Average Life Span of a Property Manager

*Original post written for my blog www.clareverrall.com in 2012*

I read an interesting blog post by Infolio Director, Lauren Staley titled “the average life span of a Property Manager” https://bit.ly/ng1FSX according to this post the average time a Property Manager will stay in a job is 9 months. As an ex-Property Manager who now recruits for the Real Estate industry I found this post particularly interesting. I completely agree with Lauren that Property Management can be a thankless job, as she said they are often stuck in the middle & despite their best efforts any problems tend to be blamed on the long suffering Property Manager. Landlord refuses to repair something? YOU ARE THE WORST PROPERTY MANAGER EVER! Tenants three days late with their rent despite calls & text reminders? YOU ARE THE WORST PROPERTY MANAGER EVER! It certainly takes a certain type of person to be a successful Property Manager!

As a Real Estate Recruiter I meet around 10 Property Managers a week seeking new opportunities, a number of candidates I meet a week have been horribly burned by their Property Management experience & never wish to return to the industry. So why is this happening? Personally, I think it comes down to a mixture of training/mentoring, systems, procedures, portfolio size & company environment.

So many agencies hire young kids at minimum wage & throw them into a full portfolio of 200+ properties without any Property Management experience whatsoever. The candidates accept the role thinking they are very clever for skipping the step of being an Assistant Property Manager or Receptionist which is a huge mistake. As any Property Manager will tell you; most of your Property Management knowledge comes from learning on the job under a strong mentor. The 8 day Agents Representative course gives you the bare bones, the legislation & not much more. These inexperienced Property Managers quickly fall behind, make mistakes, hide their errors which quickly snowball & spend most of their days getting abused because they don’t know what they are doing. Landlords & tenants don’t trust them as they can’t answer questions quickly quoting the correct legislation, they are quickly overwhelmed & most quit within 3-6 months having lost a large number of properties from the portfolio due to poor management. Those that do stay within the industry continue on for many years bumbling along providing poor service, making mistakes, constantly putting out spot fires, not returning calls & giving all Property Managers a bad name.

This really isn’t all the fault of the inexperienced Property Manager, it is the fault of the employer who obviously doesn’t see the value in their Property Management department. By trying to save a few dollars these employers have actually cost themselves thousands in lost managements but many of them never seem to learn & continue to throw inexperienced Property Managers into the deep end. 

Portfolio size is another huge issue for our industry…Portfolio’s of 300 may have been maintainable in days of old when the demands on Property Managers were not as high but in today’s world a portfolio of over 200 properties is impossible to manage in a proactive manner providing quality, high level service to your clients while protecting yourself from legal threats which are thrown around like candy these days. Even the world’s best Property Manager will become overwhelmed & start to make mistakes if the portfolio is too large. Then properties will start to be lost which will usually result in angry meetings with Directors who are often Sales focused & don’t understand the demands of Property Management. The Property Manager will start to hate her job & will leave.

Good systems & procedures are also vital to keeping good Property Management staff, this also links into training. Maintaining detailed systems is often the difference between a clean portfolio & a mess. I was incredibly lucky to work with an wonderful mentor when I started my Property Management career who worked in a highly systemised manner. She taught me to put everything in the database we used, if it wasn’t in the database, it didn’t happen. I learnt to record EVERYTHING, every phone call, every email, every inspection, copies of every letter. Sure, it was a bit of a pain, but as my experience grew I certainly saw the value in it. If I was away anyone could sit at my desk & see everything I had done. She stuck 3 letters on the top of my computer screen to remind me to maintain that database, ‘CYA’ (Cover Your Ass!). Database management, good systems & procedures puts a stop to tenants or landlords trying to blame you for things that were clearly not your fault. You need to be able to prove everything you have done to cover yourself against any legal threats.

For example, let’s say the tenants have broken their lease & moved out 3 months into their lease & the landlord is screaming at you because he doesn’t have insurance. I could say “well Mr Landlord, during our conversation regarding these tenants application on the 2nd of February at 4pm I recommended you didn’t take them on as I was concerned about their previous reference however you approved their application against my advice as you were concerned about the quiet market conditions & they had offered $10 a week higher than the price we were asking. On this day I also advised you that if you insisted on taking these tenants that you invest in Landlords insurance. I also sent you a letter on the 3rd of February with information on many different landlords insurers recommending you take it out & a follow up email on the 8th of February prior to the tenants commencing their lease. I’m happy to provide copies of this correspondence if you require it. Obviously this is a very irritating situation but let’s move forward as soon as possible with the next steps in cleaning this property up so it can be re-tenanted as soon as possible to keep any losses to a minimum.” The landlords is obviously still going to be annoyed but the Property Manager is covered. This obviously takes quite a bit of time which is another reason that smaller portfolio sizes are important. We also had standard letters for everything which we could quickly merge through the system. Not only did this significantly cut down on admin but it also saved a copy in the system automatically. Good systems also allow you to be proactive rather than reactive meaning you are always ahead of the game rather than racing around trying to put out spot fires. Lease expiry letters automatically went out 90 days prior to the expiry to landlords & tenants, rental reviews were always carries out every 6 months due to the set reminders, Routine Inspections were always completed every 6 months without fail with detailed reports being sent to the landlords, automatic reminders would pop up reminding us to follow up maintenance. The magic of this? For two whole years during my six year Property Management career not one person yelled at me (then a crazy landlord broke my streak but it was still impressive!).

