Overcoming The Top 3 Challenges of Managing Multiple Property Types
How many property types do you manage? If you have both community associations and rental properties in your portfolio chances are your day-to-day is probably more complex than the average property management business. Each property type comes with it’s own characteristics and unique set of needs that aren’t always easy to meet. Read on to find out the top three common challenges of managing community associations and rental properties and how you can overcome them by implementing the right tools.
Challenge #1: Logging Onto Different Systems
You use multiple software systems: one for your community associations and one for your multifamily properties. A lot of time is wasted logging into these different solutions, which makes it harder to keep track of workflows and also leads to inaccuracies with data and reporting. As a result, your team has less time to spend on customer service and focusing on bigger picture initiatives, like growing your business.
Solution: A Single System of Record
Save time and reduce error by consolidating all of your property types onto a single solution with one login. When you have one system of record you can also maintain transparency and have better visibility into how each aspect of your business is performing.
Challenge #2: Generic User Permissions
You have numerous roles within your organization for both your associations and rental properties but no way of tailoring what kind of information and documents each team member has access to. Without any way to customize the information they see, team members are inundated with things that don’t pertain to their role, and you’re unable to ensure security.
Solution: Customized User Roles
By switching to a system that lets you create and assign user roles specific to your organization, you can easily limit your team’s access to only information and functionality that’s relevant to their roles. This not only leads to less frustration and confusion, but also makes your organization more secure.
Challenge #3: Lack of Personalized Support
Your current software solution doesn’t understand your business’ unique needs. You may have felt supported at first, but when your team transitioned onto the system you quickly realized the experience was generic and not tailored to your business. As you hire more employees across your property types, they also run into the same problems and take longer to ramp up. Additionally, your software provider doesn’t offer resources for your teams to reference on an on-going basis if they need to troubleshoot issues or want to adopt new tools.
Solution: A True Partnership
Choose a technology partner over a provider who understands your business and listens to you. A true tech partner provides in-depth, personalized training and support through onboarding and beyond, so you can better adapt and overcome challenges. As a result, you get the most value for your tech investment and your team feels more confident.
Lessons From a Peer: 4 Degrees Real Estate
When you have the right tech partner it’s easier to overcome the challenges listed above. Take the story of 4 Degrees Real Estate for instance. Brothers Joel and Jordan Tampien founded the business with a vision of creating a full-service real estate company. Today, they manage a mixed portfolio of multifamily and single-family residential properties, and community associations. Through their technology partnership with AppFolio, they have been able to scale their business from managing 20 units to a portfolio of over 4,300 units, and are continuing their growth today.
“Building our workflows directly into the software and equipping our teams with daily task lists has significantly cut down on the learning curve, ” says Joel. “As we continue to grow at a quick rate, we can bring on new employees and train them even faster, within 50% of the time.”
Along with facilitating growth, AppFolio’s hands-on approach to support has also made it easier to adopt new features.
“Our strategic account manager makes rolling out new features within the product very easy, helps us with training for new and existing employees, and is very hands on,” says Joel. “The partnership we have with our strategic account manager and all of the services teams makes it very easy for us to do our jobs which turns into continued success for our business.”
Managing both community associations and rental properties is challenging, but when you have a single system of record and a deep partnership with your software provider, it’s easier to maintain transparency, serve your customers, and streamline workflows.
