Today’s apartment property managers wear a lot of hats. In addition to being responsible for leasing up residential buildings or knowing how to calculate a property’s return on investment, they must also maintain healthy relationships with their workers, owners and residents. Figuring out how to leverage technology is key to achieving this delicate balancing act.
According to a 2015 survey by the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), 37 percent of households within the United States rent versus own. That’s up from 32 percent in 2010. Approximately 26 percent of those who rent are under the age of 30. This shift from owning to renting by younger residents has changed the way the industry reacts to them.
“It’s one of the interesting dynamics of the 21st century and has changed the way we and other management firms do business,” says Mark Zettl, chief operating officer of Chicago-based Waterton, an owner and operator of multifamily and hospitality assets across the United States.
“While customer service and satisfaction have always been priorities, today’s managers are constantly being held to a higher standard — one that measures response times in minutes and hours rather than days,” says Zettl. “We’ve embraced the change because the challenges it creates are what foster innovation in the industry, resulting in a better overall experience for the customer.”
Intensive Talent Search
Recruiting and retaining top-notch employees at all levels is one of the biggest challenges facing the property management industry today.
“Recruiting and developing good talent remains our top priority,” says Ted Verner, senior vice president of market-rate housing in the Detroit office of The Habitat Company. “Everyone in the industry is competing to attract strong workers and making certain that their staff is able to run properties appropriately.”
Increased competition for skilled employees from other apartment property management firms and even the hospitality sector is the first hurdle for managers to clear. The notion that hotel guests should have home-like experiences and renters should have hotel-level amenities has led some hotels and apartments to merge platforms.
Waterton is an example of an owner and operator doing just that. In a program it calls “Resitality” (a combination of the words residential and hospitality), Waterton has converged operating platforms across the property types in areas such as staffing, supply chains, construction groups and even a centralized design. Now when workers are looking for a job, they are presented with more options than ever and can find employment in both the hotel and apartment sector.
But this increase in competition across sectors isn’t the only barrier when it comes to hiring top talent for an apartment building or complex. Online review sites such as Glassdoor, Vault and CareerLeak have increased the transparency that managers must provide.
“Today, both residents and employees utilize a variety of communication channels to provide feedback about apartment communities and the firms that manage them in real time,” says Zettl.
According to Software Advice, an information technology research and advisory company, 48 percent of people looking
Chicago’s Presidential Towers is managed by Waterton, which combines many of its operating platforms across the multifamily and hospitality sectors, including staffing and supply chains.
for a job visit Glassdoor during their job search. The site provides a platform for working professionals to rate a company’s compensation, benefits, work-life balance, culture, values and management.
In its most recent survey about Glassdoor, Software Advice also reported that 42 percent of respondents indicated that poor ratings of the CEO of a company would have a moderate to significant impact on their decision to apply, and 30 percent of respondents said that compensation and benefits was the most important ratings category, followed by work-life balance.
Companies that receive favorable commentary from a third-party review site can more easily attract top job applicants.
Frontline Workers Toil Away
Training employees once they are hired takes time and resources, and workers often need to be retrained as new systems and software are implemented.
“Property management has become much more technically demanding for both office employees and frontline property maintenance staff,” says Verner. “Those in the office need to be able to manage a number of tools including online leasing, social media and various marketing initiatives, lead tracking, and lease revenue optimizing software.”
Waterton uses systems such as Ultipro for human resource management, Grace Hill for training and Kronos for payroll when it comes to managing staff in the front office.
Mastering the ability to process incoming packages for residents poses another challenge for apartment managers. With consumers increasingly buying products online, front-line staff must be creative and efficient in how they receive an increasingly high volume of packages.
While some apartment managers have decided to stop accepting packages altogether at the properties they oversee, others use the opportunity to strengthen customer relations. When 65 percent of the market buys products online, having a refrigerator for flower and food deliveries can make a big difference, says Diana Pittro, who oversees all management, marketing and operations for Chicago-based RMK Management Corp.
Both Waterton and The Habitat Company send residents real-time alerts when packages arrive. RMK’s properties feature flat-screen televisions in each mailroom with a scrolling list of units that have packages waiting in the front office.
