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The goal of the Property Management Show podcast is to deconstruct business success into its key components and invite subject matter experts to help you improve every facet of your property management business. The topics covered here range from property management marketing, industry innovations, success stories, all the way to general best practices on how to run a successful business enterprise. The podcast creators are Brittany Jones and Marie Liamzon-Tepman from Fourandhalf, Inc – a marketing company that works exclusively with fee-based Property Management companies. Fourandhalf Marketing Agency was established in 2012 and has the best and longest track record for helping property management companies grow. They help with both marketing strategy as well as implementation. Their services include property management website design and SEO, content creation to attract and nurture leads, reputation management, online ads, you name it. Visit fourandhalf.com to learn more.

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September 3, 2026

From Property Manager to Trusted Advisor: How Ping Hsu Nearly Lost His Business and What He Learned

How can nearly losing your business help you shift from one mindset to another? Welcome back to The Property Management Show, where we deep dive into the world of property management, marketing, and entrepreneurship. I’m your host, Marie Tepman from Fourandhalf Marketing Agency. Today, we are joined by Ping Hsu, who has built something really incredible that a lot of people are striving to build. We’re talking about how he got there and what mistakes were made along the way so that we can learn from those for ourselves. PUT TABLE HERE What Did Ping Hsu Think He Was Building? In 2019, when Spotted Properties began working with Fourandhalf, it was a much smaller company. Ping had begun as a real estate investor, and after considering a career in engineering decided that real estate is what he wanted to do long-term. Property management was something that he did on occasion, and he saw it as a way to expand his network. When he could not find the right property manager for his own properties, he combined the real estate and the property management and things grew from there. The recurring income in property management was especially attractive. Spotted Properties grew from about 130 doors in 2019 to around 800 doors today. What happened during that journey? How Can Marketing and Opportunity Help a Property Management Company Expand? Ping says that working with Fourandhalf allowed the company to build a good foundation for marketing. They were ranking in the top three on Google, and their social presence really exploded, which created a lot of demand. Add to that the fact that a few property management companies in Hamilton failed, so new clients were being on-boarded pretty quickly. This led to a larger payroll and a desire to run a more passive business as an owner. As the expansion really took off, it was impossible not to see all the opportunities for mini-businesses. Because Ping was dealing with so many vendors and watching money come in and out, he began to wonder why he was constantly paying all these people. Painting, for example, was something he always had to hire people to do. There was a lot of money spent on waste management. And pest control. Real estate agents. So many of these basic services seemed to be costing him a lot of money, and he wondered if that was money he could earn instead. So Spotted Properties began to internalize those systems. Eventually, sixteen or seventeen employees were on board, as well as a real estate team and a marketing budget, and this is how Ping realized it’s possible to scale a company too fast. He could see that they were spread too thin. When Is It Time to Start Saying No and Focus on Your Core Business? It’s tempting to want to continue adding lines of business. If you have a friend who can spray for pests, it seems easy enough to take on the pest control right? It seems like it’s going to make you more money than paying an outsider. Exiting does not have to be difficult and it does not have to jeopardize your business. Ping began to notice: He was paying technicians to do the work he did not want to pay outside vendors to do, but they did not have full schedules. Yet, he still had to pay them. The math makes sense when those employees are busy all the time (or even 75% of the time). It’s still extra payroll when you’re trying to keep up with three or four businesses and you need to develop ways to keep your employees busy. This was the time to look at the company’s core area of expertise and stick to what they did best. Another temptation? Virtual assistants. Here are the challenges that Ping discovered with VAs: It was hard to find a good fit, especially given the general difference in time zones. It was easy to delegate the things he didn’t want to do, like phone calls and vendor coordination. Quality dropped and everyone got frustrated. Ping stopped and asked himself what his core business was. What was his profession? The answer was pretty simple: property management. He began integrating up instead of integrating down. What does that mean? For Ping and his business, it meant focusing on asset management and doing more than what typically property management companies did. The real estate sales raised capital for the long-term holds. The company began focusing on property management again, but they created an entire ecosystem that fed into the core property management base. How Can Property Managers Position Themselves as Asset Managers and Advisors? In today’s market, it can feel like basic property management is a commodity. Ping says one of the most important things his company did was to stop seeing themselves as property managers. Once he removed that label, the real growth began. Here’s what he did: Began a YouTube channel called Property Hustlers. He talked about how to invest in real estate, which during COVID a lot of people were interested in, thanks to a strong market. Provided education through video on how to acquire properties, how to finance them, and how to manage the operations. Shifting the conversation from how to manage a property to how to plan for additional investments. Beginning conversations on a higher level. There was no longer any space to argue with a client about why a repair is $75 instead of $55. Relationships with investors became more meaningful, and growth was pretty quick. Ping credits something he heard at a Fourandhalf conference, where it was suggested that if every owner you work with added one more door to their portfolio, you’d double your property management business. That made sense to him and it’s why he decided to position the company a little differently. Is it Possible to Double Your Property Management Business? Ping said he did it by talking to owners about new things. They might approach him hoping to discuss their owner statements, and he’d refer them to someone else within the company. What he wanted to discuss was how to save several hundred dollars every month and how to earn $40k to $60k by the end of the year. The conversation shifted and the owners began listening. Introduce me as your mentor. That was Ping’s instruction to the owners he was working with. Not to introduce him as their property manager, but as their real estate investment mentor. “He’s been walking me through how to increase my portfolio.” “You should talk to Ping for more advice.” It took a year to fully shift his identity from property manager to investment advisor. It’s not that Ping has neglected the property management part of his business. He has well-trained staff taking care of the day to day and when investors buy their new properties, they understand that he has a role in how they’re managed. But he created his own brand, eXP Real Estate, to separate himself from the owner statements and the leasing and the tenants and to focus more on the long-term strategies of owners who listen to his advice. Once he created this separation, everything changed. Does Video Content Really Make a Difference? Ping says that it does. When he was making YouTube videos, he could create educational conversations for specific things that owners might be thinking about, and then he’d send those videos to them. Maybe it’s a video on how to stabilize a portfolio or how to offload a property that’s not performing. He could control the narrative. As he stuck with this new approach, he found it was eventually easier to raise capital and that he was doing more transactions within the same client audience. Good things take time. Trial and error also takes time. It’s hard to remember this when you’re growing your property management business, but it’s an important lesson. Who Are the Owner Leads that Mean the Most? The shift Ping implemented in his own business meant a shift in the owners he wanted to work with at Spotted Properties. Only two types of portfolios are their targets: student rentals and multifamily properties. These are the owners he looks for. Student rentals are a great niche because the