PropertyManager.com

Screening Tenants Consistently for Fair Housing

Posted on 05. Apr, 2011 by Mary Girsch-Bock.

Under Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, it is illegal for landlords to refuse to rent or sell a dwelling based on an applicant’s race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability. Does your management company base their applicant approvals on documented evidence of an applicant’s ability to pay or not pay?

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Optimizing Your Property Management Facebook Page for Search

Posted on 24. Feb, 2011 by Charity Hisle.

While you shouldn’t focus all of your efforts solely on Facebook, it does make sense to optimize the content posted on Facebook. Facebook search is linked to keywords within all public posts, profiles, pages, groups and applications but very few are utilizing this opportunity to increase their Facebook SEO.

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Beginning SEO for Property Managers

Posted on 17. Feb, 2011 by Charity Hisle.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to your website from internet search engines. Search engines want to return the most relevant results possible to their users. According to eMarketer, 94% of shoppers click on the 1st through 10th search results. Optimizing your online presence for search engines will drive traffic to your website.

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Distinguish Your Business by Accentuating the Positive, Eliminating the Negative

Posted on 25. Jan, 2011 by Marc Courtenay.

In these challenging times there is one question all property managers should be asking themselves; “Why would my clients and residents prefer me and the properties I’m managing?” Recently I asked a successful, long-time property manager the simple question, “What keeps your owners happy?” It was another way of asking the question in paragraph one.

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6 Topics for Your Property Management Blog

Posted on 18. Jan, 2011 by Aimee Miller.

We all know how happy great, new content makes Google. If you can find 30 minutes each week to write 1 or 2 articles for your property management blog you will definitely start to see more traffic coming to your website.

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Part 2: The Right Team is Your #1 Ingredient for Success

Posted on 07. Dec, 2010 by Mike Brewer.

This is the second post in a two part series based on the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. We will discuss making the right hiring decisions, turning loose of bad behavior and making sure personal competencies fit roles and responsibilities.

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Five Easy Ways to Give Your Rentals More Curb Appeal

Posted on 09. Nov, 2010 by Marc Courtenay.

If your rental properties make a great first impression then potential residents will want to see what’s on the inside. This article will focus on rental properties with five units or less, and is especially applicable for rental houses.

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Uh-Oh. My Facebook Fan Page is Filled with Vacancy Postings

Posted on 03. Nov, 2010 by Aimee Miller.

Now that you’ve created a Facebook Fan Page for your Property Management company you need to actually post things to it that are interesting to your audience! If your Facebook Fan pages are filled with vacancies, updates and specials, it will take you a while to build a great fan base. Ask yourself – what would I find interesting, useful or entertaining?

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Six Simple Actions That Keep Your Apartment Community ‘Tip of Tongue’

Posted on 27. Oct, 2010 by Mike Brewer.

For a lot of people, searching for an apartment is one of those dreaded but necessary experiences you have to go through from time to time. It ranks up there with paying taxes, putting gas in your car and getting a haircut. People are busy and the process of searching for a new place to live just is not that much fun.

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Interview with Lisa Trosien, Multifamily Industry Expert

Posted on 27. Sep, 2010 by Aimee Miller.

If you’re in the multifamily industry you have probably heard of Lisa Trosien. Lisa will be contributing articles to Property Manager.com and we started with a few questions to learn more about her perspective on important trends, marketing activities property managers should prioritize and the one thing she hates about her job!

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4 Year-End Property Management Accounting Best Practices (Nov. 19 Webinar Recap)

Posted on 03. Dec, 2009 by Aimee Miller.

In a recent webinar, we reviewed four accounting best practices property managers should be doing to close out 2009 and prepare for 2010. We talked through these best practices and demonstrated how to enact them using our web-based property management software but they are definitely applicable if you’re using a different type of software.

Below is the full recording of the webinar

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More Green Incentives For Residential Property Managers – Part 2

Posted on 08. Oct, 2009 by Marc Courtenay.

The “science” of being an effective Residential Property Manager changes with the times and the priorities that our society establishes. Part 1 of this article covers ways in which property managers attract and retain residents with green incentives.
Today’s homeowners and home-renters are motivated to save energy and be “earth friendly.” That is why the “Green” [...]

