintain business
scale up volume of properties serviced (capital expenditure/machinery/software/consulting)
competitive market threats from big investment companies buying up rental properties
keeping misinformed and ungrateful owners happy
too little personal time off and weekends (ailing health)
profitability is on a downward trend
re-examining your pricing or business model

A Few Basic Decisions Create Success or Pain

Does success and good work all come down to your choices? For instance, if you choose to work with low quality landlords and properties, isn’t the outcome inevitable? Property managers need to market and promote their company well to keep new landlord leads coming in thus creating your sustainable property management company.

Working with bad landlords on non-performing properties with inadequate digital management tools may actually be the number one pain source for most property managers.

With poor landlords and bad properties, the walls are always ready to cave in. Finding new clients is important.

Which Solutions Might Work Best for You?

Once you’ve identified your specific pain points, you need to look at real solutions. Obviously, a cloud based SaaS software platform will make a big difference in optimizing daily workloads (automation, digital communications, accounting). That’s a top pain killer. And so is a strong property management marketing strategy.

The biggest pain eliminators are:

better property management software (automates, simplifies workflow, improves maintenance and tenant communications, and helps tenants pre-solve their issues so they don’t contact you)
stronger marketing and advertising reach (actively connecting you with better landlords (and tenants) who if signed, will resolve your need for revenue and growth)
great content marketing (to prove you’ve got the skills, resources, integrity and talent that high paying landlords are searching for)
good tenant and owner communications strategy (proactively manage conversations that may lead to conflicts and time wasting activity, and promote positive behavior)
good tenant relations (finding and keeping high quality tenants comfortable, listened to, and on lease)

Big, Persistent Troubles? Review Your Business Model

Operating your business in a better fashion comes from the smart decisions made when built your business initially. Entrepreneurs launching their property management startup today are all over this topic of business models. And they won’t get funding unless they’ve got it right.

If it’s not working, creating expected profits, and you’re not enjoying your work, you might have to revisit your business model, what the market needs, and whether you doing enough to connect with the best landlords.

Business models sound academic, touching on theories of pricing strategies and investment models. But really, why not keep this on a practical level? It’s all about finding the value of what it is you do and how you capture revenue, enhance your services, and keep costs under control.

All the pains you experience in managing rental properties goes back to the flaws in your business model. So your business model is kind of a hedging strategy too, to help you fend off big pains. Solve the big pains first, and the little pains may never appear.

For improvement, consider maximizing your marketing budget to begin tapping into accounts that are more lucrative and give you less grief. Consider it a kind gift to yourself and your staff as you’re all in this together.

Find out more on success for property managers here on the ManageCasa blog, including key topics: property management company marketing, lead generation, and improving staff morale and download the Property Manager’s handbook.

Build your business on a solid foundation: ManageCasa Property Management Software.