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Posted over 8 years ago

Property Management Tips I Wish I Had Done From The Beginning

When I first started my landlord / property management career I really didn't think too much about it. For whatever reason, I have always been pretty good at reading people. Heck, in my twenties, I was a PI in Washington, DC and reading people is what got me  paid.  

But when you start working with tenants, the game changes.  Oh sure, you can work with one property and its tenant(s) pretty easily.  And you can add a second or third without too much consequence. Adding 4 or more (we now manage 291 properties) and the rules begin to change.

Four Things I Wish I Had Known Or Done From The Beginning

1. Get a good accounting software right from the beginning. I am a Buildium user.  Some other popular ones are Appfolio and PropertyWare. Check them out and use them from the start.  Your accounting and maintenance headaches will be so much easier to take.

2. Your first hire should be phone and email support.  Train the new hire to answer the most repetitive questions quickly and proficiently by phone or email.

3. Just because someone wants to hire me doesn't mean I want to work with them!  Be choosy when it comes to properties you will purchase or manage for others.  The property and neighborhood really do set the tone for the tenants that will be attracted.

4. Start from the beginning to log everything you do.  It will be so much easier to create your systems from that log so that when you make your first hire to help with screening or showing you'll be able give them some paper back up, a pilot's checklist if you will, so that they will succeed even when you are not immediately available.

We'll continue to discuss landlord and property management tips and tricks as we move forward.  It is my hope that you will stop by and give us your $0.02.


Comments (3)

  1. @Chris Lengquist

    Good information for someone like me that is new to real estate investing, thanks. About point 2, have you used or considered outsourcing for things like phone calls over hiring another person to be in the office?


    1. Zachary, thank you for the question.  Yes. I've considered it.  No. I have not gone that direction.  I like the person-ability of someone that can actually help you.   That role grows in responsibility over time and is capable of taking many, many things off your plate once they know how you operate and how you think.  

      Teaching your staff how you think and the "why" behind everything you do is the key to consistency in the future.


  2. Hi Chris, in at least one respect, land-lording and managing and hiring people are eerily similar. If you take it carefully, find the right person (employee or tenant), take an appropriate amount of time with them up front to "train" them in your processes and systems, the payoff is so much greater than just settling for the first applicant (either kind) that comes along.  Often I read stories about the horrors encountered by landlords and just thank my lucky stars that it is not me.  My payments come electronically and every one comes before the 1st (I offer a bonus to pay early and insist my tenants take the discount and ALL must have bank accounts or they are not even considered).  If they miss a discount I have an early warning that bad things are coming.   I fully realize my system and methods don't work for most, but early on I decided my tenants would work with me, not me work with them.  Set your rules, stand by them, especially the first time they are tested and the land lording path will be much smoother than most.