This small group of individuals have mastered the game and it cycles. They learned very quickly that the same opportunities, the same problems, and concerns tend to pop up over and over again. This leads us to ask, how can we do these same few things extremely well? It starts with understanding what’s required, and from who!

 

There are a few different departments, sales, leasing, accounting & maintenance, that are all held together by communications and technology. You may be wondering how property management works, here’s an overview of the system.

 

We sell services to landlords, who own properties, but need their properties managed. It starts with the Sales process.

 

THE SALES LIFE CYCLE

• People get referred or view our marketing materials and decide to call or text and ask some questions.

• We send a blank contract and our sales support documents.

• If they haven’t given us a response, we follow up with them on the 15th of the month and ask them how their investing journey is coming along.

• If they decide to move forward, we get them a contract to sign.

• Then we do the initial onboarding call for the landlord.

• Then we do the onboarding call for the property.

• Hand off to fulfilment, and start the leasing life cycle or accounting life cycle.

 

After someone becomes a landlord, they may wonder what happens next, here’s a brief description:

 

LANDLORD JOURNEY

SIGN UP // ONBOARDING

• Concierge reaches out to you to select your preferences and your tolerance level as a landlord

• Also notifies you where to send your direct deposit form that you’d like the funds to be deposited into

• Reports are received between the 10th and 14th, funds will be in your account on the 15th or the following business day.

 

PROPERTY IS VACANT

• Next day you receive a warm introduction to your leasing agent where you review the deal specifics

  • What are you doing with utilities?

  • What’s the deal on parking?

  • What’s the deal on lawn care?

  • Do you want us to provide you with tips and ideas around how you can improve your property to earn more $ in the future?

• If your property is vacant, you receive an email that lets the landlord know that we’re taking actions to get their property leased out, letting them also know how many showings they had and what types of repairs need to get done before the property gets leased out

• When we find successful candidates that want to move in, the landlord should be notified about the choices that they have and if they want to move forward.

• After that, the landlord should be notified that they have someone moving in the a few days before and what to expect next.

• The leasing fee is 40% of one month’s rent + HST and will be deducted from the funds sent to you after collecting rent.

 

PROPERTY IS OCCUPIED

 

• We ask them all the leasing and inventory details and set the parameters up in our system.

• We let them know that we’re going to send a notice of direction to the tenants that notifies them when and where to redirect rent, answer all the questions they may ask, etc.

 

PROPERTY MAINTENANCE

 

• Properties get exterior checkups once per month and that’s included in your subscription.

• We have a fire inspection every 6 months that costs you $50 + HST and any costs of replacement items.

• We also have a standard diagnosis that we complete every time our handyman goes to your property for service.

• What is your dollar threshold that you want us to check for permission? $250, $500, $1000?

  • Often times, landlords contact a property manager so they don’t have to deal with headaches. But at what dollar amount do you want us to bring headaches to you?

• Do you want to upgrade your property or just do the cheapest repairs for the time being?

  • Some people are actively upgrading their properties as things break, some want the bare minimum and cheapest solutions as they’re planning renovations in the near future. Which are you?

• When we complete repairs, we take before and after photos to help you get a better understanding of what happened at the property during the month.

 

PROPERTY REPORTING, as a landlord.

• On the 1st of the month we collect rent

• On the 2nd of the month at 12:00PM we send out eviction notices

• On the 3rd of the month you receive a message if we haven’t collected rent from your resident

• On the 4th - 9th we door knock on the properties who haven’t paid

• You receive a notification if the rent is collected

• On the 10th - 14th of the month, you’ll receive a report outlining the transaction details and how much funds you’ll be receiving

• On the 15th of the month you receive your funds distribution

• If there are any payments that are collected after that, you’ll be sent a new report and additional funds.

• Expenses are held back and your distribution is calculated based on the remaining balance.

 

 

Now it gets really interesting because we have clients, who are the landlords, and customers, who are the tenants. The tenants pay the landlords and the landlords pay us. But we’re the middle man facilitating the transaction. So although we have a service to provide to the landlords, we have a service to provide to the tenants as well.

 

TENANT JOURNEY

• They find a rental online and all of their questions are answered promptly in the facebook chat or by telephone and they book their showing.

• They show up to a clean property and get the tour and have the option to apply.

• If they put forward an application and we’ve approved their references, they receive a celebration call where we ask about their move in dates and book their final walkthrough, key exchange, and move in.

• Once they move in they receive their welcome message and that’s when they get their move in survey.

• If they have any questions, needs receipts, or need support, the resident portal is where they can get all their questions answered for all the possible things that might go wrong.

 

What are all the different tenant scenarios? & What happens for each?

• Lease amendments and changes to the lease

  • Remove or add a party to my lease

  • Renew my lease

  • Lease expiry

    • Renewal

    • Non renewal

  • Moving In

  • Moving Out

 

• Maintenance requests

  • We can fix them as quickly as we possibly can

    • But rent must be paid in full throughout the duration of the period that maintenance is getting completed.

  • We need a specialist

  • We need permission from the landlord to execute

 

• Complaints about other tenants

  • File a complaint

  • What happens if someone complains about me?

