Jan
31
Five Considerations of Hiring Property Managers
January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Ryan Windley asked:
Five Considerations of Hiring Property Managers
1. Management Fee
The property owner needs to understand the purpose of the management fee (typically 10%). The percentage management fee pays for the property manager’s time. The 10% allows someone else to help shoulder the burden of owning the property. The owner is paying for someone else to field 2:00 am calls. It is important to remember that the property manager cannot take all of the responsibility and burden off the owner. In the end, it is the owner’s property and the owner’s responsibility.
2. Interview
When hiring any professional, an interview will be conducted to hire the correct candidate and then the professional is left to alone to do their job. Working with a property manager is no different. During the interview process ask good questions; require forthright answers, hire the right candidate, and then get out of their way. If an owner is a high micromanager then they should hire a certain type property manager (see Property Manager categories below).
3. Personality fit
The owner’s personality has to fit the property manager’s systems and procedures. Sometimes owners will have difficulty with a property managers systems and procedures. If a property management company sets office hours between 9-5 Monday through Friday and owner wants an update on their property @ 6:00pm on a Friday evening they will have to wait until 9:00 am Monday. This may drive some owners crazy who want to be very involved in the day-to-day management. If this is the case they probably should hire a manager who will be more responsive to the owner’s needs.
4. Communication
Communication is a two-way street. It is not only the property manager’s responsibility to communicate effectively. Owners should understand they have to lead the property manager in how they expect the manager to manage the property.
Here’s an example: My wife is a director of marketing for a company. She has to be the leader in guiding and directing the advertising agency as to what she wants for the project. She cannot expect the advertising agency to try to guess what she wants in the project.
If your property manager is slow in returning your phone calls explain to them the level of communication you expect. In return, ask them how much communication they expect from you.
Many property managers would rather only communicate with you on as needed basis. Much more than this level of communication from the owner is overkill.
5. Property Manager Categories
While Property managers fall into three categories, the size of the property management company is neither better nor worse than the others. Choosing the size of property manager has more to do with the level of owner pampering and paperwork provided rather than a property manager being good or bad.
Small 1-50 units
Property managers in the small category are usually unlicensed with no training in property management. These managers will have more time for the property owner. This type of property manager is usually not much more than a handyman who will show and rent apartments. If a property owner wants to be hands on and needs to be updated on every specific action of the property this is the manager they should hire.
Pros:
These property managers have the time to cuddle and coddle the owner. They will provide the owner with receipts for repairs and nothing else in documentation.
Cons:
These managers will have no systems in place to and will not be able to negotiate vendor discounts. No 1099s and no accounting documents prepared for your accountant.
Medium 50-150 units
Pros:
These managers have more of a professional approach with the use of some systems. They have the purchase power to negotiate some vendor discounts.
Cons:
The paperwork may be enough for the owner to understand the numbers, but may not be enough information to submit to an accountant or to the IRS.
Large 150+
Pros:
Large companies have invested a lot of money in their systems procedures. They will have an in-house maintenance staff. Their accounting reports can be submitted to an accountant or the IRS.
Cons:
No time with the owner. Communication is very professional, but impersonal, done mostly through email and voicemail. Large management companies offer very little owner pampering and handholding. The downside: even owners who have been in real estate for many years still need some positive reinforcement once in a while.
Ryan Windley coauthored The Property Management Start-Up Guide - How to Start a Property Management Business and Still Keep Your Life in order to introduce entrepreneurs to property management as a viable business.
If you would like to know more about starting your own property management company you can purchase the book @ http://www.propertyprof.info
Five Considerations of Hiring Property Managers
1. Management Fee
The property owner needs to understand the purpose of the management fee (typically 10%). The percentage management fee pays for the property manager’s time. The 10% allows someone else to help shoulder the burden of owning the property. The owner is paying for someone else to field 2:00 am calls. It is important to remember that the property manager cannot take all of the responsibility and burden off the owner. In the end, it is the owner’s property and the owner’s responsibility.
2. Interview
When hiring any professional, an interview will be conducted to hire the correct candidate and then the professional is left to alone to do their job. Working with a property manager is no different. During the interview process ask good questions; require forthright answers, hire the right candidate, and then get out of their way. If an owner is a high micromanager then they should hire a certain type property manager (see Property Manager categories below).
3. Personality fit
The owner’s personality has to fit the property manager’s systems and procedures. Sometimes owners will have difficulty with a property managers systems and procedures. If a property management company sets office hours between 9-5 Monday through Friday and owner wants an update on their property @ 6:00pm on a Friday evening they will have to wait until 9:00 am Monday. This may drive some owners crazy who want to be very involved in the day-to-day management. If this is the case they probably should hire a manager who will be more responsive to the owner’s needs.
