The Impossible Property Manager Task....

This may be something that no one can help me with...but we all know it never hurts to ask!!!

I may have the most difficult Property Manager job. Let me first tell you the background and what I need to accomplish and you all can tell me if it is even humanly possible by myself. You know us Type A personalities! We think we are SuperHuman.

I manage a small 162 unit complex. Before my hire, there had never been an experienced apartment manager here. The owners literally gave the job to a girl that worked the drive through at McDonalds next door at one point in the past. The owners also manage the property, along with a few others in the region and in another state. My property and the only other one in my city that they own are by far the largest they own and neither one of them have property management backgrounds. Before they bought up all these properties, they ran a healthcare company and made kitchen cabinets. When they bought the property, it was rundown, falling apart, and had dwindled down to only TWO occupied units. So, when they began the rehab, not knowing any better, they renovated the entire place at once, started losing a fortune as the months drug on, and eventually tried to lease the entire complex in a month in half done apartments by offering 3 months free, along with Ipads and Flat Screens as promotional gifts. It was insane. Then, not knowing what knowledge the office staff and maintenance should have, they hired inexperienced people who made huge mistakes, cut corners, made promises they couldn't keep, and started driving the property back down right after they fixed it up. So the owners, being burned by ignorance and straight thievery from those that recognized their ignorance in management...doesn't trust ANYONE. I came, spent 96 hours a week for months trying to even get a grasp on the situation. There were missing leases. There was horribly maintained apartments. There was no system for anything. No one even knew what Fair Housing was. They had no idea what apartments were vacant. They had no "Notice to Vacate", and never required one. They had no scheduling system for contractors for turns, landscaping, nothing. And...my most horrible obstacle...no one in the company has ever created an operating budget. There is no limits yet no knows where the money is going or how to save on costs or anything. It is the most insane thing I have ever heard of.

Since January, I've worked the magic I am capable of. I fixed the major issues first. I am 98.7 % occupied and 100% preleased for the next 60. I have collected 95% or above consistently. I am cutting costs where I see it's insane and trying to do as much in house as possible with the team I have in place now. So, seeing the system that I have implemented here, the addendums I have created, the key control, schedule systems, daily to do lists, office signs I have created, they are starting to see the scope of how badly they are in need of a company wide system if they are going to acquire more properties and make money. Being unrealistic like they are, they came to me this morning and asked me to do the following in the NEXT 13 DAYS:

Create an operating budget for my property and to be used as a template for others
Create a Leasing Agent Training Binder and Program
Find and implement a Fair Housing Seminar for Employees
Create a Property Manager Training Binder and Program
Create a Maintenance Inventory and Control System, as well as a Office Inventory.
Create Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Due Diligence Type Reports for them.
Create a Training manual for the THREE different systems we use and make online videos people can access if they need to see how we enter data into those various systems.

Right. Yeah. And run my just stabilized C property. Basically, I know I can. I am good at training and document creation. But I need some sort of baseline. I know most of that stuff is protected by the property management company that creates it...but if ANY of you have a sample of ANY of the above listed items that I can base mine off of..I will love you FOREVER. A sample budget and leasing training binders will take me the longest and will take a century with no baseline...so those are my priorities. But I would be grateful for anything. You can email me a [email protected] or [email protected]. Thanks in advance for any help and PRAY FOR ME!

Jenifer, I have some basic questions for you. Perhaps I missed something. Your property and management organization are operated by people with no experience in the rental and real estate business? And they are asking you, essentially, to set up the company's Best Practices Policies? I hope they are changing your title to President and CEO! Beyond that, here it is: do you use Excel or a property management software, like Realpage or Yardi? The reason I ask this is because if you haven't got this, you truly do have to start from scratch, which means creating all the Charge Codes, before you can create the operating budget. Once you have this completed, you can work your magic. Are you proficient with Excel? You will need to have a decent understanding of this program to set up working formulas.

I would be happy to discuss all the other areas in which you of setting up Training Manuals, etc. I suggest for Fair Housing training, you go through an on line provider such as The Training Factor (awesome, fun way to teach your employees Fair Housing, leasing techniques, and more.) you can also go to your local Apartment Association for other educational opportunities for staff training.

With all this many said, you are very correct in your assertion that no one can provide you with their company's proprietary information, like binder sheets and policies. But I would be happy to spend some time with you in getting ideas and resources for putting together your own. My email address is [email protected]. Feel free to contact me.

Run like hell!

Tell them there are classes available through the Houston Apartment Association.

If you go on GraceHill.com you can find almost ANYTHING!!! Good Luck! You can do it!!

It sounds like you need help side by side with someone. If you are near Sacramento,CA let me know as I am looking for a challenge. I was able to recover a Tax Credit property and put it on a path to cash flow within 18 months after a series of short term managers (and their decisions) that preceded me. In the meantime; I will send you a work in progress on how to improve the financial aspects that I am creating that will eventually be published in print and online.

I would farm out as much of the training as possible to Training Factor, Housing Credit College (if you are affordable tax credit) or GraceHill and make sure this training includes Fair Housing for all.

If you have an attorney that can do an onsite fair housing training annually (or knows someone that can) use that.

I would be more than happy to send you what I have regarding policies, proceedures, etc. I had to do this 8 years ago, but I certainly had more than 13 days. Please email me your email address. I am at: [email protected]

OMG!!!! Do I ever feel for you! But honestly, you will do it! Start by telling yourself (instead of saying the next 13 days will be stressful) that the next 13 days will be challenging! It makes a HUGE difference and is such a small change.

Second, some of the information you request can be found on a website called "Grace Hill". Leasing techniques, maintenance issues, etc... Grace Hill has classes available for almost any subject or position in property management... Fair Housing, Landlord Tenant Law, ADA compliance, Maintenance Repair, etc. Classes can be taken at our convenience at work or home. We can also pause a class, if need be for a minute, an hour or a day without having to start over again.It already has mauals pertaining to each class which can be downloaded and followed as classes are being taken. They are great learning tools or a great starting point for putting something similar together on your own.

As for your budget... simply put a chart together outlining what you have spent in each catagory for the past few months. This should give you an idea as to where to start with a future budget... based on what you have already accomplished, regular monthly expenses and then extraordinary expenses which may only occur annually.

Good luck to you!!!! You are a leader and obviously appreciate the most important aspect of this business: A CHALLENGE! So dig your heals in and go get 'em! You CAN do this!!!!

I have taken most of the GraceHill courses and have not only printed their materials; I saved them to my hard drive.

Hello Jenifer,

I sent information to your email address that you provided. I hope it is at least a starter for you.

I have some old papers tha may be of some help to you. email me if you need them. [email protected]

You have been quiet the last few days and I wanted to check in to see how things were going at your end. Was my article (although it is still a work in progress) helpful to you?