You guys! Need some tips and ideas to manage a larger community of 600+ units.

You guys! Need some tips and ideas to manage a larger community of 600+ units.

I have been the leasing manager before in a similar setting but not the PM.

It is a C class asset that the owner is revitalizing and putting money into that is making slow but important strides to become a better asset.

I have been told that I will have a great office team that only have one employee vacancy spot that I must fill in leasing. In maintenance I am missing one tech.

But what are your strategies to manage the large amount of units, what has worked for your office teams? Do you divide in sections? Do you make your teammates work in specific tasks rather than the APM does the typical duties and leasing does leasing? There is only one APM and kuddos to her because she is running the show right now the best way she can.

But I need strategies, I need to empower my new staff and listen to what they have to say to tackle my priorities.

All your positive suggestions are welcome!

We are located In Indianapolis, Indiana.

I definitely suggest trello. It’s an online organization board and you can use to to add to each other’s to do list and post messages to each other so nothing gets lost. As a manager I even forward my invoices to a trello board so they do not get lost in my email. Organization is the most important thing with a property that large.

We used Trello until we found clickup. It was like moving light years ahead.

Also I noticed when I walked into a large property especially if they have not had a manager the staff will be overwhelmed and very unorganized. The best thing to do is help them get caught up before you start introducing new policies and procedures.

I am always looking for ways to work smarter……. how would these applications be better that TEAMS?

Oh wow. You need to spend at least 10+ hours in it yourself before you even think of mentioning it to your team. Anyone that proposes a new thing for people to learn better have a solid understanding of that thing themselves. That is going to be critical for success.

As far as how it compares to teams, it really doesn't at all. The two products are designed for very different functions. Teams is really a solution to help people communicate, anything else is just an after thought bolted onto the side but not the core focus of the product. Trello and Clickup are a way to manage processes, workflows and things that need to get done. You can define your processes with well thought out templates and have a variety of steps and things that need to be accomplished. Those steps/things can be assigned people or groups that can accomplish them. When you have new standardized process that kicks off then you load a template which is prebuilt with all the structure and workflow to enable you to track it every step of the way. Been a couple years since we migrated away from Trello, but Clickup has a pretty powerful automation system as well that can kick off other things as different milestones are met. While it does allow for some communication to happen within the system it really isn't the core. We run Clickup along side Slack which is just a direct competitor to Teams, they don't really overlap in a meaningful way in my opinion.

We have a 898 unit community that was renovated from a C. We wound up creating 2 separate offices, one for leasing and one for residents. You'll want more on the resident side for the renovation and communicate, communicate, communicate!

I was once at a 826 unit community that was built in the 1990’s. I had 16 employees. Each office employee had a maintenance employee and teamed up in sections. They would walk their sections together weekly or biweekly and issue any violations and enter work orders for common areas. They where also responsible for the renewal process of the apartment homes in their areas, etc.

Make it extremely easy for anyone to communicate an issue to people that will ensure it is handled. If leasing staff notice a violation or something broken, don't burden them down with creating a full work order. A picture/video/text should be all they need to do to kick off the process.

You then need to have a backend process to process all those, but when everyone else who see things, but it isn't their direct area of responsibly, can help you out and not be dragged down into the weeds, then the community in general will stay in better shape. People have their own jobs and are busy doing them, good ones are more than happy to help others but grease their wheels so they can focus on their own jobs.

So I managed 750 for 5 years. We split the property into sections and assigned one maint and one admin. Admin walked their area 1x per week. They made a list for maint and posted notices for lease compliance issues and tagged cars.

Staffing wise, I had two assistants, one focused solely on money, the other on renewals and elevated customer service issues.

Then there was a leasing manager, who managed team and approved files before sending to me for final approval. And lastly, we had a Resident Services Director who focused only on residents! Warm calls. Follow ups, packages, taking work orders, etc.

Everyone knew the order. So if an angry resident came in, we whisked them to res services to free up leasing for leasing. If res services couldn’t resolve issue, it elevated to the assistant manager.

A super strong admin maint sup will help you sooo much- one that can do his own bids, closing out work orders, scheduling, team management, busget control ok maint expenses.

Our admin team also used Google chats. We had separate group chats. One specifically for just file approvals. We were not in a great location, and sometimes could be dangerous. So we Had one for when they left office. If you went on tour, to walks vacant, or on lunch, you commented in the group chat. Then I knew where my team was at all times and I could check on them if they were AWOL too long. (We had issues with homeless hiding in Vacants).

I worked on a property that was 890 units. We had two offices. The first one we had 1 leasing manager, 5, leasing, 1APM, and the PM. All leasing shared all leasing duties, the APM was in charge of processing move outs and collections. In the second office this is where we had a Resident Specialist and accounts receivable. If they were a current resident needing assistance we would direct them to that office.
We had about 6 maintenance including the maintenance manager.
Having a meeting every morning to ensure everyone is on the same page was vital, organization was hugely important, and just making sure your staff is taken care of.