Meeting the Investor's Needs

Meeting the Investor's Needs
I’ve been doing property management since 1990. Since then, First Rate Property Management has been fired by 5 property owners. From what I understand, that is extremely rare. Well, last week, I spoke and taught a property management workshop in San Antonio. While in San Antonio, I had the privilege of touring a number of offices and networking with the property owners and managers. As always, I learned a few good things that I could implement in my own business. One of the business owners that I met, had a very similar business. Like me, he too was an investor. In our discussion, we recognized that we see things as investors, not as property managers. I honestly believe that this is why First Rate Property Management is able to meet our client’s needs. Well, I am happy to announce that we have expanded on this. My General Manager, Lizz Loop, has just purchased her first fourplex. I know that it will prove to be a great investment. But, I also know that now she too will be able to look at things more as an investor and less as a property manager. So the anticipation is that our service and our understanding of our client’s views and needs will improve even more.

Boise Rental Market:
Below is a chart showing our vacancy throughout the year. First Rate Property Management’s current vacancy is just under 4%. You can see an upward trend and I guess that we will continue to see this upward trend throughout the winter. Our inquiry rate has dropped significantly, so it is getting tougher to fill our vacancies. To offset the change in the market, we are putting extra effort in our renewal program. So any tenant that is on a month-to-month lease or has a lease expiring this fall/winter will be getting repeated calls and mailings encouraging them to renew. We want to avoid any leases expiring next fall, so our renewal offers will be for six months or 16 months.

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Tony’s Travel
As you read earlier, I just returned from San Antonio. The week prior, I had been in Virginia for NARPM meetings. I will be out of the office from October 10th thru the 18th to attend NARPM’s National Convention. Earlier this year we became a Certified Residential Management Company. About a third of our office will be attending the convention with me. They will fly out on the 14th and return on the 18th. During the convention, I will be inducted as NARPM’s 2011 President and I am glad to have my employees there to support me as well as be recognized for taking care of business while I am travelling. While at convention, my days start before 7am and end late in the evening. So my responses to emails and voicemails will be delayed.

Why So Quiet

Why so quiet
I am behind in my blog entrees. Long time clients let us use their condo in Maui and I did very little work while we were there, so I have been working hard to catch up. I learned that people love videos and that these videos help get your blog passed on and read. So attached is a video of my 3 year old doing a flip into the pool while vacationing in Maui. He did a back flip as well, but we had to stop him from doing anymore as he darn near cut his head open. Yes, the kid goes 100 miles an hour, is tough as nails, and has incredible balance and coordination. If we can figure out a way to make him 6’5” when he gets older, he might make a great QB for Boise State.
 

 
 
Schools in, Rental Inquiry’s Slow
My kids are back in school, football has started, and I didn’t realize that it was that time of the year again until this week’s staff meeting and I reviewed the web and phone traffic and saw that inquiries were drastically down. This is a historical trend. So now our goal is to renew as many tenants as we can to limit turnovers and get through the fall and winter months. From here on out, the inquiry rate will continue to decline each month until about March.

Rent Increases
We are still proceeding with rent increases, as the rental market has improved. If the tenant complains, requests not to change or threatens to move because of the rent increase, we will contact you to discuss and give the owner the ultimate decision to increase the rent or stay put. If we identify a trend of tenants not accepting the rent increases, we’ll probably tone that down and just try to get through the winter.

Vacancy
Below is a graph of our vacancy. Overall, we’re doing very well. However, there are a number of properties that have been vacant for over a month. To me it simply identifies a property issue. When the company is filing properties at ease, but can’t fill one or two here and there, there is an issue. It can be a number of things; such as Location, condition, price, etc. We work hard on identifying and correcting those issues. Price seems to always fix most negative issues. So this week we brought back an old incentive that works real well. We reduced the list price to a low amount and that is the rent we offer for the first 3 months. For example, the property is listed at $650 until the end of the end of the year and then come January the rent increases to market rent of $695. The low rent catches the tenant’s eye. First Rate Property Management emphasis how great this is as it saves them money for the holiday season. Then in January, the rent goes to market. Lastly, we only offer this incentive to those who sign a long term lease. It works very well. However, it does make bookwork a bit harder on us, which is why we don’t do it all the time.

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Facebook
First Rate Property Management’s search engine optimization and placement is very good. This helps us secure tenants. However, past this blog and website stuff, I am just not a social media person. I don’t have the time, I’m not that interested in sharing everything I do with the entire world, and I am not looking for old lost friends. However, I understand that social media creates more web presence and will improve our search engine placement, which will help us fill vacancies faster. So we are headed that way. Therefore, we recently created a Facebook page that you can now become a fan of. The more we continue to utilize Facebook and the more fans we acquire, the better our search engine optimization. So be sure to “like” us if you have a Facebook profile!

We also understand that the younger generation uses social media to communicate, so we probably need to improve on this so that we can communicate better with those who prefer social media. Believe me, it makes me feel old, but I just can’t grasp it like I do with all of the other technology.

Become a fan on Facebook!