PROPERTY MANAGER VS PROPERTY MANAGEMENT
Let ’ s not confuse a “ property manager ” with “ property management .” Property managers act like landlords but don ’ t own the property ; they are paid a fee for services . The single biggest responsibility of the property manager is to retain tenants . Keep those tenants happy because your tenants are your cash flow .
In contrast , when practicing property management , you hire a manager to oversee all of the daytoday activities .
Property management is the overseeing of systems that keep a property running at maximum profits . It involves a system of traffic reports , maintenance logs , exposure reports , profit and loss statements , executive summaries , budgets , and forecasts . Instead of showing units to prospective applicants , an investor looks at a traffic report every Monday . The report indicates how many people came to see the property during the last week , what marketing got them there , and how many were converted into tenants .
Instead of going out to fix clogged toilets , the maintenance log tells an investor how many tenants called in for repairs , when they were scheduled for completion by the maintenance person , and what the approximate cost was .
Exposure reports indicate how many vacant units there are , how many are preleased , what the physical occupancy is and what the economic occupancy is ( the people who are in the unit and paying rent ). It reports how many leases are coming due and in which months . The investor can then instruct the property manager to ramp up or down the marketing efforts .
The profit and loss statement is prepared each month along with an executive summary . The property manager reports to the investor exactly what the profits and losses were .
The executive summary explains the profit and loss statement and variances from the budget that the property manager created at the beginning of the year and is now tracking on a monthly basis .
VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE
Reading reports and tracking progress can be tedious at times , but it ’ s one of the highest and best uses of your time . It also allows you to go after more deals and create more cash flow . You become wealthier , faster .
During my threeandonehalfyear landlording career , I created a portfolio of 104 units . In the next three and onehalf years , my involvement as an investor doing property management allowed me to increase that portfolio by another 706 units . It was the same amount of time , but a different investing mentality : I was no longer working in the business , but working on the business , and that made all the difference .
ABOUT DAVE LINDAHL
Dave went from being a broke landscaper to building a portfolio with more than 8,200 apartment units . Today his educational materials are the result of testing and refining methods repeatedly , with many thousands of students across the U . S .
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