turnover timing is so predictable. This is something Fourandhalf has always talked about: identify the properties and the owners that fit your business model and your target margins. When you’re just starting out, it makes sense to take on any property that needs to be managed. You don’t yet know what the good fit might be. For example, Ping thought Airbnbs would be a good idea. He tested out three or four Airbnb properties and knew it was not going to work for him going forward. What Can We Learn About How Ping and His Partner Created Property Hustlers? Some questions Marie had about how Ping and his business partner Andrew created the Property Hustlers YouTube channel and brand: How did Ping prepare the team for this shift? Was the Spotted Properties team completely outside of this endeavor? Were there any conversations had? Did processes change to account for this new approach? Ping said he and Andrew were intentional about hiring people smarter than them when it came to understanding property management. That increased the cost of talent but it also meant they (Ping and Andrew) could also remove themselves from a lot of the day to day work. Turns out the team was more than happy to get them out of the way. Now, that team had the authority they needed to make the property management part of the business really work well. Why does it matter that the staff is happy? It creates employee retention. Efficiency and trust increase. It keeps clients happy. They know they’re working with a good company when they’re dealing with the same people year after year. How Has Marketing Evolved in this Growth Story? Ping’s property management company successfully showed up in the top three hits for Hamilton, Ontario on Google, thanks to the blogs they were writing and the SEO-driven website. Reviews were coming in, too, and despite a few bad reviews (there are always a few), his Google review stars were at about 4.4. Then, he shut down Google reviews. Why? They stopped using a phone line, hoping to move entirely online, and Ping knew that was going to create some frustration with tenants. He didn’t want to open himself up to a lot of bad reviews all at once. They weren’t trying to grow their property management business. A natural progression was what they were after, but there was no interest in adding another hundred doors or more. They’re back to working on marketing specifically for student rentals, using Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) to attract new leads in the student rental space. Right now, they’re working with about 140 owners on around 800 doors. That’s counting each student tenant as their own door. Operational Questions: How Can Property Managers Create this Kind of Vertical Integration? Marie and Ping have talked about where he started and what he’s built. How can other property management companies learn from this? Here’s what Ping suggests: Communication. Start by creating a different domain for communication. As the company owner, you want to reduce the communication you’re doing on the things that aren’t as important. You don’t want to be responding to complaints. Team Building. You have to trust your team to solve those problems and deal with those complaints. Establish Scope. Map out what you’re doing and what your team is doing. If you have the right talent, you can back away from all the notifications that you don’t actually need. Hire Smart. Look for the people who impress you right away. This is what Ping learned; the three-month probation period shouldn’t necessarily be that long. He knew within a week that his leasing manager was going to be amazing. Good talent will want to do more. They’ll want to grow. Is it really this easy? Not always. Mistakes can be made. Ping’s first hire had access to his credit card and that’s how Ping lost $90,000 in one year. He almost gave up on the business entirely. The employee had a gambling issue that no one knew about. The lesson? You can’t just trust people blindly. Trust the employees who have proven that they are trustworthy. With $90,000 gone, Ping wasn’t sure he’d be able to meet his payroll obligations and it felt like he would lose the business. Instead, he shoveled some snow. He and his girlfriend, who is now his wife, shoveled snow at his properties during a particularly snowy winter and saved some money and made the necessary ends meet. What is the GWC Hiring Framework? Get. Want. Capacity. That’s how Ping hires. The person gets the job. Does the person want the job? Is there enthusiasm? Initiative? Does the person have the capacity to do the work that’s needed? People can always be trained when they have the initiative. When local companies were shutting down and Spotted Properties was taking on a lot of new business, Ping knew he had to hire strategically and he also knew he didn’t know how to do that yet. That’s how this framework was created. How Can Property Managers Approach Owners as a Coach or an Asset Adviser? We’ve established that the real estate advising and the coaching feeds the property management business. But how to begin this conversation with owners? Ping says his script was simple. It went something like: “Hey John, now that your property is fully stabilized, what’s the plan? What’s your plan for the next couple of years? What do you want to do with your real estate portfolio?” They start talking about their vision, their dream outcome, which is, usually that they’d like to get a few more properties so they don’t have to work so hard. Or: “Now that we have Madison dealing with the tenant issue or a paralegal taking care of the eviction through the Tenant Board, how are you feeling?” They’ll usually be feeling ready to grow once they’ve seen their problem resolved. And that’s how the conversation opens up. Ping is willing to be honest in his conversations, and that includes talking about mistakes he’s made and situations that didn’t go as planned. Owners can use this transparency to avoid their own mistakes. And the vulnerability makes him easy to trust. People can relate to failures. You’re likely wondering: is there a fee for the expertise that Ping and Andrew provide? For owners and investors who belong to the Property Hustlers community, there’s a fee for one-on-one coaching. Plenty of free resources are available and Ping is happy to have owners learn from that information. And the property management business and education platform feed revenue to each other. We’re going to have Ping come back and talk to us about how he continues to evolve. Specifically, with the help of AI. You don’t want to miss that conversation, where we’ll talk about how you leverage AI to make your property management operation leaner and more efficient, which will free you up to do more things like this. Contact us at Fourandhalf if you have any questions about property management marketing or this discussion with Ping Hsu. var gform;gform||(document.addEventListener("gform_main_scripts_loaded",function(){gform.scriptsLoaded=!0}),document.addEventListener("gform/theme/scripts_loaded",function(){gform.themeScriptsLoaded=!0}),window.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){gform.domLoaded=!0}),gform={domLoaded:!1,scriptsLoaded:!1,themeScriptsLoaded:!1,isFormEditor:()=>"function"==typeof InitializeEditor,callIfLoaded:function(o){return!(!gform.domLoaded||!gform.scriptsLoaded||!gform.themeScriptsLoaded&&!gform.isFormEditor()||(gform.isFormEditor()&&console.warn("The use of gform.initializeOnLoaded() is deprecated in the form editor context and will be removed in Gravity Forms 3.1."),o(),0))},initializeOnLoaded:function(o){gform.callIfLoaded(o)||(document.addEventListener("gform_main_scripts_loaded",()=>{gform.scriptsLoaded=!0,gform.callIfLoaded(o)}),document.addEventListener("gform/theme/scripts_loaded",()=>{gform.themeScriptsLoaded=!0,gform.callIfLoaded(o)}),window.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",()=>{gform.domLoaded=!0,gform.callIfLoaded(o)}))},hooks:{action:{},filter:{}},addAction:function(o,r,e,t){gform.addHook("action",o,r,e,t)},addFilter:function(o,r,e,t){gform.addHook("filter",o,r,e,t)},doAction:function(o){gform.doHook("action",o,arguments)},applyFilters:function(o){return gform.doHook("filter",o,arguments)},removeAction:function(o,r){gform.removeHook("action",o,r)},removeFilter:function(o,r,e){gform.removeHook("filter",o,r,e)},addHook:function(o,r,e,t,n){null==gform.hooks[o][r]&&(gform.hooks[o][r]=[]);var d=gform.hooks[o][r];null==n&&(n=r+"_"+d.length),gform.hooks[o][r].push({tag:n,callable:e,priority:t=null==t?10:t})},doHook:function(r,o,e){var t;if(e=Array.prototype.slice.call(e,1),null!=gform.hooks[r][o]&&((o=gform.hooks[r][o]).sort(function(o,r){return o.priority-r.priority}),o.forEach(function(o){"function"!=typeof(t=o.callable)&&(t=window[t]),"action"==r?t.apply(null,e):e[0]=t.apply(null,e)})),"filter"==r)return e[0]},removeHook:function(o,r,t,n){var e;null!=gform.hooks[o][r]&&(e=(e=gform.hooks[o][r]).filter(function(o,r,e){return!!(null!=n&&n!=o.tag||null!=t&&t!=o.priority)}),gform.hooks[o][r]=e)}}); Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 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July 20, 202641 min

