Tips For Managing a Luxury Apartment Property
Property management is a specialist field, which requires not only the right training to be successful, but also very good management and people skills. If you have aspirations of becoming the property manager for a luxury apartment complex, then there are even more key points you should be aware of in order to maintain the amenities and the grounds.
This post will cover some top tips on successfully managing a luxury apartment property.
You Can’t Do It All On Your Own
If the property only contains a few apartments you might be able to handle most of the workload by yourself, but any bigger than that and you’ll definitely need a team to assist in the effective operation and management of the apartment building.
The job definitely has its rewards, but there are a lot of tasks to cover on a day to day basis; from dealing with residents, answering phone calls and emails, organizing lease agreements, keeping the building fully occupied, cleaning the swimming pool, maintaining lawns and gardens, repairs, cleaning and maintenance and more.
Hired help don’t necessarily have to be fulltime staff. You can call in people as you need them, but they do need to be reliable, dependable and good at their job.
Focus On Building and Maintaining Occupancy Levels
While it’s vitally important to keep the grounds and amenities clean and well maintained, it doesn’t mean much if there are hardly any residents staying in the building.
As the property manager, your main goal is occupancy. That’s where the money is for the investors and owners, and that’s why your position exists in the first place. Without residents paying regular rent, no one else can get paid.
When people invest in a complex like Sierra Luxury Apartments, for example, they are looking for a positive return on their investment, and that can only happen if occupancy levels are maintained at a consistently high level.
While every task of the property manager is important, renting out the luxury apartments and maintaining high occupancy has to be at the top of the list.
Good People Skills Are a Must
You’ll also need lots of patience. This isn’t to say that managing a luxury apartment complex is always drama or high stress, but there will be a lot of people to deal with on a daily basis, so it’s imperative that you and your staff enjoy dealing with people and can exercise patience during those times when a difficult situation (or person) might arise.
If it’s a large apartment building, between permanent residents, vacationers and visitors, you’ll likely be handling hundreds of people on a regular basis, so all your key staff really need to possess great people skills.
This will also prove helpful when renting out apartments. When people come to inspect an apartment for rent, if they like you, they’ll be more likely to want to sign a lease and move in.
Luxury Apartment Property Management Can Be a 24/7 Position
That’s not to say you will personally be working 24/7, but as an on-site manager, you or your team need to be contactable at all hours of the night and day in case of some emergency situation or a disturbance of the peace.
This is another key reason why you need a dedicated and dependable team around you, so the workload can be shared and no one person gets snowed under trying to handle everything.
If you spread out the workload as evenly as possible, then there’s no reason why you or anyone on your team should get stressed out or over-worked.
Communication Is Key
This really goes hand in hand with good people skills. You, as the property manager, need to be able to effectively communicate with the building residents, as well as your staff and contracted workers.
Good communication will keep residents happy and staff organized and productive.
Be Organized
This also includes being a forward thinker and identifying potential issues before they happen. Strong organization will ensure all tasks get done in a timely manner and keep you on top of things rather than feeling like the workload is getting the better of you.
Writing things down so you don’t forget, creating daily or weekly “to do” lists, listening to your staff and being able to delegate when needed will all come together to help make sure managing the building is calm sailing.