4. Communication
Communication is a two-way street. It is not only the property manager’s responsibility to communicate effectively. Owners should understand they have to lead the property manager in how they expect the manager to manage the property.
Here’s an example: My wife is a director of marketing for a company. She has to be the leader in guiding and directing the advertising agency as to what she wants for the project. She cannot expect the advertising agency to try to guess what she wants in the project.
If your property manager is slow in returning your phone calls explain to them the level of communication you expect. In return, ask them how much communication they expect from you.
Many property managers would rather only communicate with you on as needed basis. Much more than this level of communication from the owner is overkill.
5. Property Manager Categories
While Property managers fall into three categories, the size of the property management company is neither better nor worse than the others. Choosing the size of property manager has more to do with the level of owner pampering and paperwork provided rather than a property manager being good or bad.
Small 1-50 units
Property managers in the small category are usually unlicensed with no training in property management. These managers will have more time for the property owner. This type of property manager is usually not much more than a handyman who will show and rent apartments. If a property owner wants to be hands on and needs to be updated on every specific action of the property this is the manager they should hire.
Pros:
These property managers have the time to cuddle and coddle the owner. They will provide the owner with receipts for repairs and nothing else in documentation.
Cons:
These managers will have no systems in place to and will not be able to negotiate vendor discounts. No 1099s and no accounting documents prepared for your accountant.
Medium 50-150 units
Pros:
These managers have more of a professional approach with the use of some systems. They have the purchase power to negotiate some vendor discounts.
Cons:
The paperwork may be enough for the owner to understand the numbers, but may not be enough information to submit to an accountant or to the IRS.
Large 150+
Pros:
Large companies have invested a lot of money in their systems procedures. They will have an in-house maintenance staff. Their accounting reports can be submitted to an accountant or the IRS.
Cons:
No time with the owner. Communication is very professional, but impersonal, done mostly through email and voicemail. Large management companies offer very little owner pampering and handholding. The downside: even owners who have been in real estate for many years still need some positive reinforcement once in a while.
Ryan Windley coauthored The Property Management Start-Up Guide - How to Start a Property Management Business and Still Keep Your Life in order to introduce entrepreneurs to property management as a viable business.
If you would like to know more about starting your own property management company you can purchase the book @ http://www.propertyprof.info
Jan
29
Property Management Planning
January 29, 2009 | Comments Off
SRCMA asked:
Hear how two Braidwood area farmers carried out whole farm planning for their rural properties. Property Management Planning is a partnership between the Department of Primary Industries, Quality Rural Solutions and the Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority.
Jan
29
Best Related Inventory Management Software
January 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Inventory Management Software Kmz asked:
Inventory management software are important to store owner, Factory manager, restaurant, warehouse and lot more. Inventory management sofware is the best solution to controling your inventory. Inventory is the total amount of goods and or material contained in a store or factory at any given time. Inventory management, or inventory control, is attempt to balance inventory needs and requirements with the need to manimize cost from obtain and holding inventory.
Related software product for inventory management like Inventory management Software for Public Warehousing is designed to handle complex charges with ease while providing the inventory management needed warehouse owner operator. Its specialy designed for use in cold and dry storage facilities as well as distribution warehouse and transpoting company.
More version of Inventory Mananagement Software is for Manufacturing And Distribution this Inventory management software are design absolutely for Manufacturing and distributors. Sales orders may be entered with multiple line items having multiple delivery requirements. To assist your planners, ensuring the necessary materials are available to fulfill all sales order, making supply and demand manageable this inventory management software developer as provide The MRP module for their Inventory Software.
Best related Software development company who had provided Inventory Management or control Software application for public warehouse, Manufacturers, Distributors and companies needing a powerful program to track and manage theirs assets. With over 20 years of transportation, warehousing, and software development exprience with Inventory Management Software, they know what inventory management software you need, because they were in business themselves. Find out more as an option for their product because they also provide scanning and Bar Coding.
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Inventory management software are important to store owner, Factory manager, restaurant, warehouse and lot more. Inventory management sofware is the best solution to controling your inventory. Inventory is the total amount of goods and or material contained in a store or factory at any given time. Inventory management, or inventory control, is attempt to balance inventory needs and requirements with the need to manimize cost from obtain and holding inventory.
Related software product for inventory management like Inventory management Software for Public Warehousing is designed to handle complex charges with ease while providing the inventory management needed warehouse owner operator. Its specialy designed for use in cold and dry storage facilities as well as distribution warehouse and transpoting company.
More version of Inventory Mananagement Software is for Manufacturing And Distribution this Inventory management software are design absolutely for Manufacturing and distributors. Sales orders may be entered with multiple line items having multiple delivery requirements. To assist your planners, ensuring the necessary materials are available to fulfill all sales order, making supply and demand manageable this inventory management software developer as provide The MRP module for their Inventory Software.