Portfolio vs. Departmental: Which One is a Better Property Management Team Structure?

Which structure works best for a property management business: Departmental or Portfolio? This is a topic that can be pretty polarizing in the industry. Welcome back to The Property Management Show, where we deep dive into the world of property management, marketing, and entrepreneurship. Today, we’re talking with two prominent property management business owners in Central Florida. Welcome to Maryann Hoffman and Andrew Dougill of Hoffman Realty and David and Stacy Wilson of Wilson Management Group. These experts are talking about the structures they’ve adopted and offering some advice to property management owners who have not yet decided on how they want to organize their businesses. td {vertical-align: top; border:1px solid #eee;} li {font-size:15px;} .clean-td {border-bottom:none;} Podcast Summary Each type of management structure has its pros and cons. For property management companies that are about to build out their own structure, they need to think about the things they like to do and don’t like to do. Deciding what works best will require flexibility. Processes and systems are often more foundational than how a property management company is organized. Guest Bios: Hoffman Realty Andrew and MaryAnn Hoffman are the founders and principals of Hoffman Realty, bringing decades of leadership and experience to the Tampa Bay property management industry. MaryAnn, a licensed real estate broker, entered the industry in 1983 and established Hoffman Realty in 1988 with a clear vision: to deliver personalized, high-quality service to small residential investors. In 2000, Andrew, then Vice President of Engineering at TECO Energy, joined the firm to lead business operations, aligning his background as a long-time real estate investor and landlord with the company’s mission. Together, they have built a 38+ year track record of supporting residential investors throughout the Tampa Bay area and currently oversee a portfolio of approximately 450 managed properties. Hoffman Realty’s continued success is rooted in a disciplined operational approach and a strong commitment to client service, with MaryAnn remaining actively involved in day-to-day oversight to ensure every client receives personal attention, and no property owner is overlooked. Both Andrew and MaryAnn are deeply engaged in the professional community. Andrew is an active member of Suncoast Tampa Area Realtors (STAR), the Bay Area Apartment Association, and the Tampa Bay Chapter of NARPM. He has served as Property Management Chair for Greater Tampa REALTORS®, is a member of the STAR Government Affairs and Property Management Committees, a former Tampa Bay NARPM Board member, and currently serves as Tampa Bay NARPM Legislative Chair—advocating for landlord-tenant policy at both the state and national levels. Wilson Management Group Wilson Management Group was founded in Orlando in 1986 and has been family-owned and operated ever since. David Wilson obtained his Real Estate Salesperson’s license in 1993 and began working for WMG as a property manager. In 2005, he obtained his Real Estate Broker’s license and gradually transitioned into overseeing all day-to-day business operations. David, and his wife, Stacy, purchased the business from his parents in 2014, and they run it together with their fantastic team. They are active members of NARPM (National Association of Residential Property Managers). David has been a member since the Orlando/Central Florida chapter was formed in 1995. They are passionate about keeping Florida a landlord-friendly state, for the benefit of their current and future clients. They participate every year with NARPM in annual legislative summits both in Tallahassee, FL and Washington, DC, advocating for the rights of landlords here in Florida. What Do Successful Central Florida Property Management Companies Look Like? Let’s take a look at who we’re talking to today: Hoffman Realty is based in the Tampa Bay Area. They serve communities as far north as State Route 54 and as far south as Apollo Beach and Wimauma. They’re a departmental structure and have about 450 companies under management. Wilson Management Group is in Orlando. They’re a portfolio style management company and serve all of Orange and Seminole Counties, with part of Lake County, Volusia County, and Osceola County within their scope. They also manage about 450 doors. How Do These Structures Differ? At the NARPM Broker/Owner Conference this year, Matthew Tringali of BetterWho presented a framework called The Team Structure Checklist, which highlighted the fundamental differences between each business structure. Here’s what Maryann reported from that event: Departmental Structure. Most people are in the office and available for phone calls, answering questions, and serving more specialized areas of expertise. There’s one person managing inspections for all properties and another person managing the accounting or the leasing. One point of contact takes care of customer service. There are property management departments. Portfolio structures would have one professional with a portfolio of 75 to 125 properties and they handle everything. The entire experience of that property is under their purview, whether we’re talking about maintenance or leasing or tenant management. The primary point of contact is the property manager overseeing the portfolio. Does the Company Structure Impact Quality of Service? When we talk about departmental vs. portfolio structures, is it merely an internal operational decision that owners don’t notice, or are there differences in how service is delivered and perceived? It depends. When we talk about portfolio models, we’re often talking about companies that cover a larger geographic area, and to expand the business portfolio is necessary. Departmental structures work better for smaller service areas. Both structures can provide excellent client experiences. This depends on policies and procedures and how effectively and consistently the company can apply those. It also depends on staff. A leasing agent having a bad day in a departmental structure will not affect an owner who calls to talk about accounting. But in a portfolio structure, the property manager may be having a bad day, and that can affect any owner who calls for help. The answer to high-quality service delivery in either structure? Having strong systems. Which Model is More Scalable for Property Management Companies? Property management companies may want to know if one type of company can support growth better than the other, but the answer comes down to company goals and vision. Portfolio property management companies are geographically based. Each property manager has a portfolio that they manage, and the properties assigned are based on maintaining boundaries geographically. There’s always a bit of overlap, but it’s not going to work to have property managers crossing counties while trying to provide great service. David and Stacy want their property managers to concentrate on their portfolios to the best of their ability. So from an expansion perspective, portfolio works for management companies that want to grow geographically. It’s possible to add another property manager when new doors are added in different neighborhoods or cities. Departmental management companies grow best within a tight service area. Maryann and Andrew note that their employees go home at night without being on call for owners or tenants who might need them (Maryann hands out her cell phone for that purpose). The point is to have good property managers who communicate well with existing clients before growing. A new client joined Hoffman Realty because he had not heard from his previous property manager for three months. It turned out his assigned manager had left the company, but no one there had told him. In each business structure, growth is only possible with good systems, clear assignment of duties, and smart staff. What Are Some of the Weaknesses in Portfolio and Departmental Property Management Structures? What if a tenant doesn’t pay rent? What if there are complaints that repairs are taking too much time? What if a key property manager leaves the company? Portfolio The main challenge for portfolio companies is the loss of that knowledge and expertise when a property anger leaves. And it’s also important to be clear about who owns the client. In a portfolio system, you would not want a property manager to leave your company and take your clients with them. Property management is a relationship business. Internal controls are needed no matter what your structure. You will need: Management agreements Independent contractor agreements (this is how Wilson hires) Policies and procedures David and Stacy have done a great job of mitigating risk and establishing that clients belong to the company, not the property manager. Most of the professionals working for them have been with the company for over 15 years. Departmental For departmental companies, it can be a challenge to juggle all the repairs. It requires a lot of time management to negotiate every single lease renewal. Things come up and Maryann and Andrew must decide when the limits of their system have been reached and it’s time to hire another person. Another weakness in departmental businesses is that sometimes owners and landlords can feel passed around from one person to another. They’re talking to someone different about maintenance and accounting, for example. As the Business Development Manager, Maryann makes sure she is the point of contact for any struggles owners may encounter. There are lots of questions when they’re being onboarded, but once the path is clear, things settle quickly. How Are Florida Property Management Companies Unique? The housing collapse in 2008. COVID eviction moratoriums. Massive hurricanes. Post-pandemic pricing surges. Major relocation of new residents into Florida. Major insurance crisis. Florida management companies have been through a lot. How does each business structure approach these elements that are unique to Florida property management? Andrew said that for Hoffman Realty, the 2008 crisis was one of the worst to manage. There had just been a huge boom and prices were high. Then, the market crashed and people who had no intention of being landlords found themselves renting out homes when they could not sell.That included a lot of private equity firms.Maryann remembers a meeting with a huge company that was planning to buy hundreds of properties in 2010. It was exciting at first; the idea that they would get so much business. But the geographic area covered seven counties. Hoffman Realty would have had to change their entire operation in order to accommodate that management contract. For Stacy and David, the COVID pandemic and hurricanes are particularly memorable.During the pandemic, people did not want to leave their homes but they needed to see properties. At that time, video walk-throughs were not common, but they quickly became necessary. They could not imagine doing without video tours, now. Property management companies in Florida have to adapt to manage these crises.In 2004, there were three different hurricanes that hit the Orlando region in a span of three weeks, including the very powerful Hurricane Charlie. That storm took out the power to the Wilson Management Group office for two and a half weeks. But they still had to operate. Trees were down everywhere and property managers could not use phones or email. This was long before the technology we have today. David was grateful that they had planned ahead and printed out what they needed and were able to physically check on their properties. Diving Deeper into Hurricanes: How Do Business Structures Respond? More recently, after Hurricanes Milton and Helene in 2024, Hoffman Realty had three pages of roof repairs that their properties needed. This is how the departmental process served them: One person was in charge of roofs. Another person was in charge of fence repairs. Another handled mold remediation. Separate people were assigned to insurance adjusters. Staff members were calling tenants to ask about any damage. It was a mess, Maryann said, but everything was departmentalized already. As a portfolio-based company, David and Stacy would have their property managers check in with tenants, first. In the first few days after a hurricane, roads were dangerous. There were no stop lights and trees were down across town. Before putting their property managers in any kind of situation where they had to go out and put eyes on a property, they’d ask their tenants for reports. Instead of conducting 30 inspections a month, their property managers were eventually conducting about 30 per day. What is the Relationship Between Team Structure and Company Size? Is there a size where one specific structure makes more sense than the other? It may not matter. Regardless of the business model a Management company has, there is some level of overlap into different sorts of business models no matter what. Some companies have a pod style, with senior and junior managers and they have coordinators in that pod. Andrew and Maryann have a departmental business which is similar. In the Wilson portfolio structure, property managers still have back-office support for accounting and leases. Overlap should be expected. Scaling any of those structures can be challenging. For portfolio companies, property managers are geographically aligned, so if there is a burst of new properties that come under management, how are they assigned when all of the existing property managers are at capacity? How Do Property Managers Know Which Structure is Right for Their Company? Maybe you’re a smaller company at 50 to 100 doors, and you have to decide whether to form a portfolio or department company structure. What clues should you be looking for that might tell you which path is the best? Andrew says that if you’re growing from a one-person show to a larger company, you’ll realize you need help, and you should delegate the tasks you don’t like to do. Maybe you like leasing and talking to landlords but you don’t like coordinating maintenance. That maintenance supervisor should be your first hire. Stacy and David advise to be prepared for one thing: systems will break down as you grow. Whether you gravitate towards departmental or portfolio or something else, you’ll have to pivot or adjust at some point. You might start off with one model and pivot to the other. Try to anticipate where the break might occur. If you can see it coming, you can prevent it. How Can AI and Technology be Used? Thanks to automation and AI, it’s possible to do more with fewer people. With the help of technology, property management owners know that they can focus more on relationships. And remember that AI is able to do a lot of things, but it can’t just be plugged into a property management business. Automating something that is broken will just allow mistakes to be made faster. We’re saying it again: processes and procedures are essential. Deploying AI will not magically fix problems. Will Owners Care about Company Structure when Choosing a Property Management Partner? Hopefully, clients will ask deeper questions about how your business functions. How are applicants screened? How quickly does the staff handle maintenance? How and when will my residents get solutions to their problems? These are the things that help determine how efficient a property management business is. Company structure is rarely a part of the interview. Property managers trying to earn new business will want to clarify with the property owners and investors what the long-term financial goals are. That may play into how they decide what kind of company they hire. But that may not have to do with structure; it may have more to do with the perspective of the business and how they manage. What Are the Last Words from Hoffman Realty and Wilson Management Group? Here’s what our guests want to leave you with: Loving what you do is a big part of success. Start off with strong systems and get those down before growing a property management company. Owning investment real estate is great. If you’re starting off, keep moving forward. How can you connect with our fantastic guests today? Connect with Maryann and Andrew from Hoffman Realty at http://hoffmanrealty.com/ Connect with Stacy and David from Wilson Management Group at https://www.wilsonmanagementgroup.com/about Thanks for joining us on The Property Management Show. If you have any thoughts about what we’ve discussed, please contact us at Fourandhalf. Email This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 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October 9, 202529 min