 

• Payment related concerns

  • Need receipts

  • Need a refund

  • Need a payment plan

  • Request a rent discount

  • Why did I receive an eviction notice

 

After the Rent’s Paid

The resident lives happily ever after.

 

If the Rent’s Unpaid

• 2nd of the month

  • Resident receives a text message asking where’s the bread?

• 3rd of the month

  • Resident receives a call asking where’s the bread?

• 4th - 10th of the month

  • Door knock asking where’s the bread?

So in order to deliver on all of the promises set out above, there are certain things that our team needs to fulfil based on a rolling calendar, or based on a trigger of when an incident happens. Take a look below to get a better understanding of how each team is responsible for different parts of the experience.

 

THE LEASING LIFE CYCLE

• Team receives a new property alert that outlines the property profile.

  • Images, bedrooms, utility rules, parking rules, any other unique outliers of the property.

• Team uploads the listing to the marketplace and responds to any questions from potential tenants

  • At the end of every week we need to send a leasing report, letting landlords know what their vacancies are looking like and what our week’s activity was.

    • How many booked showings?

    • What their feedback at the showing was.

    • Our dialogue on what we should do going forward.

• When we get people that want to apply, we send them the link for the application

• We check their references and apply them against a set of criteria

• Once we’ve determined we will approve the resident, we reach out to the landlord and give them the choice.

• After the landlord selects their desired tenant, we give them the congratulations call

• We must ensure that the lease is executed by all parties.

• We must collect first and last prior to providing keys.

• After that, we select their move in, key exchange particulars, and schedule the final walkthrough.

• The move in happens, we communicate, set all of our expectations.

• We follow up after 7 days to make sure everything’s going great.

• End of process.

 

THE MAINTENANCE REQUEST LIFECYCLE

• Tenants complain and our team calls them immediately to confirm their maintenance request and get any other details that may have been missed. 

  • They create the starting file for the maintenance minutes

  • Complaint? Address? Date? Our first initial actions.

• We then let the tenant know our next steps. Whens the initial diagnosis scheduled for?

• What to expect on the scheduled service date.

• Superhandyman goes to complete the initial diagnosis and take measurements.

  • Adds the results to the maintenance minutes

• Maintenance coordinator notifies the tenants landlords about what to expect for this project next.

  • Repeats above until project is completed.

• Upon project completion, sends the survey to the resident about the experience dealing with our team and our subcontractors, and some dialogue on what they thought of the experience.

  • This will be included in the maintenance minutes

• Our team is rewarded when they do great work. When we get positive reviews from the residents we serve, they are rewarded accordingly.

​

THE ACCOUNTING LIFE CYCLE

• The 10th of the month

  • the reports get sent to the landlords

• The 11th of the month

  • The maintenance breakdowns get sent to the landlord with a breakdown of before and afters, with some dialogue of the issue that they’re being charged for.

• 15th of the month

  • funds get sent to the landlords. 

  • Audit starts the reconciliation for the prior month.

  • we should send invoices for negative balances and outstanding amounts to tenants. We need to BCC the landlords to let them know we’ve billed the tenants. We need to bill the landlords if they owe us.

  • we pay out the key deposit refunds for the people who moved out on the first of the month. 

 

• 16th, we close the months records

  • This is when we close out the balances for the month

  • And perform our closing actions (send funds, bill tenants, bill landlords for outstanding balances)

 

• 18th of the month

  • We follow up with landlords to confirm who wants to proceed to an L1 application to evict their tenants for this month’s non payments.

 

• 20th of the month

  • Audit sends us the financial statement for the current period

 

• 21st of the month

  • We follow up with outstanding receivables & invoices

 

• 24th of the month

  • We follow up with outstanding receivables & invoices

 

• 25th day of the month, all the charges for the following month get published and we establish next month’s total charges.

 

• 26th of the month, we start reviewing the maintenance invoices that support the charges that were incurred throughout the period.

 

• Last day of the month

  • Tenants should receive a message saying that rent is due tomorrow.

• 1st of the month

  • AUDIT

    • Audit should be complete and all adjusting entries should be made

    • We should receive a final file of the prior month’s statement with the revenue and expenses, required tax payments to be made, and the final net income.

 

• 2nd of the month

  • A rent reminder should be sent to everyone who hasn’t paid

  • A list of eviction notices to be prepared should be sent to the paralegal

  • Collections on Yardi and Quickbooks need to be cross referenced and synchronized before sending this to the paralegal.

  • Landlords should receive an email saying their residents haven’t paid rent and what we’re doing to collect it.

 

• 3rd of the month

  • We finalize all the maintenance supporting documents from the previous month

 

• Monday after the first of the month

  • Door knocking at the tenants who haven’t paid rent

 

This, to me, is the best property management system. We provide the landlord with all details and the control is in their hands with what they’d like to do with their property. 

 

They’re informed, they’re in the loop, they have all the decision power, and they have the faith and trust that the system works for their needs.

 

This is good enough for my needs, the only thing that would add more value is social media content so I can brag to my friends about how good my property manager is.

End.