A Glimpse Into Property Management
By DaNay Salas
Think property management companies just collect and cash rent checks? Think again. There are so many facets that property managers must deal with on a day-to-day basis, every day is different. Property managers have a very difficult job. From staying on top of federal, state, and city regulations, to answering phone calls about broken dishwashers, and dealing with afterhours emergencies, while ensuring your investment is being protected.
The items mentioned above are the “easy” parts of managing a property. The crucial and difficult parts of being a manager is when unforeseen and sensitive issues arise. Scenarios range from tenants that have lost their job and cannot make ends meet, a tenant that is difficult to work with, having hard conversations with tenants that have breached the rental agreement, eviction process, and worse, a suicide or death. Managers deal with it all and must be able to navigate these situations, while protecting the owner’s best interest and investment. Property managers are essentially the “middle man” and must relay viable information to owners and sometimes having hard conversations to come up with solutions to address the issue at hand.
Even with the items mentioned above, property managers must still manage their portfolio effectively every day. This includes annual inspections of each property before offering a lease extension, communicating with owners and tenants if there is a rent increase, or making the decision to terminate a tenancy. Property managers must handle and schedule any maintenance items that have been found during inspections, they must send out lease extensions, and make sure that the signed copies have been returned in a timely manner. The management staff also conducts drive -by surveys of properties throughout the year to ensure the outside of the property is being properly maintained.
When a tenancy comes to an end, there are many steps involved in order to re-rent the property. Completing a move out survey consists of doing a thorough walk through of the property, taking photos, listing items that needs to be addressed to get the unit rent-ready, communicating with owners on the necessary items to be completed, and start the process of getting the turnover work scheduled. They have to coordinate with several vendors and maintain a reasonable timeline to lessen the amount of time of the vacancy. When the make-ready work has been completed and marketing data has been collected, the property is put on the market for advertisement. When a new tenant is placed, the manager will do another walk through of the property before the new tenant moves in. All of these items mentioned above is just a small glimpse into the daily activities a property manager handles. Clients that have self-managed their property realize there is much more involved than just collecting rents each month, sometimes turning into a full- time job, which is why they seek to hire a Property Management Company. RMA has specialized in managing single family and multi-family homes for over 40 years. We take pride in being flexible enough to adapt quickly to unexpected circumstances and unique situations. If you should have any questions regarding your property, please do not hesitate to contact your property manager. We appreciate and value your business and we continue to strive to providing the best customer service for our owners, as well as our tenants!
Maintenance Updates
For those of you with properties in the Nampa/Meridian area, the irrigation district will be ending irrigation water delivery on September 15th, one month earlier than normal. We have instructed your tenants to do hand watering where necessary to prevent the lawn from dying.
RMA would like to let you know that we have scheduled the optional services for 2021.
Optional Services being completed throughout the summer are:
- Dryer Vent Cleaning
- Crawlspace and Attic Inspection
- Whole Home Inspections
The maintenance updates only apply to those of you who have pre-ordered these preventative maintenance services. If you didn’t opt in for a service you read about in this newsletter, and would like to schedule a service, just email your property manager to let them know.
Other questions? Please email your property manager!
Jackie Lusk – jackie@rentalsinboise.com. Amanda Godfrey – amanda@rentalsinboise.com
Accounting Updates
You can always see updates on the status of your property’s tenancy renewal on your OWA. Information about the tenants renewal or notice to vacate will be there for you to review once we get close to the end of the lease.
If you ever have questions about your statement, please contact your property managers:
Amanda Godfrey, amanda@rentalsinboise.com Jackie Lusk, jackie@rentalsinboise.com
If you have trouble logging into your client portal, please contact your property managers or Brandy Ker at RMAinfo@rentalsinboise.com.
Tenant Update
This month’s tenant newsletter discusses what tenants should do if they receive a violation from their HOA or RMA.
Check out our tenant newsletter this month: https://rentalsinboise.com/property-management-blog/september-2021-tenant-newsletter/