Google Ads for Property Managers: Expert Insights from Maddie Lushington

Google Ads can be a powerful growth engine for residential property management marketing. But for many business owners, it’s also a source of frustration. Misconceptions, unrealistic expectations, and the complexity of campaign management often leave property managers saying, “Google Ads just doesn’t work for me.” On The Property Management Show podcast, Google Ads expert Maddie Lushington shared candid insights from her five years of running Google Ads campaigns for property managers across North America. Her stories reveal why some campaigns fail, what realistic success looks like, and how property managers can avoid common pitfalls when marketing to property owners. Why Property Managers Struggle with Google Ads Many property managers walk into Google Ads expecting instant results: a certain number of leads, a specific cost per door, or guaranteed outcomes based on what a peer mentioned at a conference. Maddie has seen this play out countless times. I also recalled overhearing property managers comparing results over lunch at an industry event. One person bragged about generating dozens of leads in Florida, while another lamented that ads never worked for them in a smaller market. On the surface, these conversations sound like benchmarks. In reality, they’re stories shaped by geography, competition, and budget. Comparing success in Florida to a rural town in Arkansas is like comparing apples to oranges. The market dictates what’s possible. This misconception — that performance can be copy-pasted from one market to another — is one of the biggest reasons property managers feel let down by ads. What Defines Success in Google Ads Campaigns for Property Managers Beyond Cost Per Lead Leads and cost per lead remain the metrics everyone talks about, but Maddie encouraged property managers to widen their definition of success. Impressions and clicks reveal whether your brand is showing up consistently. More importantly, looking closely at the type of clicks matters just as much as the number. Owner Leads vs. Tenant Clicks This is where nuance comes in. Owners and tenants often use almost identical search terms. That means even the most carefully crafted campaigns will capture some tenant clicks. Maddie was quick to point out that this isn’t a failure — it’s simply the nature of how search works. Her team’s role is to constantly refine campaigns to keep the balance tilted toward owner leads. She stressed the importance of daily click volume as a leading indicator. If a campaign generates five to ten clicks a day, we know we’re creating enough opportunities for owner leads to come through. Not every click will be perfect, but the math starts working in your favor. Can You Trust AI Tools for Google Ads in Property Management? Automation and AI sound appealing. Google has rolled out tools that promise to “optimize” campaigns with little human input. But Maddie and I both warned against over-reliance on AI in property management marketing, and here’s why: The Nuance Problem You Can’t Ignore I put it plainly during the interview: “Google has now shifted from purely keywords to intent.” That sounds great until you remember that intent is slippery. Intent is a very nuanced thing, which robots find it hard to master. In property management, that nuance cuts deep. Owners and tenants search with similar phrases. Maddie sees this daily: “Tenants and owners actually search very similarly…[and] the AI isn’t nuanced enough to… know the difference… between the owner that we want and the tenant that we don’t.” Google’s shift from keywords to intent has been one of the biggest changes in recent years. If you want a deeper dive into how Google’s constant updates affect property management marketing, check out our blog on what property managers need to know about Google’s latest updates . When AI Goes Wrong in Google Ads Maddie shared a story that perfectly illustrates why human oversight matters. During a routine review of a campaign, she noticed something bizarre: Google’s AI tools had injected Latin placeholder text — lorem ipsum — into live ad copy. In another case, the AI mistakenly expanded a campaign targeting vacation property management into keywords for vacation activities. This meant ads meant to capture property owners would start showing up for people searching “things to do on a trip.” Without human intervention, those wasted clicks could have drained hundreds of dollars from a campaign. The lesson? Automation can support you, but it cannot replace human strategy — especially in an industry as nuanced as property management marketing. Google Ads Budget for Property Managers: A Reality Check Perhaps the most sobering part of Maddie’s interview was her explanation of budget math. Many property managers believe that $500 a month should guarantee a couple of new doors. The truth is far less straightforward. Breaking Down the Numbers A $500 monthly budget equals roughly $16.50 per day. With an average cost per click of $5.50, that leaves room for just three clicks a day. If those clicks come early in the morning, the campaign stops showing for the rest of the day. That means potential owner leads searching later in the afternoon never even see your ad. Competitive Keywords Cost More In some markets, clicks for high-intent keywords like “property management company near me” can cost $20–$30 each. Removing them might save money, but it also risks cutting off the very leads property managers want most. The art lies in balancing expensive keywords with more affordable ones while keeping the campaign productive. Why Long-Term Thinking Matters in Property Management Marketing Another trap Maddie sees is obsessing over monthly lead numbers. Property management, like many industries, is seasonal. Summer brings a surge of activity as leases turn over, while the holidays often slow things down. One “bad month” doesn’t mean a campaign is failing. Maddie encourages clients to focus on year-to-date averages. If the cost per lead stays close to the $300 benchmark across the year, a quiet December doesn’t negate a strong July. It’s about the bigger picture. Consistency over time, not perfection every month, is the goal. Why Reputation Shapes Google Ads Performance Even the best-crafted ad doesn’t operate in isolation. Maddie described the buyer’s journey for a typical property owner: they click an ad, skim the landing page, and then — almost always — Google the company name. At that point, reviews and online reputation heavily influence the decision. Sometimes, it’s not just about the reviews you currently have. It’s also about proactively making sure tenant frustrations don’t spill over into your online reputation. Maddie wrote a full blog on how property managers can prevent negative tenant reviews that’s worth a read if you’re looking to strengthen your reputation before investing more in ads. Owners are likely to reverse their decision to call a company after spotting a low star rating or too many negative reviews. This is why she emphasizes pairing Google Ads with reputation management and lead nurturing campaigns. Ads are often the first handshake, but trust is built through reviews, follow-ups, and consistent visibility. Your reputation is part of the larger customer journey, influencing whether property owners move forward with you or not. We break this down in detail in our blog on online reputation and the customer journey for property management companies . The Future of Google Ads in Property Management Looking ahead, Maddie believes the biggest challenge will be rising costs. As more companies enter the market, competition drives up the cost per click. For residential property managers, this means budgets need to stretch further, and campaigns must be managed with even more precision. Still, she’s optimistic: “If you have the right strategy in place, you have the right audience, you have an appropriate budget, you’re A/B testing regularly, you’re doing maintenance, Google Ads is so effective.” Should You DIY Google Ads or Hire an Expert? Running ads in-house may seem like a way to save money, but Maddie’s stories show the risks: wasted spend, missed opportunities, and costly AI mishaps. Another challenge Maddie and I discussed was targeting investor landlords. On paper, “investor” sounds like a great keyword, but in practice, it’s loaded with spam. Search terms around “real estate investors” often pull in schemes, courses, or people looking to flip houses rather than serious rental property owners. A lot of keywords related to investments are associated with scams and spam. That makes it tough to use investor-related keywords without wasting budget, which is why campaigns need constant refinement to filter out irrelevant clicks. For property managers serious about getting more owner leads, working with a marketing partner who understands the property management industry provides not just technical expertise but also peace of mind. FAQs About Google Ads for Property Managers How much should property managers spend on Google Ads? It’s entirely location-dependent and we recommend doing keyword research to see what the average cost per click is in your area. Make sure that your budget is high enough to generate 5–10 clicks per day. Smaller budgets can work in rare, low-competition markets, but they often run out early in the day. Do Google Ads really work for property management companies? Yes — when set up correctly. Google Ads helps property managers appear when rental property owners and investors are actively searching for help. Success depends on targeting, budget, landing pages, and follow-up. How do I avoid getting tenant clicks on my property management ads? You can’t avoid them entirely because tenants and owners search with similar terms. The solution is using negative keywords, refining campaigns regularly, and creating owner-focused landing pages to improve lead quality. Should I manage Google Ads myself or hire an agency? While DIY is possible, most property managers lose money through wasted clicks and missed targeting. Partnering with a marketing agency that specializes in property management marketing ensures your ads are optimized for getting more owner leads. About Fourandhalf Fourandhalf Marketing Agency helps property managers like you get more owner leads through marketing — whether you need help with your website, SEO, online reputation, paid advertising, email marketing, social media, or video and blog content. Basically, everything you need to attract and convert more owners, all in one place. X/Twitter This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. First Name (Required) Last Name (Required) Email (Required) Phone (Required) Company Name Comments or Questions This field is hidden when viewing the form Date Submit The post Google Ads for Property Managers: Expert Insights from Maddie Lushington appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers .

