Property Management: Changes for the Better in 2021?

 

 

“Everything in moderation, including moderation.”

Oscar Wilde

 

“…The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.”

Ecclesiastes 7:18

 

Let me start off by saying I’m not a big clothes shopper.

 

I was minding my own business the other day at home and my phone buzzed.  I looked down at an alert from Amazon Photos with the “From 10 Years Ago” tag; it was a photo of my beautiful wife and I on a date at a Panthers game (awww…). 

 

Two things struck me:

1.  Look at that guy with his gorgeous, flowing mane of hair (what happened???)!

2.  The UNC sweatshirt and wooly I was wearing looked eerily familiar…  When I glanced in the mirror, I realized I was currently wearing the same exact outfit.  I tend to view these things from an optimist perspective (I still fit in my clothes- nice going!  Carolina blue really has always really accentuated my eyes…) as opposed to reality (Buy some new clothes, cheapskate!).

 

OK, sometimes things should be changed; buying some new attire from time to time never hurt anyone. 

 

And sometimes not changing things can hurt people.  In 2020, COVID made changing certain in-person business practices necessary for safety reasons; this really accelerated the use of certain technologies in property management, especially self-showings, video virtual tours, and virtual lease signings.  These methods have been used and adopted by many in the industry to varying degrees:

 

1.  Self-Showings:  This is where a prospective tenant is able to access keys through a lockbox to show themselves a property without a company representative being present. 

 

At first take, it seems risky to have strangers in a vacant home when they could just take desired pieces of the property with them when they leave.  But this trend has been building and is now commonplace.  I think a real estate agent provides limited value being on rental showings.  Renters don’t need to be sold into making a decision.  At the end of the day, they are taking time to look at rentals because they either want to or have to move; I don’t see a lot of rental home tire-kickers.  They want to like the property and get it done with, as opposed to new home buyers who sometimes look for perfect. 

 

However, there obviously needs to be some controls in place (avoiding the “open-barn” theory).  It’s important to know who is going into the house and have some concrete, confirmed contact information that can be given to the police if something goes awry.  Done properly and moderately, self-showings are efficient and allow renters to view homes on their own schedule.  It can work really well.

 

2.  Video Virtual Tours for Rentals:  I’m still not on the bandwagon on this one.  I really want people to visit the rental in-person so they can make sure it is right for them.  If someone wants to buy a home from across the country sight unseen, that is fine with me (we live in America, right?); they can spend their money anyway they choose to.  But if they wind up disliking the home after purchase, they have no one to complain to.  With rentals, they can complain to their landlord for a year or more.  No thanks! 

 

I want to provide enough information for people to decide if they want to see the property (pictures, accurate property information, price, etc.).  But I’m still not convinced that videos can replicate being there.  I also want to be cautious abut adding an expense to our owners to get a tenant we may wind up in a forced bad relationship with (“I don’t like the neighborhood”, “The building is too loud”, or “You purposely videoed away from the wall in the dining room to hide the scuff marks.”). 

 

3.  Virtual Lease Signings (E-signing Documents):  I like this trend, to a point.  We’ve used it for a few years for lease extensions with existing tenants and paperwork for our owner clients who needed to add properties.  Since COVID, we have even started to e-sign the lease documents prior to meeting the tenants at the property to give them the keys as a precaution.

 

However, I think this trend has gone too far.  It seems like it is a ready excuse not to talk or meet.  I like to meet with the tenants and review the lease in-person.  There is value to attaching a person with a (masked) face.  If we’re going to the property to get our sign and lockbox anyway, why not (safely) say “hello”? 

 

Anyway, in property management and in life, change isn’t always good or always bad- and it often does not need to be wholesale!  Treading moderately with new technologies can be the best path forward.

 

So I think that means I can still wear the sweatshirt and wooly as long as I mix in some new pieces of clothes occasionally, right?

 

Happy Landlording in 2021!