Emily Foster's profile| Property Management | Resident Retention

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My company is looking into revamping our bonus structures for leasing, maintenance and regional manager positions.
a. I’d love to know the current amounts you offer per position/lease/etc.
b. What is your criteria for each?
c. Do you wish you could change it in someway? If so, how?
Thanks all....

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Guest Insider THIS IS AMAZING ELLIE!!! LOVE IT!

Vicki Sharp Great topic, Emily! Here are my thoughts:

Our first priority should be taking great care of the residents we already have, so the first place I would look at revamping is renewal bonuses. With turnover costs soaring, it makes more sense to me to focus on keeping our residents instead of incentivizing new leases. Because of that, I would keep leasing commissions smaller than renewals.

First step, calculate your turnover costs from 2023. Not just the contractor costs, but the hourly costs of your employees, vacancy loss, supplies, and utility expenses. (This will take a bit of work.)

Next, divide that number by the number of move outs in 2023. That will give you an average turnover cost. I have seen reports of this amount varying from $3000 - $6000!

Divide that number in half and that is your bonus amount, which should be split equally among ALL employees, since taking care of residents is everyone's responsibility.

I know this might be a hard sell to the property owners, but do your... Show more

Great topic, Emily!  Here are my thoughts:

Our first priority should be taking great care of the residents we already have, so the first place I would look at revamping is renewal bonuses.  With turnover costs soaring, it makes more sense to me to focus on keeping our residents instead of incentivizing new leases.  Because of that, I would keep leasing commissions smaller than renewals.

First step, calculate your turnover costs from 2023.  Not just the contractor costs, but the hourly costs of your employees, vacancy loss, supplies, and utility expenses.  (This will take a bit of work.)

Next, divide that number by the number of move outs in 2023.  That will give you an average turnover cost.  I have seen reports of this amount varying from $3000 - $6000!

Divide that number in half and that is your bonus amount, which should be split equally among ALL employees, since taking care of residents is everyone's responsibility.

I know this might be a  hard sell  to the property owners, but do your math, and be prepared to demonstrate the actual NOI improvement by reducing the turnover.

Next, for property managers, maintenance supervisors, and regionals, they should have an additional salary percentage bonus based solely on NOI.  One program I really liked was to take the annual percentage and divide it by 5 instead of 4 quarters.  The last 20% is used at the end of the year as a  crawl back opportunity .  For example, if something happens in the second quarter that is out of the control of the PM, say a major pipe break that hits operations instead of CAPEX, they have a chance to crawl back some of the lost bonus amount at the end of the year.  It can also be used as a  great job  kicker if they make NOI all year long.  Same amounts, just split into 5 instead of 4.  Use the same program for the regionals.

Guest Insider This is a great conversation! Thank you for posing the question, Emily.

When I was on the direct PM side, employees were paid for leases and at a higher dollar value for renewals. The amounts varied per team position, but everyone had bonuses available for leases and renewals. The bonuses were confirmed for payout based upon completion of certain campaign duties and educationAl courses.

The education requirement was 85% of specific education goals—and Manager bonuses were dependent upon their meeting this mark AND everyone in their supervision as well—ensuring everyone on the team was given the time to complete their courses and that everyone was being similarly developed.

On the company campaign side (Submetering work, insurance work, some screening duties) all had to be verified for bonuses to be paid as well. Adding these campaign steps to the bonus structure ensured everyone stayed on top of new or on-going campaigns and worked the verification of successful completion of these tasks... Show more

This is a great conversation! Thank you for posing the question, Emily.

When I was on the direct PM side, employees were paid for leases and at a higher dollar value for renewals. The amounts varied per team position, but everyone had bonuses available for leases and renewals. The bonuses were confirmed for payout based upon completion of certain campaign duties  and educationAl courses.

The education requirement was 85% of specific education goals—and Manager bonuses were dependent upon their meeting this mark AND everyone in their supervision as well—ensuring everyone on the team was given the time to complete their courses and that everyone was being similarly developed.

On the company campaign side (Submetering work, insurance work, some screening duties) all had to be verified for bonuses to be paid as well. Adding these campaign steps to the bonus structure ensured everyone stayed on top of new or on-going campaigns and worked the verification of successful completion of these tasks right into the bonus payment process to keep this overall effort streamlined.

Have a great New Year everyone!!

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Emily Foster

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