June 26, 202518 min

Maximize Property Management Revenue Part 3: Educating Owners and the Misuse of AI

The Property Management Show returns with Part 3 of Marie Tepman’s discussion with Todd Ortscheid, which builds off the earlier discussions of fee-maxing and choosing the right revenue model. In the conclusion of this series, we focus on the importance of education when it comes to property management marketing, and how to use AI to boost productivity without losing the human touch. Property Management Marketing Starts with Content Marketing To someone who does not know the property management industry, the idea that a company like Fourandhalf would market exclusively to property management companies seems incredibly niche. But, the industry is big. And, the majority of rentals in America are not even managed professionally. Marie was shocked to learn that 10 years ago when she first got started in property management marketing, and perhaps even more shocking is that this is still true today. Ten years later, many rentals are still not professionally managed. This tells us that education continues to be necessary. It has to come first. Property managers can educate landlords that there’s value in hiring a professional management team for their rentals. Not only does it save time and prevent errors, they can make more money. A lot of self-managing landlords, as you know, don’t want to pay someone a percentage of their rent. But, that’s because they often don’t realize that a professional will help them earn more money, not only when it comes to rental pricing, but also with expertise and even the ancillary fees we’ve been discussing. Education is an under-rated part of marketing. It’s not just having a well-trafficked website and running digital ads. Those strategies help to capture the bottom of the sales funnel by reaching the people who already know what a property manager does. They’re making decisions based on prices, services, and other specifics. They know what they’re looking for. But what about the landlords and the property owners who don’t know? There’s an opportunity to capture the people who are looking for solutions. They might be having a tough time managing their own property. They’re looking for help, for answers, and for other options. Those are the customers who will make decisions based on the criteria your educational marketing has taught them to use. Investing in the Marketing that Matters Todd understands the need for educational marketing and has become so successful at it that he went on to bigger and better automation programs. He outgrew the basic marketing principles that he learned when Fourandhalf was helping him make marketing videos 10 years ago. He has some advice to the property managers who are small and strapped for cash and maybe afraid to spend money on marketing. Todd also works with a lot of clients who don’t have $10,000 a month to spend on marketing. He tells those clients that the educational component works. It was true 10 years ago when everyone was talking about content marketing and the benefit of education. And, it’s true today. Look at Marc Cunningham and his company, Grace Property Management. There is video after video after video on that website, and they spend 1 percent of their budget on marketing. That’s it. Anyone can do that. Once you start getting all that educational material out there, you’ve become the trusted source. When someone in your market looks for an answer to a question, you’re there providing it. Todd says a blog he wrote 10 years ago on screening pets is still one of the most-viewed pieces of content on the website. This blog gets tons of traffic. Why? Because there’s always going to be a landlord in Atlanta who had a bad experience with a tenant’s pet, so they will go looking for information on how to screen pets. And, Todd’s website pops up. The site provides educational information to the person who needs help, and they get value out of it. And once they’re there, they are likely to see other videos and other educational content. All of this leads to trust. They trust the information and the expert providing that information. This means that even if they don’t pull the trigger today, when a tenant leaves at the end of the year and that owner doesn’t want to go through the whole leasing and marketing and screening process again, they’ll come back to that great video they watched and they’ll find the source. Spending just a little money gets you to the point that you’re building revenue. Then, when you have the budget to spend $10,000 a month on marketing, you can do other things. Content marketing gets you to the point where you can spend more on marketing later. It Was Video Then. And It’s Video Now. Ten years ago, we were talking about videos and how important they were to content marketing. Fourandhalf was writing blogs on the power of content and education. It’s all still true today, and it’s all still important today. The difference is that 10 years ago, not everyone was writing blogs and making videos. If you were doing it, you were winning…no matter what the quality of those blogs and videos happened to be. Now, with every property manager in your market publishing a blog, yours have to be the best. The top property managers are doing video. The secret to property management marketing is video. The best way to set yourself apart and increase ROI is video. That’s not going to change. As with blog, the video has to be better now because more and more property managers are using video to market their companies. AI has, of course, opened up this type of marketing to a lot more people, too. AI can write blogs. AI can create a video with an avatar. But, you can do better than that. As a property manager with real expertise and value to provide, do you want to settle for the blog that AI spits out or the avatar that isn’t you on a video? Todd’s Take on Tech AI lets us do all these things, and that makes authenticity more important when it comes to marketing. You have to be the property manager that an owner will trust with the keys of their biggest asset. Todd says he loves tech. He always tells people that the purpose of this technology isn’t to replace the high level stuff that can only be done by humans. The tech’s purpose is to make it easier for property managers to do the important tasks and provide the important service. Instead of replacing yourself with an avatar, get AI to do the easy stuff. When you do that, you can record the customer-based video and spend some time building trust. Use the tech to create time for customer account reviews, video marketing, and everything that has real value and can bring in more customers for your business. The value of AI is not to replace your maintenance coordinator or to record all your videos. People can tell when you try to pull that off. The whole purpose of video is to build that trust and to make yourself be the expert. If you replace yourself with code, that’s not doing anything. No one trusts a computer. Remember when Marie talked to Marc Cunningham about AI being like cake? You can make a cake from scratch. You can buy a cake from a store. Or, you can buy a cake mix and make it your own. When it comes to content, you don’t have to start from scratch. But you do have to make it your own. Don’t Be Afraid to Get Started We covered a lot in this series with Todd, and what he wants you to take away is this: Don’t be afraid to get started. Don’t avoid revenue-maxing just because you’re afraid you’ll get pushback. Don’t be afraid to record a video just because you’re afraid of being on camera. Don’t be afraid to start. You can start small and keep it manageable. If you don’t know how to start, talk to a property manager who has been doing this. Work with Fourandhalf or with Todd. There are resources to support you. This wraps up our three-part series. Hopefully, you now have extra clarity around revenue-maxing, profits, retention, marketing, and AI. Sign up for Todd’s Property Assist Substack newsletter, and now that you know how to earn that extra margin, turn that money into real owner leads that are a great fit for your business by contacting us at Fourandhalf. Facebook This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. First Name (Required) Last Name (Required) Email (Required) Phone (Required) Company Name Comments or Questions This field is hidden when viewing the form Date Submit The post Maximize Property Management Revenue Part 3: Educating Owners and the Misuse of AI appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers .

