Are You a Skilled Property Manager or an Accidental Slumlord?
By Matt Donnelly, Buildium, Boston, MA
The title is provocative on purpose. My intent is to get you to look at your property management activities through the eyes of the tenants who live in the properties you manage. Do you have blind spots in how you manage 
those properties? Are you being perceived in a somewhat negative light by your tenants? When is the last time you talked to your tenants — I mean, really talked to them?
One clue to how well you’re doing is your churn or turnover rate. While there may be other factors at play in a high turnover rate (seasonality, etc.), this may be a sign that you have some work to do in the tenant relations department.
According to a survey conducted by J Turner Research, these are the top 10 complaints of multifamily renters:
- Rental rates
- Poor grounds/common area upkeep
- Disorganized staff/lack of communication with staff
- Quality of response to maintenance requests
- Overall customer service of management staff
- Quality of parking/parking availability
- Concerns over security/safety/lighting
- Lack of upgraded amenities
- Pets not on leash/poor pet waste removal
- General lack of preventative maintenance
It may be easy to dismiss some of these complaints as unproductive grumbling, but think about what’s behind them. What creative things can you as a property manager do to address complaints like these? How you handle them can put your company at a competitive advantage in a marketplace flooded with would-be renters.
Take rent, for example. Can you offer discounts for long-term residents? What about bonuses for referrals? Other issues on the list could be addressed through using property management software. Still others could be addressed through better communication with tenants (and even law enforcement and local community agencies).
If tenants are your customers (as much as property owners), what else could you be doing to serve them better?
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