15 Ways Covid 19 will Impact Property Management
For some rental property owners, this summer has been a volatile, unpredictable, and harrowing time emotionally and financially.
One side of owners balance sheet is hurting badly and property management companies are likely to see the pinch when their contracts need to be renewed. We wonder if this fall season will be worse?
I don’t mean to frighten anyone, however the post Covid 19 era likely won’t be business as it was in 2020. 2021 will see big changes in costs, regulation, tenant relations, migration, and profitability. As you’ll see, software technology along with intelligent business strategy can help control the downside for property managers and landlords.
Will Retail, Restaurants, Offices and high Density Housing Resume?
There’s more belief that a Covid 19 vaccine will ease everyone’s woes by 2021. But will renter, banker, and employer attitudes change? Will everything just pop back into place in 2021 like nothing happened?
Work from home likely won’t stop once employers gauge the cost savings (and work productivity gains reported via research).
Downtown retail and office markets have been decimated with the continuing exodus, particularly in New York and the Bay Area, and gives high density residential property profitability challenges, as taxes in the cities rise and rents stay flat.
From big city debt to exoduses to evictions to low mortgage rates for homebuyers, 2021 and beyond just looks different.
Renter Aid and Eviction Moratoriums
President Trump’s new renter aid and rent moratorium are a double edged sword. Is the crisis just being pushed forward a few months at a time? It’s taking all of property manager’s energy and financial skills to encourage rent payment, do maintenance safely, and preparing for inevitable tenant evictions.
Yet, this is actually a speeding up of trends that were happening all along. Work at home, migration to cheaper cities, and infrastructure issues were there all along.
Below you’ll read 15 ways Covid 19 has affected rental property management, and what resolutions you might take going forward.
Covid 19 is Altering Long Term Views
Yes, Covid 19 is impacting real estate and the rental markets while putting big pressure on property managers to keep pace with new fee structures, new services and greater operations efficiency.
New Attitudes, Tools and Skills
Property managers will arise from the pandemic with new skills, better respect for hygiene and disease, new attitudes toward proptech, better tenant communications, automated payments, a new understanding of the new tenant base, along with improved approaches to staffing, services offered, and areas served.
And another positive as we discuss the outfall, is that there are tools to help you mitigate your risk, grow profitability, and minimize potential losses. What an odd time to learn a new approach to property management but this is how it is.
Remember The Good Old Days?
It used to be the low tech, face to face, word of mouth, rental market was fairly consistent in returns, relations and processes. Owners could predictably pick properties to buy in a city, price the rental apartments or house rental right, deal with regulations, expect rent paid on time, enjoy speaking with all tenants in the office, receive the check or cash in hand, receive a maintenance request by phone and send a guy over, be unlikely to evict, and even earn a decent return.
2021 will be different. How you manage your business, tenants, and use technology determines the final profit numbers.
15 Impacts of Covid 19
- rental tenants have new power to demand lower rent and concessions from landlords
- new outbreaks mean new rent defaults coming soon along with tenants deceased
- weakened, insecure tenant relations with landlords
- financial acrobatics needed to keep the business afloat
- pending tsunami of evictions will roll through the real estate sector with huge court costs
- loss of control over rental income and lease rights
- outright defiance of some renters to pay rent
- tenants walking out on leases and exodus out of the cities
- renters demanding lower rents soon
- growing burden of micromanagement and stress
- word of mouth, face to face, is hazardous in many ways
- loss of control over tenant communications and inter-tenant communications
- business environment becoming toxic, hostile and stressful
- apartment building pandemics more than possible again
- missed rent payments from tenants in April, May, June and July are likely a write off (court costs)
Find a Property Management Company
Property Management Companies: do you need a new property management service firm in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Boston, Bay Area, Dallas, Chicago, Tampa and Orlando, Denver or Charleston? Learn more about what to look for if you’re considering hiring a new property manager.
Efficiency is the Root of All Profitability
How do you deal with all the issues presented by the Covid 19 crisis? Efficiency through software, automation, and learning where to focus your time, energy and budget is the solution. These goals and topics are the focus in the ManageCasa blog, so please do peruse all the posts with strategies, insights and tips.
If you’re in property management today, your efficiency is the root of profitability. We’re at a point where the use of property management platforms is absolutely necessary. Landlords have reduced maintenance budgets, and increasingly they’re running out of time and energy.
The use of automated property management tools encourages additional efficiencies (self-help, online payments, automated transactions, etc.) that removes micromanagement.
ManageCasa is the best way to launch your property management business out of this recession and pandemic. There’s no replacement for smart management.
If you’re using another accounting software tool, it might be the right time to switch to a true, dedicated property management platform, so you feel confident you’re committing to a professional level software solution going forward.
If you’re not yet using a user-friendly, simplified but powerful property management software to keep you solvent in the next year, do so now. When you consider the low cost of a digital, online property management solution, there are few investments to compare its value to your business.
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