June 12, 202524 min

Maximize Property Management Revenue Part 2: Churn, Lifetime Value, and Legislation

Most property-management owners focus on adding new doors, or, they’re just concerned with reputation management and they don’t feel like they need to grow their business. But, they ignore the cause of lost revenue and lower customer lifetime values: annual churn that quietly erodes 20–25 % of portfolios. You probably don’t realize just how big your churn rate is. Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation with Todd Ortscheid, CEO of Revolution Rental Management. In this part of our series, we are talking about real world churn rates for property managers, how boosting your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can elevate your property management company and give you the budget necessary to effectively market your services, and some of the most threatening legislation and regulation around fee-maxing. How Much Are You Really Losing? Getting Honest About Churn Any industry report you read will show you that property managers can expect to lose doors every month and every year. Even if you’re doing a perfect job, your owners are going to sell their properties. They’re going to die. They might change their minds. Todd says that when asked to estimate churn, many managers guess that their churn rate is around five percent. But really, most property managers are losing 20–25 % of their doors every year. The latest NARPM® benchmarking guide says the average churn is at 20%, and Todd says that property management companies that can bring that loss down to around 10% can feel really good about what they’re achieving. Some property managers might think that they’re not losing money on churn because they’ve helped one of their owners sell a property. That’s great. There are commission earnings to be made. But, they’ve lost the recurring revenue. Never underestimate what you’re losing to churn, and even though it’s surprisingly difficult, try to bring that churn rate a bit lower. When sales are intense, churn rates will jump. Be prepared. Increasing Customer Lifetime Value When you have responsible ancillary fees in place, you’re earning extra cash to invest into better services. Better services reduce your churn and increase your customer lifetime value. Where should those extra earnings be spent? We discussed this a bit in part one of our conversation: Marketing. Each new door now yields twice the ROI, making pay-per-click (PPC) or content marketing an easy investment. Better services. Upgrade what you can provide. This might be a 24/7 maintenance line, leasing automation, and a resident-benefit package (RBP). These things are increasingly expected by tenants. Fee-Maxing Myths and The Triple-Win Model Fee-maxing means charging more money from tenants. Won’t that lead to tenant churn? If you’re taking more money from residents, the property manager and the owner have better returns, but won’t residents leave, thus increasing an owner’s vacancy rate? That’s a fear not a fact. Properly structured fees don’t drive tenants away. Most ancillary charges are behavior-based or have opt-in requirements. Late fees and bounced check fees and credit-contingency fees are behavior-based. Only the tenant can prevent those fees. Pet fees are completely optional. No one will charge a tenant a pet fee if they’re not moving in with a pet. Todd has a client in Washington State who is the only property manager in his market to allow pets everywhere. He rents every listing faster while collecting a pet fee for the owner. The result is a much lower vacancy rate, happier owners, and grateful residents who couldn’t find pet-friendly homes elsewhere. Tenants who have lower credit might not like that they have to pay a bit more in rent every month, but they’ll be grateful that they can rent a place, even with that low credit score. Those residents are grateful that someone is willing to work with them. Second Nature is the company that manages Resident Benefits Packages. They have a model that they call Triple Win. The owner wins. The tenant wins. The property manager wins. That’s what happens with these ancillary fees, whether we’re talking about renters insurance that’s offered to tenants at a cheaper rate than they’d find on their own or a rising credit score that’s occurring because their on-time rental payments are being reported to the credit bureau. It’s a better deal for residents. Those tenants aren’t going to leave. They’re getting benefits. Fee-Maxing and Regulatory Reactions Fee-maxing quickly got the attention of regulators and legislators, and they began to see it the same way they might see Ticketmaster charging “junk fees.” But it’s not the same. The airline industry has done a good job of convincing the government that their ancillary fees are necessary in keeping ticket costs down. The property management industry needs to make the same case. Our industry has advanced. We want to fund technology and new benefits for tenants, and if we cannot provide that through ancillary fees, we’ll have to increase rent and property management fees. When those fees go up, rent has to go up. Everyone suffers. It no longer becomes a situational cost. It’s not affecting only tenants with pets or only tenants who need credit help. It’s affecting everyone. Many areas of the country are facing legislative hurdles when it comes to ancillary fees and property management. Part of this is due to the perception that landlords are rich corporations. In Atlanta, for example, a lot of institutional investors and corporations have moved into the market. So, many people have the misguided idea that landlords are big rich billionaire fat cats. But those institutional investors are about one percent of the rental owner market. Everything else is owned by small investors. The average landlord is a blue collar person and all their wealth is in the rental property. People don’t know that. States like New York are especially hostile to ancillary fees, which surprises no one. West coast states like California, Oregon, and Washington, are also tightening rules on fee-maxing and capping pet fees or Resident Benefit Package fees. In Colorado, pet fees are now limited to $35 per pet. Another state that has shifted to be less landlord-friendly is Nevada. What are some smart work-arounds that can keep a property owner and manager profitable in some of these states? Here are some of Todd’s suggestions: Rent-inclusive RBP pricing. Bundle the benefit cost inside your advertised rent. For example, if your normal rent in Oregon is $2,000, you can advertise your property at $2,050, and provide the Resident Benefits Package. Then, earmark the first $50 as the management fee. Provide tiered service packages. Offer “Platinum” plans that bake in formerly capped fees. Support data-driven advocacy. Show lawmakers how fee caps backfire on residents. This is a lesson that rent control already should have proved. It’s important to be creative and work within what you can charge. Over time, too much regulation will negatively impact residents and there will be backlash. Be ready to explain why the fee is in place. If it’s just a money grab, you’ll have a tough time defending it. But, if you’re putting a fee in place to change behavior or provide something of value, there’s an argument that can be reasonably made in support of that fee. The best business model will depend on your property management company. Maybe an all-inclusive plan works best for your customers. There are zero additional fees, but they’re paying you more every month for everything, whether they use all the services that the fee covers or not. Tiered pricing is another option. It’s like buying a basic economy airline ticket and then adding the things that you want, like meals or seat selections. There’s nothing wrong with any of the models. As the owner of a property management company, you need to figure out what will get you to the revenue that allows you to provide the kind of service you want to provide while still making money for yourself. In Part Three, we’ll pivot from policy to practice. We’ll talk about education versus marketing, how to create video that converts, and how to use AI to be an efficiency assistant rather than a brand killer. Stay tuned for the finale with Todd. And if you’re hungry to turn your fresh margins into high-quality owner leads, contact us at Fourandhalf. Company This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. First Name (Required) Last Name (Required) Email (Required) Phone (Required) Company Name Comments or Questions This field is hidden when viewing the form Date Submit The post Maximize Property Management Revenue Part 2: Churn, Lifetime Value, and Legislation appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers .

