Many real estate investors don’t have the time or expertise to handle the day-to-day running of their rental properties. They, therefore, opt to hire a residential property manager to run their residential real estate. This arrangement often begins with signing residential property management agreements for a mutually beneficial relationship.
But, What Is Residential Property Management Exactly?
Residential property management involves managing a residential property on behalf of the owner. This property could be multi family homes, condos, single family homes, townhouses or apartments. Residential rental property management is especially helpful when the owner lives far away from their real estate investment.
Here are some of the major property manager responsibilities:
- Finding tenants – Property managers are responsible for ensuring that rental properties have tenants. This could involve creating ads and advertising the property on offline and online platforms.
- Screening tenants – Screening involves checking things such as criminal background, employment, and credit scores. This helps select tenants who will pay rent on time and create fewer problems.
- Handling leases – The property manager sets the lease terms and ensures that it is written in favor of the owner. However, the lease should also be drafted in compliance with the local landlord-tenant laws.
- Handling repairs and maintenance – It is the responsibility of the property manager to keep the rental property in a habitable and safe condition. Maintenance includes checking for leaks, extermination, removing trash, landscaping, and shoveling snow.
- Supervising employees – Property managers are responsible for hiring other employees and supervising them such as cleaners and security personnel.
- Managing the budget – This involves setting budgets for emergency situations as well as budgets for routine things that the rental property and the tenants require.
- Maintaining records – The residential property manager should keep proper records of things such as signed leases, income and expenses, maintenance requests, costs of repairs and maintenance, insurance costs, record of rent collection, and a list of all inspections.
- Dealing with evictions – If a tenant breaches the lease terms and doesn’t pay rent, the property manager will be responsible for instituting eviction proceedings.
- Handling taxes – Property managers are usually responsible for filing taxes on behalf of the property owners. This requires familiarity with the tax laws of the county or state.
The residential property management fees charged are usually determined by the scope of services offered.
Related: 10 Things a Rental Property Manager Should Know
How to Become a Property Manager
Though it involves a lot of work, residential property management is definitely a career worth considering. If you’re wondering how to become a property manager, here are the steps you need to take:
1. Check Your Skill Levels
Before venturing into residential property management, check if you possess these six vital skills:
- Customer service – Good customer service means quickly and efficiently meeting the needs of your property management clients. If you cannot do this with lots of enthusiasm and a smile, this career is probably not for you.
- Communication skills – As a property manager, you will be dealing with property owners, tenants, real estate agents, banks, attorneys, and contractors on a regular basis. You should, therefore, know how to listen, relay information effectively, deal with rude behavior and resolve conflicts.
- Time management – The property management business usually involves answering dozens of emails daily, attending board meetings, conducting inspections, marketing and showing rental properties, and dealing with tenants. If you are not organized and detailed, you will not succeed in this real estate career.
- Resourcefulness – As a property manager, you might find yourself in charge of multiple properties, probably spread around different states or counties. Good property management means that you should be able to think quickly and come up with solutions without even consulting the property owner. Being decisive is very crucial.
- Detail-oriented – Overlooking or missing details can cause major problems for property managers. Attention to detail is, therefore, a very crucial skill for property managers.
- Sales minded – You need to have good sales and marketing skills to find the right tenants for your rental properties and to find enough clients for your business.
Related: 10 Tips to Succeed as a Residential Property Manager
2. Take Professional Courses
Some professional property management companies hire people with at least a Bachelor’s degree in accounting, real estate, business administration, finance or public administration. Others look for candidates with vocational real estate training in fields such as affordable housing administration, urban planning, real estate finance, property management, housing for the elderly, and real estate development. You can either go back to school for residential property management training or take an online course to build your skills and knowledge.
3. Check the Legal Requirements
The legal requirements for becoming a residential property manager vary from one state to another. Quite often, the rules are determined by the type of income properties you manage. It is your responsibility to find out what kind of license you are required to get in your state before pursuing a property management career. You might have to take additional classes and pass an exam before getting the license to offer residential property management services.
4. Get Specialized Certifications
Having a specialized residential property management certification will show potential customers and hiring companies that you are committed to excellence and professionalism. Consider obtaining certifications such as Residential Management Professional (RMP®), Certified Manager of Community Associations, Certified Apartment Manager (CAM) or Certified Property Manager. Most of these residential property management certifications require you to study for and pass a series of exams. Though they take significant effort and time, these certifications will set you apart from your peers.
5. Stay Updated on the Latest Developments
Once you have acquired the necessary certifications and licenses, don’t make the mistake of getting complacent. Residential property management is a very dynamic field. You will, therefore, need to keep yourself updated on the best practices to stay ahead of the competition. Read major property manager blogs and magazines to find out what is going on in the housing market. Engage frequently with other property managers in seminars and conferences. Familiarize yourself with the latest residential property management software that can make your work much easier.
Finally, consider leveraging property management tools like Mashboard. This tool comes with a wide range of features that are useful for a residential property management company. For example, the Property Recommender will help you match your customers to the best rental property. You can also share a property analysis report with your clients via email or SMS directly from your dashboard. This way, you can get more rental properties under your management.
Related: 6 Best Rental Property Management Apps for 2020
Conclusion
Anyone can learn how to start a residential property management company and earn a decent residential property management salary. However, success in this career requires a lot of hard work and persistence but it can be worth it!
