Does Good Property Management Matter?Filed Under: Property Management Tips, Real Estate Internet Trends

Keeping a property looking good and the tenants happy is hard work for property managers.  And now with the internet, it has never been more important to focus on keeping good relationships with your residents.  A recent blog on Rent Bits indicates that people are beginning to use reviews as a way to choose an apartment or a single family home.   Though the blog refers to the predicted purchase of Yelp, a very popular review site, by Google, Yelp has since passed on the deal.   Google had already begun to expand its review concept with Google Place Pages, where people can review companies and places.  Instead of just getting limited information on a map, Google now provides an entire page dedicated to information about the company or place.  I tested this by typing in several apartment properties into my Google search bar.  I was able to quickly get reviews by current and previous tenants.  The blog suggests that reviews on the internet will change the apartment industry.  I agree with this.  Whenever I buy a product on the web, I read the reviews to make sure it will fit my needs.

Providing ways for your tenants to communicate with you and you with them is a way of determining how they are doing.  Many property management companies are starting to use online resident portals to accomplish this, letting the tenants schedule the use of common areas, pay their rent online, report maintenance requests, and check the status of existing service requests.   A good online rental property management software program should support this feature as part of the system.

Over communicating with your tenants on what is going on with the property and seeking feedback is the real key to keeping a pulse on what is going on.  It is better to learn how a tenant feels when you can do something about it than waiting for them to post a negative review online.  In his book, ‘What Would Google Do?’, Jeff Jarvis says that a company must allow easy two way communication if they want to be successful today.  The web allows information about a company to travel at the speed of light, so focusing on communication with your tenants will make sure that information is positive.

So how do you make sure your hard work is paying off?   Communicate.

Rob Crichlow
DIY Real Estate Solutions

Tags: property-management