Jacksonville Property Management Blog

Key Traits of a Good Property Manager

 

If you have decided to educate yourself in property management, a great place to start is to learn the key traits of a good property manager. This will give you a proper vision of what your goals should be and where to start the education process.

Generally speaking, owning commercial real estate is a great way to diversify an investment portfolio, establish passive income and develop wealth long-term. However, owning such property is only the beginning. After becoming a landlord, it is time to start management of the property. And this can sometimes be overwhelming. Working with agitated tenants who have a problem with their property, such as a water leak, or tenants who are late paying rent, can be time and energy-consuming. Of course, there is also regular maintenance to arrange and schedule. This is why most experienced CRE investors decide to work with the best property managers.

 

Develop Market Knowledge

 

By knowing and understanding the local market, you will be able to choose the right types of amenities that pander to the tenants who are most likely to occupy your building. Some examples would be:

 

•  Keeping up with the accessibility options of the neighborhood;

•  Installing strong security if crime rates are high in the area;

•  Building a small outdoor play area for children if your building is in a family residential area;

•  Investing in an indoor pool area if the temperatures rise significantly in certain months of the year (This mainly applies to wealthier gentrified neighborhoods).

 

 

Aside from that, setting appropriate lease terms and conditions is also dependent on knowing what the market will bear. The same goes for the signing of various construction or service agreements.

 

A Good Property Manager Gives Good Recommendations

 

Another part of developing market knowledge is creating good business relationships. Any good property manager must have good working relationships with vendors and various services related to this type of work. This is because these relationships will likely be able to save time and money. Knowing whom to contact when a product or service is needed and giving recommendations to tenants is very important. People will appreciate good advice a lot. These relationships might also help you be able to negotiate lower rates or use discounts.

An excellent example of this would be recommending good local moving services. As a new tenant just moving in, a property manager who knows what they’re doing should be able to give you the names of local moving services, which will provide you with all the help you may need.

 

Focus on details

 

An excellent property manager must be able to focus on details. The ownership of a property is a genuine business. This means that every single penny must be accounted for and documented. The ability to keep records and financial reporting skills are a must-have. When it is time for taxes, you’ll be very happy to have these detailed documents.

 

Good Property Managers Give Quick Responses

 

The ability to reach a property manager quickly and efficiently is essential to every tenant, but only if the property manager themself are responsive. Returning phone calls and emails in a timely fashion is imperative if you want to be an excellent property manager. Another potential benefit of responding quickly to your tenants is that this practice usually attracts good-quality tenants.

Emergencies always require an immediate response. If you want to keep the people and property safe, it is absolutely imperative to do this. Whether the situation is an emergency or not, failure to respond in time can be a big turn-off for both tenants and CRE investors. And this can result in your work portfolio being tarnished, or in a worst-case scenario; you could be fired.

 

A Good Property Manager Has a Professional Manner

 

You can use many descriptive phrases to characterize someone as a professional. A combination of these qualities and the others we mention in this article is what makes a truly experienced property manager.

Some qualities to look for are:

 

• A balance of confidence and humility
• General competence
• Willingness to learn
• Respectfulness
• A good listener
• Reliability
• Ethicality
• Friendliness.

 

In the experience of experts from Cross Country Moving Group, there is a common problem with people deciding to move out very soon after moving in. The most common reason for this occurrence is that they don’t feel comfortable with the property manager. This is why they advise building relationships with tenants aside from just having a professional manner if your goal is to be one of the best property managers.

 

Have a Good Balance Between Patience and Aggressiveness

 

This trait is an example of the proper professional manner of a good property manager.

Property management can sometimes be extremely stressful. A property manager needs to have a great deal of innate patience. This trait will come in handy with contractors who are behind schedule, unruly tenants, and investors who can sometimes have unrealistic expectations.

Being aggressive might seem counterintuitive, given the importance of patience which we just discussed. However, property management really is a balancing act. In most situations, property managers have to be patient. But, on rare occasions, aggressiveness could be required. This could mean tracking down late rent payments or holding a contractor’s feet to the fire. The ability to be aggressive when necessary is an important quality of any quality property manager.

 

A Very Important Trait of a Good Property Manager Is Ingenuity

 

There’s no blueprint or precise recipe for quality property management. Each property you manage will be different. The goals of every investor are going to be at least slightly different. Sometimes, it simply takes a little bit of ingenuity to be able to successfully manage a property. As a property manager, you must be willing and able to think outside the box.

 

To Conclude

 

To conclude, we would like to give you one final tip. Investors greatly appreciate a candidate’s commitment to ongoing education when looking for a property manager. The best thing you could do in this regard is to mindfully decide what you read. Reading local news so you can follow neighborhood development trends can be good. However, reading books regarding business education or professional development is the best way to go.

It is impossible to be a “perfect” property manager. Your skills will simply be stronger in some areas of the business than in others. Regardless of your innate talents, however, your long-term goal should be to learn to display these 7 time-tested qualities of a good property manager.

 

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Being a good property manager requires a lot of research. This list of the key traits of one should point you in the right direction.

 

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