According to NMHC’s latest package survey, which was released in the fall of 2014, the typical apartment community receives as many as 100 packages a week, which takes roughly five hours to process. One in four properties has invested in on-site package tracking software and 87 percent of apartment communities have a designated space for package storage, which averages 77 square feet.
Leasing agents and office staff aren’t the only workers who need to keep up to date on new systems and processes. Maintenance teams also have to be able to deal with online ordering, purchase-order systems, digital requests and the increasingly computerized systems of appliances and products.
“People who have worked for us for five to 10 years have really had to adapt and become extremely tech savvy,” adds Verner. “We are continuously providing education for our employees while also looking ahead to anticipate what will be needed next.”
Pittro echoes that sentiment. In order to stay competitive with national third-party management companies, RMK has replicated several staff positions that are in place at larger companies, including an in-house training director and maintenance director.
For many companies, the ability to handle a variety of demands thrown at them comes back to hiring competent people.
Manage More than Properties
As property management companies become increasingly familiar with the full capabilities of the technology at their disposal, managers are tasked with not only overseeing individual properties but groups of assets as well.
Managed by RMK, 73 East Lake offers convertible, one- and two bedroom units. The Chicago property features a cyber café, business center, fitness gym, demonstration kitchen, movie theater, water spa, outdoor terrace, sky lounge and private dining room.
“Today’s tech-savvy property manager is now taking on a lot of roles an asset manager used to do — from project management to looking at net operating income,” says Verner. “Today’s teams are tasked with constantly looking at the bottom line and must regularly ask themselves, ‘Where can I look for every last dollar of potential revenue while also working to contain expenses?’”
Verner notes that owners are becoming more hands-on. Property management companies are responding by customizing reports and software systems to allow access to real-time data and analytics. This information needs to be readily available to the various investors of each property.
“The owners are not looking at paper anymore, so your reporting tends to be more asset-management related, and when it comes to owners most of them want to see analytics and metrics that are constantly changing” says Pittro.
Property managers should be able to easily provide key metrics such as return on investment, net operating income and annual turnover rates to owners.
The properties that RMK manages are owned by 12 different entities. How managers communicate with the owners is not a one-size-fits-all approach, emphasizes Pittro. Managers need the software tools and processes that allow them to adapt to the needs of each owner because maintaining that good relationship is crucial to success.
Growing Renter Demands
Third-party review sites present an initial obstacle for property managers trying to lease up a residential building or complex.
Due to online tools such as rent.com, Zillow, Apartment Guide and others, renters often have pre-determined views of the property before they ever arrive for a visit, notes Zettl. It can sometimes be difficult to get would-be renters to even visit the property.
According to NMHC, 73 percent of residents visit an Internet listing site and 80 percent of residents visit the apartment community’s website before making a decision on where to live. Of that group, 52 percent were deterred from visiting a community due to an opinion site.
“Everybody is in such a hurry to use technology as a convenience. What we have found is that there are many things that your team and your residents want and they want it quickly,” says Pittro. “They want it easy and they want it on the web, but that changes every six months.”
Monitoring and mediating online reviews can take a lot of time and resources for property management staff, but the job doesn’t stop there. Tenants look for a place where they can have both convenience and customer service around the clock, say experts. This means providing information digitally and engaging in face-to-face interactions.
Waterton uses software such as Yardi for customer relationship management (CRM), Lead to Lease for lead management and Satisfacts for customer feedback.
RMK began calling residents to check in every three months nearly a decade ago. The response was overwhelming and highlighted RMK’s elevated customer service. Now the maintenance supervisor at each RMK-managed property meets every new resident that moves in.
And while establishing these relationships is important, managers agree that properties must provide meaningful online services. One of the biggest requests from tenants is the ability to pay rent via automated payment. It’s convenient for the tenant, and the office gets the benefit of funds arriving on time.
In addition to being able to pay their rent online and receive package notifications, residents at The Habitat Company properties can also order guest suites and reserve elevators all with the click of a mouse.
“Residents like the technology when they have to do something, but they like the interaction of the events and the communication during the year,” says Pittro. “Our tenants are starting to come back to that interaction.”
— Christina Cannon