May 28, 202519 min

Maximize Property Management Revenue Part 1: The Truth Behind Fee-Maxing

Welcome back to The Property Management Show! Today kicks off a special three-part discussion on fee-maxing with Todd Ortscheid. In Part One of this important conversation, we will take a look at what responsible fee-maxing looks like, how it can double your revenue, improve your services, and ultimately increase customer lifetime value. When done right, it can also keep residents on your side. Expect to unpack some juicy math. Todd Ortscheid: Automation Addict and Fee-Maxing Evangelist It’s great to welcome Todd back to our podcast. He has worn nearly every hat in the property management industry. He’s a business owner and advocate, an industry consultant, and currently the chapter president of NARPM Atlanta. He’s also the CEO of Revolution Rental Management and co-founder of PM Assist. A bit of time has passed since Todd was last here, so let’s review who he is and where he comes from: Todd has been in property management for about 13 years. He started in the industry in 2012 and before that, he was an airline pilot for 14 years. Todd’s father was in the property management business, so as he got involved in that business and grew the company, Todd also became more involved in consulting for other property managers. He started and later sold a maintenance company. He did government affairs work for NARPM. Todd is still consulting, and he’s also a self-proclaimed automation addict and fee-maxing evangelist. That’s what we’re interested in talking about today. The A-Ha Moment for Fee-Maxing Todd began thinking about involving ancillary fees in his own property management business at a NARPM Owner/Broker conference in 2014 or 2015, where he heard Marc Cunningham talk about the ancillary fees that were available for property management businesses. It made sense because that’s exactly how airlines work. They make most of their money not on the plane tickets but on the extras. Later, he heard Alex Osenenko and Darren Hunter talk about this topic right here on The Property Management Show several years ago. By 2020, everyone was worried about revenue, so he put together an entire course on fee-maxing and leveraging ancillary services and fees. It’s been a passion of his for years, and when Lead Simple introduced what was possible with automation, he became really involved in that as well. Fee-Maxing Can Be Polarizing (But It Shouldn’t Be) When the topic of fee-maxing comes up, it can be polarizing. Like just about everything these days, there’s a camp that’s very much for it, and a camp that’s very much against it. Some property managers hear fee-maxing and they imagine that a property manager or an owner is nickel-and-diming a resident to death. We’ve heard the term junk fees thrown around. So, what does responsible fee-maxing look like? The first thing Todd wants to point out is this is not hoarding money or being greedy. Some people get that idea, but all you have to do is gather the math and run the numbers to realize these fees are necessary in order to provide good service. When Todd and his team first started running numbers for property managers, they found the average property management company had a single digit profit margin. It was 5 or 6 percent. That’s barely skating by, and it caused a lot of companies to struggle financially. Fee-maxing is not about trying to be greedy. It’s about making your business sustainable. You shouldn’t be struggling to provide the bare minimum. As a property manager, you’re trying to provide good service to owners and residents. You’re trying to hire and train better staff. You want to invest in better technology and increase your marketing efforts. To do that, you need the revenue that’s created by ancillary fees. The primary goal of fee-maxing is to improve the service you’re offering. Investing Ancillary Fees to Improve Property Management That’s an important distinction. If you can invest more money into your business, you can run not only a more profitable business, but also a more excellent one. You’ll improve the overall experience. Think about what property management looked like 10 years ago. How many companies had the technology we have today? There were no resident benefit packages. It was rare to find a 24-hour maintenance hotline. Now, everyone has these things. We’ve been able to radically improve the nature of the services we’re offering in this industry, and Todd says that’s due in part to fee-maxing and ancillary services. The boost in revenue has led to these services. If everyone providing property management has a 5 percent profit margin, you can’t do anything except collect rent and file evictions. Staffing maintenance services would be impossible. Fee-maxing is an invitation to move beyond the basics. Impact on Customer Lifetime Value In the spirit of unlocking better margins for property managers through fee-maxing, it’s also easier to increase or amplify the customer lifetime value for each client. To attract a new customer, you have to engage in marketing activities. You have to invest resources to get owners to work with you. Meanwhile, you’re trying to make ends meet just to staff your own company. If your property owners are not happy, they leave your company. Then, you find yourself working extra hard to replenish that income and grow your business. The simple math says you have to increase the margin so you can increase the lifetime value of each customer. You can’t have a revolving door of churn. Doubling Your Income with Fee-Maxing Todd has lots of examples of people who took his fee-maxing course, and the average company that he works with is able to double their revenue. Think about how revenue has always been measured for property managers: by calculating what you earn per door, per month. All of your revenue 10 years ago might have added up to $150 or $175 per door, if you were doing well. Now, thanks to these ancillary services and fees, companies can make in excess of $300 per month on each door. Those who do a really good job can push $500 per month on their higher end properties. What could you do with an extra $100 per month for each door you manage? A lot, probably. This has changed the business. When we see property managers struggling to maintain those good levels of service, it’s usually because they’re stuck making $175 or $200 per door every month. It’s tough to provide an excellent service in that space. It’s About Options: How to Grow with Extra Revenue When you don’t have money to reinvest in your property management business, service will suffer. And so will your business growth. At Fourandhalf, we market for property managers, and there’s often pushback when we talk about marketing because of the cost. Property managers feel like they cannot afford to spend money on marketing, especially now, when costs are high and the economy is uncertain. People are scared to part with money. What are they willing to spend on, when fee-maxing strategies are bringing in additional revenue? Todd says it depends on the client and their goals. Some clients want to add doors. That makes sense, and in that case, investing in marketing is a no-brainer. Pay-per-click campaigns can bring in new clients, and here’s an important thing to remember: Those new doors are bringing in more revenue than what was coming in before. The return on investment is skyrocketing when any extra money from ancillary services or fee-maxing is invested in marketing. It’s easier to fund those initiatives, and they are definitely worth the resources. Property managers know their business is missing out if they’re not bringing in more doors. This growth is more valuable now than it was a few years ago. In addition to marketing, Todd likes to see his clients invest in technology, specifically leasing automation. He wants to see a 24-hour call center and a resident benefits package. Everyone should be doing those things now. Invest in fee-maxing. Put that money into marketing and services, and you’ll see new business. Using and Understanding Data Recently, Peter Lohmann and Jordan Muela came out with PM Trends report that showed what property owners care about when choosing property managers. Their data shows that property owners don’t prioritize Google or Yelp rankings when choosing a property manager. But, they say reputation is the second most important thing to them when making a choice. Google reviews may be at the bottom of the list, but we can promise you an owner will notice a 2.5 Google ranking and probably not choose that property manager. If a property manager is not reaching the bare minimum, which is probably 4 stars, it’s going to be difficult to attract new business. Everyone has a website. Everyone has a Google ranking. Of course reputation is important, and managing that reputation includes attention to website analytics and Google reviews. Todd loves data and he loves diving into survey results, but he says that it’s important to think about what the person responding to a survey is really meaning with their answer. No, they’re not choosing a property manager based on Google stars, but if they do a bit of research online and that property manager comes back with a 2.5 score, it’s going to be a disqualifier. Google scores still matter to your SEO, too. Where you fall on those ratings matters because Google cares. It all matters. Don’t read the wrong things into that report. Think strategically. It’s like employees always saying that they care about being respected and making a difference more than they care about pay. Yes, those things are important. But they want their money, too. Pay is always going to be important, even if they’re telling a survey that their most pressing priority is the opportunity for growth. Ready to put these insights into action? Part 1 pulled back the curtain on fee-maxing and showed why smarter fee structures are the quickest path to stronger margins and happier clients. If you’re serious about turning that new revenue into a steady flow of owner leads, Fourandhalf Marketing Agency has your back—websites, SEO, reputation, content, ads, the works. Start your growth journey at fourandhalf.com . Up next in Part 2 , Todd and I dive into owner churn, customer-lifetime value, and the regulatory headwinds every fee-maxer must navigate. Make sure you never miss an episode: Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ ThePropertyManagementShow Join our newsletter: https://fourandhalf.com/ subscribe Thanks for listening—see you in the next episode! Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. First Name (Required) Last Name (Required) Email (Required) Phone (Required) Company Name Comments or Questions This field is hidden when viewing the form Date Submit The post Maximize Property Management Revenue Part 1: The Truth Behind Fee-Maxing appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers .

