How Property Management Companies Keep Tenants Happy at Multifamily Properties

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Our property management team at JP Acquisitions has done an incredible job executing on the business plans that we set out to implement. This is evidenced by a clear path to far surpassing our exit year projections for all of our properties in terms of rental income and expenses. More so, our team has received a little bit of a buzz in the community we operate in as people that don’t live at our properties have said they heard about our management habits and high level of tenant satisfaction. The community impact that we’re having, although be it on a small scale, is what we strive to expand. As a byproduct of our team seeking to make an impact, we keep our tenants happy. In this post, we will cover some of the habits that our team and other quality property management companies have that make their tenants feel at home and safe.

Note – The definitions of the technical terms in any of our posts can be found in the glossary section of our website.

Clear & Timely Communication About Maintenance

Put yourself in the shoes of someone living in an apartment with a maintenance issue. Regardless of the issue, you likely want that problem resolved ASAP and would like to be kept in the loop about when the issue will get resolved. At our properties, we provide our tenants with a time window as to when we will be able to fix maintenance requests (typically targeting 24-72hrs depending on the severity). If the request is not finished in the window we provide, we give something extra to the tenant. For example, not collecting the pet fee for that month or helping the tenant with a cosmetic upgrade in their unit that our team isn’t responsible for. The importance of clear and timely communication can not be stressed enough not only in property management but in business in general. No one likes it when others take forever to respond, they feel like they’re being ignored or not a priority. Third-party contractors should especially make it a habit to be timely and effective with their communication as not doing so could cost them a job. At JP, we make ourselves as easy as possible and trust that the people we work with do the same. If they don’t, we’ll simply find someone more competent.

Building Upkeep

An apartment building is only as good as the team that is managing it. If the property management team in place does not care about the building, it will show via the details. Our PM team at JP Acquisitions focuses on all the little details to make sure that the tenants at our properties understand that we care about their living experience. Some details that we focus on include landscaping, keeping the interior of our properties clean, replacing any damaged mailboxes, etc. These seemingly simple little aspects of a building can be the difference between a tenant choosing to move out or not (i.e., tenant retention).

A Personal Approach

The beauty behind the way that we treat our tenants is that we look to familiarize ourselves with each family, couple, or individual. This means, for example, understanding if a tenant is in a specific situation in which they have to pay late or providing a family who needs more space priority to move into a larger unit once it becomes available. A PM team that has this personal touch can create a real impact in the community. Just this past year we had a tenant who went to the hospital with a serious injury and as a result, they could not pay rent for 4 months. While we could have evicted that tenant, our property manager filed the paperwork with the tenant’s insurance company to make sure that the company covered his rent. Additionally, our PM kepy following up with the insurance company on the tenant’s behalf. Months after the incident, our PM got a call from the tenant expressing their gratitude and how much of a difference it made during that difficult period in his life. It’s situations like these that make our PM team stand out. It’s easy for property managers to boil down tenants to a dollar sign and only care about the profitability of a property. It’s the personalized touch that a property management company provides that makes all of the difference.

Conclusion

Overall, the property management business is not easy but there are best practices that increase tenant satisfaction and keep occupancy high. Clear and timely communication, building upkeep, and having a personalized approach are three ways by which our PM team and competent property management companies go about managing multifamily properties.

If you have any questions regarding the terms and concepts in this post or previous ones, please reach out to either me (tedi.nati@jpacq.com) or someone on our team so we can help explain further. If you’re interested in investing with us at JP Acquisitions, you can contact us via our contact form, by emailing a member of our team, messaging us on LinkedIn, or signing up for our investor portal to set up a meeting.

As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I have writing it. Best of luck!

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About the Author

Tedi Nati is the Managing Partner of JP Acquisitions. In his role he is responsible for broker outreach, establishing deal flow, underwriting, marketing, investor relations, and assisting in the closing process. In addition to his role at JP Acquisitions, he is an Assistant Equity Underwriter at Cinnaire, a non-profit Community Development Financial Institution (CFDI). In his role at Cinnaire, he is responsible for assisting the underwriting team in evaluating and structuring real estate equity investments and assessing the risks and mitigants associated with such. Tedi earned his Bachelor of Science in Finance from DePaul University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. In his free time he enjoys reading, looking for multifamily deals, and working out.

Make sure to always do your own research before making any final decisions on buying/investing real estate, stocks, or other securities. I am not a CPA, attorney, insurance, or financial adviser and the information in this blog post shall not be construed as tax, legal, insurance, construction, engineering, health and safety, electrical or financial advice. If stocks or companies are mentioned, I sometimes have an ownership interest in them – DO NOT make buying or selling decisions based on my posts alone. If you need such advice, please contact a qualified CPA, attorney, insurance agent, contractor/electrician/engineer/etc. or financial adviser.