Company environment is probably one of the biggest contributors to high staff turnover. Property Managers are often very nurturing personalities. Unlike many Sales people they will take things very personally, they wear their heart on their sleeve & like to be liked. For this reason team ‘clicks’, even minor workplace bullying (going out to lunch with everyone but this one person etc), being yelled at or told off publicly will really affect a Property Manager & is often the reason they leave a role. Bullying is a problem in Property Management Departments however I find it is rarely discussed. I have dealt with a large number of candidates over the years who have been ‘ganged up on’ at their work place & made to feel like an outsider reminiscent of the High School bullying so many of us hoped we had put behind us. This is unacceptable. It is each team members responsibility to provide a nice team environment for everyone they work with, this starts at the top but is important for every level of the department. 

Another common reason Property Managers becomes uncomfortable in their working environment is Sexual Harassment, the many stories I have heard over the years relating to this are appalling! Most sexual harassment victims don’t report it, they just leave the role. For some reason sexual harassment at work does not seem to be considered a serious complaint in the industry with many Property Managers being simply told ‘that’s Real Estate.’ I’ve even spoken to candidate who have been told ‘if you can’t handle a bit of sexual harassment then Real Estate isn’t for you’ by Real Estate Recruiters! This makes me so incredibly angry. Sexually harassing conduct can be verbal (derogatory remarks, slurs, jokes, intimidation, and even threats of violence), physical (body gestures, whistling, ogling, unwelcome touching or physical violence), or visual (inappropriate sexually-oriented written materials or pictures). It’s not on & should not be considered acceptable in our industry. I completed a reference just last week to a Director I had never spoken to before who thought it was totally acceptable to tell me the candidates only weakness was that she was married as it was ‘a waste of talent’. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! This has to change!!

In her post Lauren discussed Gen Y as they have a reputation for not staying in roles long term. ”they want everything for nothing. They call in sick every other day, they don’t want to work weekends and most things get put in the too hard basket”

Lauren’s point about Gen Y is an interesting one but I don’t think it is that straight forward. I know I’m probably going to get ripped apart for this but here we go; Gen Y are demanding higher wages & a more flexible workplace but is this really such a horrible thing?? Maybe it’s time employers learn to manage Gen Y better? Maybe if we stop resisting them, labelling them as ‘lazy, entitled, job hopping slackers’ we might actually be able to embrace their ideas & better the industry! Currently Property Managers are overworked & underpaid, it is so terrible that this age group is demanding better? Why should Property Managers work for $40K a year struggling with outdated systems/databases, being overworked, undertrained, constantly abused & also be expected to work long hours & weekends? To me this cycle is why the industry has such a bad reputation & high staff turnover. Sure, some Gen Y’s are just complete idiots who I would like to strangle but so are lots of Gen X & even babyboomers! There are idiots in every Generation. Gen Y actually have a lot they can bring to the table, they believe in working faster not harder, have much stronger IT knowledge than previous generations & their belief in work/life balance isn’t necessarily a negative.

I’m currently working with a fantastic agency who have decided to stop fighting the Gen Y attitude & instead chosen to embrace it. They have sent all their staff to extensive database training which they have embraced as they have grown up around technology. This allows them to provide proactive service to their clients which results in less abuse from clients, they have introduced performance based pay increases so their staff know that by achieving set goals they will be financially rewarded, they have slashed the portfolio sizes to 160 properties, they have sent their Department head to extensive management training so she can mentor & manage the team while creating a positive work environment. Best of all these Property Managers never work weekends as they have 2 Leasing Consultants who have a day off during the week & work every Saturday. But how does the business afford this you cry?!? Well, they are providing excellent service as they have a fantastic team of happy, long term employees so they grow & grow & grow. They have gone from 700 properties to 1200 in 18 months since they implemented these changes & not a single staff member has left.

I think the industry can’t continue to put all the blame on Property Managers for ‘job hopping’ & instead needs make changes so people want to stay in this fantastic industry.

What do you think?