There are so many reasons why one would choose to become a property manager. For instance:
  • It’s a career in pretty high demand, which means that the job market is secure, and the compensation for your work is more than fair. From a pragmatic standpoint, both of these factors are crucial in one’s choice of career.

  • The career itself is quite challenging and flexible. It’s great for those who are communicative and have an analytical mind. Moreover, it requires a great deal of problem-solving, and it would be accurate to describe the working environment as dynamic.

  • As a property manager, you get to meet a lot of people looking for a home. It is your job to make sure they get one. Therefore, there are some who would describe this occupation as a noble one, as well.
Now that we have the topic of motivation out of the way, here are some tips and tricks to help you make it in this competitive industry.

Keep Documentation of Everything

When it comes to property management, you need to keep all the documentation in one place. You never know when you’re going to need a transaction record or contact info from a tenant application from a year ago. Nowadays, in the digital environment, these things are much easier to keep track of.

For instance, you need to keep all the necessary property records. This includes invoices and receipts for maintenance but also photos of maintenance work or tenant damage. These are especially important if you’re not the owner of the property. You also need to have move-in and move-out inspection paperwork for every tenant.
Tennant files come under the most relevant category. Here, you have rent payment records, signed rental agreement, records regarding the security deposit, as well as property maintenance notices.

Now, in a scenario where pets are involved, you also want to keep a pet policy agreement. As a piece of advice, it’s usually wise to keep the correspondence with the client. In digital form, this is quite easy to keep.
In some scenarios, you’ll also need to keep all the licenses and permits, rental registration forms, and safety certificates. In a scenario where you’re actually keeping permanent employees, you want to have all of this documentation, as well.

Work With Others

In the field of property management, you can’t do it all on your own. The truth is that you’ll need professional help from property inspectors, accountants, and professionals from all walks of life. Sure, you may not be able to keep a team on a retainer, but creating a network of professional contacts can make a world of difference.
If keeping track of all of this seems overwhelming, you might want to look for a personal assistant. Hiring a virtual assistant is fairly easy nowadays. Seeing as how the majority of property management tasks are administrative, this can make quite the difference.

During your inspection and maintenance, you’ll have to work with plumbers, electricians, and cleaning companies (specializing in move-out cleaning). Having a permanent network of these specialists is generally a smart move. Over the course of your career in this field, you’ll have the privilege of developing a continuous collaboration with these individuals and agencies.

Manage Your Schedule

As a professional, you’ll often work on a tight schedule. Therefore, you need to learn how and when you need to take a break and develop a habit of making more accurate estimates of the time it takes to complete some regular tasks. Fortunately, in the 21st century, there are a lot of digital tools to help you out with this.

Even without these tools, there’s quite a bit you can do. For instance, you can start making a list. Learning how to assign priority to items on this list is quite simple and intuitive. If the list has six points, and you know you will be able to complete just five of them, which of the points would you keep? If you could keep just one, which would it be? There you have it. You’ve already assigned the first and the last priority on the list.
While multitasking can be quite rewarding, the truth is that you’re a lot less efficient this way. So, it might be a good productivity trick to focus on one task at a time. If you absolutely have to, you might want to try grouping similar tasks together. Seeing as how your tasks may include quite a bit of commute, you might even group these tasks by geographical proximity.

Your personal schedule may also make a world of difference when it comes to your overall organization and orientation in time and space. One of the universally-praised tips is to try and use your morning as effectively as possible.

Improve Your Screening Practices

When it comes to the discussion regarding what’s the most important trait of a good property manager, the majority of people would single out tenant screening. Being able to recognize a tenant that’s least likely to cause trouble, who’s solvent, as well as financially responsible, is not an easy task. After all, everyone tries to present themselves in the best light when talking to a potential landlord.

Some of the criteria that you should look for are their minimum credit score (an indicator of their financial trustworthiness) and their proof of employment. These two are quite easy to verify. Moreover, all good property managers have their way of making a quick background check. At the very least, you can contact their previous landlord and make sure that they don’t have a criminal record.

Naturally, there are some red flags to look out for. For instance, unstable employment history and evictions are clear warning signs. While even some of the most successful people in history have gone bankrupt at one time or another, this is never a good thing to have on your record. Late and missing payments are one of the things that you should fear the most.

Create Fair Rental Criteria

In order to attract good tenants, you need to be a good landlord yourself. For starters, you need to show that you’re serious and professional and what better way to do so than to set objectively fair rental criteria. Naturally, the first step in getting there lies in getting a reference point of what’s fair. So, the best thing you can do is start researching competing rental properties and their offers.

In order to avoid making a dangerous mistake, you need to be well-familiar with the Fair Housing Act. For instance, you cannot refuse to rent out a place to someone based on their:
  • Race
  • Color
  • Religion
  • Sex
  • Disability
  • National origin
  • Familial status
This last one is particularly troublesome, seeing as how some landlords and property managers refuse to rent out places to singles or couples with children. While this is the letter and spirit of the law, a lot of property managers and landlords just choose to ignore it. This is both immoral and illegal.

Keep in mind also that there may be a number of state laws in place. For instance, some states have a limitation on the height of the security deposit. In other states, landlords cannot refuse to rent to a victim of domestic violence. All of this is something that you need to get familiar with before starting out in the industry.

In Conclusion

Don’t let the name of the profession fool you. Your object of work isn’t property – it’s people. At the end of the day, the job of a property manager is closer to that of a coordinator or a counselor than that of a contractor. Therefore, in order to make it in this field, you need to be a people person. Everything else will come together in time.