Best related Software development company who had provided Inventory Management or control Software application for public warehouse, Manufacturers, Distributors and companies needing a powerful program to track and manage theirs assets. With over 20 years of transportation, warehousing, and software development exprience with Inventory Management Software, they know what inventory management software you need, because they were in business themselves. Find out more as an option for their product because they also provide scanning and Bar Coding.
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Jan
28
Managing Registrations And Payments For An Event
January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
My Booking Manager asked:
In a company of 25 people; putting on a marketing event and charging an entry fee could give the event administrator a severe headache. Patricia Thomson was in this position only last week. Her “normal” job of Marketing Assistant still had to run while she organized the seminars and she realized she could be handling hundreds of enquiries over the period. This was their first venture into this type of event and the company’s accounts department was not really set up for a mass influx of small payments.
The registration and payment procedure that you use should be as professional as you can make it. This fairly small part of the overall event paints a very vivid picture to your delegates of your capability and will be their first evidence of how the whole event experience is likely to be. If you handle this phase flawlessly, you may be excused small hiccups along the way. Make a mess of things here and your delegates will start marking your report card with red ink.
The registration procedure
Take some time with your administrative staff to draw up a detailed process that should be followed consistently by anyone who takes a booking. Please don’t just hand them a procedure that you have designed because you will end up shouldering the responsibility for any mistakes that are made down the line. If the process is co-owned by everyone involved, they will feel more motivated to change the process to ensure that the same mistakes are not repeated.
A typical procedure will consider all of the following:
• How will bookings be taken?
• By mail
• By phone
• By Email
• Online
• What type of database will the administrators use?
• Spreadsheet
• Paper based system
• Relational database
• If an online booking system is to be used, will it be in-house or outsourced to an organization like mybookingmanager.com?
• If an outsourced online booking system is used how will you synchronize the data and how frequently will you do this?
• Will payments be accepted using bank transfer, credit card, business and/or personal check?
• How frequently will the event managers and the event caterers require updates on booking statistics and delegate details?
Patricia took one look at the checklist and started researching online booking agents immediately. She reasoned that the workload necessary to do a first class job would probably entail bringing in a temp and training him/her to do the job that the online booking agent could handle easily. The cost of having a temp in their already cramped office and the thought of designing a system, training them to use it and finding work for them to do when the phone wasn’t ringing was already giving her that headache. She also decided that the cach é of being able to offer round-the-clock facilities for credit card booking and also a 24 hour telephone answering service would impress their intended delegates.
This week the bookings are rolling in.
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In a company of 25 people; putting on a marketing event and charging an entry fee could give the event administrator a severe headache. Patricia Thomson was in this position only last week. Her “normal” job of Marketing Assistant still had to run while she organized the seminars and she realized she could be handling hundreds of enquiries over the period. This was their first venture into this type of event and the company’s accounts department was not really set up for a mass influx of small payments.
The registration and payment procedure that you use should be as professional as you can make it. This fairly small part of the overall event paints a very vivid picture to your delegates of your capability and will be their first evidence of how the whole event experience is likely to be. If you handle this phase flawlessly, you may be excused small hiccups along the way. Make a mess of things here and your delegates will start marking your report card with red ink.
The registration procedure
Take some time with your administrative staff to draw up a detailed process that should be followed consistently by anyone who takes a booking. Please don’t just hand them a procedure that you have designed because you will end up shouldering the responsibility for any mistakes that are made down the line. If the process is co-owned by everyone involved, they will feel more motivated to change the process to ensure that the same mistakes are not repeated.
A typical procedure will consider all of the following:
• How will bookings be taken?
• By mail
• By phone
• By Email
• Online
• What type of database will the administrators use?
• Spreadsheet
• Paper based system
• Relational database
• If an online booking system is to be used, will it be in-house or outsourced to an organization like mybookingmanager.com?
• If an outsourced online booking system is used how will you synchronize the data and how frequently will you do this?
• Will payments be accepted using bank transfer, credit card, business and/or personal check?
• How frequently will the event managers and the event caterers require updates on booking statistics and delegate details?
Patricia took one look at the checklist and started researching online booking agents immediately. She reasoned that the workload necessary to do a first class job would probably entail bringing in a temp and training him/her to do the job that the online booking agent could handle easily. The cost of having a temp in their already cramped office and the thought of designing a system, training them to use it and finding work for them to do when the phone wasn’t ringing was already giving her that headache. She also decided that the cach é of being able to offer round-the-clock facilities for credit card booking and also a 24 hour telephone answering service would impress their intended delegates.
This week the bookings are rolling in.
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