Blog & Advice

Real Property Management - Leave the Hard Work up to Us | Video Transcript

Real Property Management - Leave the Hard Work up to Us Video - Transcript

Narrator: Many of us have first-hand experience renting a home or apartment at some point in our lives. While to some, the ultimate goal may be eventual home ownership, the mortgage crisis caused by the Great Recession continues to have a lingering effect on the market, even today.

Lukas Krause: The industry changed dramatically because of the housing crisis. Millions of households who were typically owners are now renters. Millennials prefer renting because of the flexibility that it provides, but also they’ve not participated in the same rates because they’ve been saddled with a lot of student debt. Additionally, tighter lending practices has really limited their ability to participate in homeownership like previous generations.

Narrator: The rising number of rental properties created a renewed demand for property managers to step up to the plate. Soon, landlords began to realize that managing properties by themselves had taken toll on their real careers and family lives, creating a whole new set of unfamiliar responsibilities.

Lukas Krause: Being a good property manager means maintaining the condition of the home for the tenant and the owner.

Marcus Phillips: A property manager is going to stand in your stead. So where you normally would be doing everything that you probably don't want to be doing, we're going to do for you. So, we're going to collect the rent, we're going to monitor the tenants’ needs, so depending on what that tenant is like personality-wise we're going to adapt to that to create the best tenant experience possible.

Emery Phillips: And then when the tenant moves out, we process out the security deposit, we take photographs of the property again, we do move out inspection, we do the whole thing and then we also get the property ready for the next tenant so that is stress-free for the owner.

Narrator: The trend of do-it-yourself landlording poses significant problems, especially for owners managing multiple properties, or for those who live far away from their investment. Balancing the time energy and costs required to deal with unexpected emergencies becomes a real problem for managers who are never adequately trained for such situations.

Lukas Krause: With that big shift and more people becoming renters a lot of people ran into the space to become property managers with very little training or experience. The majority of homes today are managed by do-it-yourself landlords and I'll tell you that they are not doing an effective job marketing, screening tenants, and as a result they run the risk of being sued or incurring significant fines because they're not familiar with local laws and fair housing requirements.

Jeanette Borg: For 10 years we managed our own property and we decided that as we were getting older we wanted to travel a little more. Owning properties sort of confines you to a local area of maybe three days away.

Charlie Borg: The other thing is, even now, if a tenant is there and say their toilet is leaking, which I could fix, I don't go. I send a plumber. I go in now in-between tenants so that they’re vacant because what used to be is they’d call up, my toilet is leaking, whatever it is, and I go and I fix it, and, oh, you are the landlord. Uh huh. Oh, well, while you are here…and they got a list, a shopping list, of 20 other things, you know.

Jeanette Borg: It took a great deal of stress out of our lives having someone manage our property for us.

Narrator: Even making the decision to hire a management firm comes with its own set of pitfalls. Believe it or not, many of these firms still Implement manual systems and don't even have a website, as a result, customer service suffers contributing to the declining public perception of property managers themselves. At Real Property Management offices, professionally trained staff work hard to overcome the black mark left from the rash of part-time property managers or unsophisticated firms.

Emery Phillips: In this day and age, if you are a property manager and you don't embrace technology, you're in big trouble.

Marcus Phillips: Can a firm be credible without the technology? Really can't do it. One of the greatest things about Real Property Management is the standardized software that we employ, which brings all 280 offices together, so if you're an owner that has a property in Vermont versus an owner that has a property in California, or if you got, if you got properties in both of those places, you're going to be on the same platform seeing the same sort of information, which makes it awesome.

Narrator: In addition to routine maintenance, Real Property Management offices also take over the drafting of the lease, tenant vetting, and the unpleasantness that comes in the unfortunate case of an eviction.

Lukas Krause: The balancing the wants and needs of tenants and homeowners can be quite challenging, but it starts with setting the expectations up front. With homeowners it's important to educate them. Make sure they know what their responsibilities are as the homeowner what kind of repairs and maintenance comes with owning a rental property. On the tenant side, it's critical that you do a thorough job of screening. That doesn't mean just a credit/criminal background check; it means income verification. It also means checking with previous landlords. Additionally, a good property manager takes emotion of the situation when your wrestling between the wants and needs of the homeowner and the wants and needs of a tenant to make sure you're complying with all local laws.

Jeanette Borg: When I finally went with Real Property Management I realized that I didn't have to be in control at all, and that was a very good feeling.

Charlie Borg: I mean, I used to have calls ten or eleven o'clock Sunday night. Somebody broke this or that, no more. So, it makes life a lot easier, and more financially successful.

Jeanette Borg: In the first year our income increased with Real Property Management. I think it was the way they handled the business for us, too.

Narrator: With homeownership still on the decline, over a third of the nation's households are currently renting. Real Property Management is primed to continue to grow in addition to the over 280 locations across the U.S. Working in conjunction with hundreds of driven entrepreneurs.

Marcus Phillips: So what really excites me about the industry today is that there are more renters than ever, and with the Real Property Management platform, we’re able to bring those best practices to bear. Real Property Management is really leading the charge for other property management firms.

Lukas Krause: Real Property Management seeks to really raise the industry standards across the board. And so what we do is have a thorough onboarding process that consists of a six week online university. They come to our offices in Salt Lake for four days of training, then we provide them with sixty days of post-support training. From an ongoing perspective, we have regular training sessions, conferences, regular meet ups, and best practices forums to ensure that everyone’s got the best practices for the business.

Narrator: For more information or to join the real property management team, visit realpropertymgt.com, or call 888-806-7088. Real Property Management - leave the hard work up to us.