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Interview with Todd Breen, President of Home Property Management – Being Profitable with Section 8

Posted on 24. Sep, 2009 by Aimee Miller.

Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Todd Breen (South East Regional Director, FARPM; Faculty at the Property Management Academy in Florida) about how his company (www.624home.com) makes the Section 8 program profitable. While I was stuck in the office, Todd was actually spearfishing on a yacht in Florida…this is the fish he [...]

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Website Best Practices for Property Managers (Sept. 15 Webinar)

Posted on 15. Sep, 2009 by Aimee Miller.

In a recent survey of residential property managers, we found that 83 percent plan to grow their business this year and many are using the Internet to expand their marketing reach.
This session covered the following topics:

Highlights of a recent survey of property managers – learn how they are going beyond simple rent reductions to grow [...]

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Moving Marketing Online: Interview with Nick Scarabosio, Jackson Group Property Management

Posted on 14. Sep, 2009 by Aimee Miller.

I recently had the chance to speak with Nick Scarabosio from Jackson Group Property Management in San Francisco, CA. San Francisco is a competitive market and you have to be thinking of creative ways to reach your audience…and Nick is pretty creative!
Aimee: How has your property management marketing changed over the past couple of years [...]

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8 Ideas for Making More Move-In Day Magic!

Posted on 18. Aug, 2009 by Heather Blume.

I think it should be a requirement for people who work in the multifamily industry to rent an apartment, at communities they don’t directly work at, for at least 5 years, moving at least once every 24 months. What would possess me to make such an outlandish request of my fellow industry compatriots?
One word: EMPATHY
Empathy [...]

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Service Sells: 5 Rules of Property Management Customer Service

Posted on 28. Jul, 2009 by Aimee Miller.

Have you ever read a website or a company description that says something like…”We pride ourselves on delivering terrible service. Really, great service is expensive and we don’t think it is worth it so instead of great service we will provide pretty adequate to bad service. Thanks for your business.” Probably not! Really, we all [...]

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6 Tips for Communication Clarity with Your Residents

Posted on 16. Jul, 2009 by Heather Blume.

You know, not everyone has a gift for writing. Some people don’t even have the basics.
When I was younger, my mother was a librarian and an English teacher. She and I would sit at the kitchen table in the evenings, me struggling with the complexities of Algebra (many of which I, to this day, still [...]

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Five Ways For Property Managers To “Pool” Their Resources

Posted on 07. Jul, 2009 by Heather Blume.

As temperatures rise, so do easy chances for resident retention!  Summer is a great time for connecting with your residents and one of our greatest warm season assets is, of course, our pool.  However, there is more to using your aqua resources than a single large gesture of the large summer pool party.  You can [...]

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Use Local Search to Increase Traffic to Your Property Management Website

Posted on 07. Jul, 2009 by Jonathan Brownfield.

Chances are, if you’re in the property management business then you’ve advertised your business in the local phone book.
The problem is, people are flooding to online search to find businesses and services, all but assuring the printed telephone directory the same fate as the Long Jawed Mastodon. The good news is that you can adapt [...]

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The Credit Crisis and Its Impact on Rental Housing

Posted on 02. Jul, 2009 by Marc Courtenay.

“When it comes to property management and the credit crisis, things are changing all the time…this is unprecedented in our 40 years of experience.”
This is a quote from an interview I conducted with a partner of a prominent Southern California residential property management company. She is also an owner of both single family and multi-family [...]

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New Opportunities to Market Your Company

Posted on 17. Jun, 2009 by Aimee Miller.

I was walking out of Trader Joe’s today and noticed a beautifully painted garbage can. Typically garbage cans are not really my area of focus but this one looked good. It was freshly painted (green) and the paper below it warned “Fresh Frazee Paint.” Kind of clever – they probably gave out the “wet paint” [...]

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Property Managers Surveyed About Their Use of Internet Marketing

Posted on 15. Jun, 2009 by Aimee Miller.

Many property managers look for the best ways to use the Internet to market their business so they can find more owners and fill vacancies faster. We surveyed a group of residential property managers to learn how they use the Internet for marketing, how they spend money to acquire tenants and how engaged they are [...]

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