January 22, 202547 min

Residential Property Maintenance Metrics and Improving NOI (with Ray Hespen)

<p>Discover how data-driven maintenance metrics can boost resident satisfaction and improve NOI. Learn from Ray Hespen about benchmarking, AI triage, and the latest trends in property maintenance analytics. Transform your property management strategy with actionable insights!</p> <p>e70I3glN4DJYkIiiK6Fd</p>

January 16, 202551 min

AI’s Role in Attracting Owner Leads for Property Managers

Fourandhalf’s Marie Tepman, Interviewed by Marc Cunningham on the PM Build Property Management Business Podcast Marc Cunningham, from Grace Property Management and PM Build, invited Marie onto his podcast to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in property management marketing. Specifically, the discussion revolved around getting more owner leads for property managers. In an environment where budgets are shrinking and a lot of property managers are still unsure about AI, this discussion provides some clarity. Here’s what was discussed. Property Management Marketing and Gaining Owner Leads One of the biggest challenges all property management companies deal with is bringing new owner client leads into the company. How do you drive more leads into your company? The big catchphrase now is AI. Should property management companies use AI? How can these tools be used? It’s a big umbrella in property management marketing, but first, let’s talk about the simple fact of how to get more owner leads. What’s the big picture? Leads are online. So, property management companies need a good presence online. This starts with a website. And while some companies build business through referrals, online marketing is the next step. To really get started attracting owner leads to your property management company, you need a website and you need content. Marc remembers saying “no thanks” to a company that tried to sell them on a website in the early 1990s. He though as long as he had his Yellow Pages ad, he’d be fine. Things have changed. A property management company’s website and content serve reputation. Reputation is important because you want people to vouch for you. Before buying a product or service, consumers are going to look at reviews. They’re going to want to see how many stars are on your Google rating. If you don’t have any testimonials or reviews, people might think that’s suss (suspicious, for the over-45 crowd). If a prospective owner finds your website but no one online is talking about you, there may be hesitation. You have to show that you’re trustworthy. After you have established your website and your reputation, you need content. Content and Property Management Marketing for Owner Leads The literal meaning of content is anything with words on your website. At Fourandhalf, we’re more interested in quality content. When someone who has just inherited a home needs help renting that home out, they’re not going to go online and search for a property management company. A lot of them might not even know that property management is a service that’s provided professionally. Instead, they’re going to go online and search how to find a tenant or how much rent to charge. Property management content is not selling your business. It’s not telling anyone how long you’ve been in business, and it’s not bragging about how great you are. It’s showing prospective owners that you can be trusted. It’s showing value. Any company can say they’re great. It doesn’t mean anything to your prospect. They have a problem and they want to solve it. When you’re a problem solver, you’re providing quality content. The hero of the story is the always the customer. When you show up to offer solutions, you want to make it obvious to the owner that this is why your service can help. That allows the owner to remain the hero. As the property management expert, you’re the helper getting them what they need. Don’t be the hero. Be the helper. That’s a big concept that needs to be adopted when it comes to content. Serve, don’t show off. When an owner clicks on the how-to content, they’ll find it helpful. It’s educational. So, when they get to the end of what they’ve read or watched, they’ll see who provided the content. Trust is established. Should You Just Use AI to Create Content? Maybe property managers don’t have time to create content. Is this where AI can be helpful? Can you ask AI to write a blog on how to collect rent and then throw it on your website? You can. And this is why generative AI is so deceptively awesome. When Marie first discovered ChatGPT and what it did, she feared the end of marketing had arrived. It seemed like original content would no longer be necessary. But, the more she dug into what this tool is, the more she realized its limitations as well as its uses. The technology goes to its library of what’s already been written. If you want to use content that’s completely AI-created, you’ll end up with just an okay blog. But, we are no longer in the year 2000. Having a website is not special because everyone has one. Creating content is also not special; more and more property managers are doing it. So, if you want to put your property management company’s name on a machine-generated blog that lacks originality and authenticity, you can. But don’t expect great results. If you want to do better than a mediocre blog that could have been written by anyone, the human touch is still required. How to Use AI as a Marketing Tool Use AI as a sounding board or a starting off point. In trying to write content, people fail to realize it’s not about the words on the page or how many times property management was mentioned. It’s about placing the seed of an idea in your reader. Remember that people are looking for solutions. An AI-generated blog may provide information, but it does not provide any credibility. You want to make an impression with quality, professional content. When you add the personal stories and your own expertise to the writing, you gain trust and credibility. AI tools cannot give you the credibility or the authenticity. They can give you words. AI can be used when you feel like you’ve run out of ideas or when you’re not sure how to cover a topic in a new way. As a property manager, maybe you’ve written about rent control a hundred times and you just don’t know what a new angle might be. Put your thoughts into AI and see what you get. It won’t be a blog, but it may be a phrase or a sentence that sets something off in your mind and sends you down the path towards new content around a subject you know well. AI can help you get to your own ideas faster. When Marie tells the generative system that she’s looking for a fresh idea around a topic, she shares all the ideas she has. It suggests a lot of things, and 95 percent is not usable. It’s up to her, as the human, to find that grain of inspiration. Sometimes it’s a full idea that she’s able to pull out. Sometimes it’s just a phrase. Here’s an example Marie shared: When she was scheduled to speak at NARPM National 2023, she wanted to talk about marketing and attracting owner leads. It’s a tried and true topic that she had discussed many times, and she didn’t want to bore an audience who had likely heard her speak about this before. She had a post-it note on her desk that she’d had for years which reads: It doesn’t matter how good you are, because if you don’t get discovered, no one will ever know you existed in the first place. She put that into ChatGPT as part of a bunch of other ideas she also fed to the system. It suggested, somewhere, talking about how property managers start off invisible. Marie leaned into that, and many edits later, she had a talk that started with the phrase: “From Invisible to Irresistible.” She didn’t let AI write her speech. And she might have come up with that title on her own eventually. But, this is a good example of how AI can be a useful tool but not an author. Think of it as a collaborator and a companion. Think of it as a tool. Just like any tool, you have to know how to use it. Keeping Content Personal If you’re not doing any content creation, and you’re happy just to have a website and that’s all you want to do, then AI can create posts for your site. But recognize that it’s not going to be the best quality. It’s not going to be personal. Most importantly: it won’t give you the owner leads you want. AI is not scary, and it sets a very low bar. It takes what everyone else thinks and puts it out there. Your job when marketing for owner leads is to decide how can you be different? You can give your professional opinion in original, high-quality content. AI won’t give an opinion. It can’t because it’s not a property manager. AI cannot bring wisdom to the table. It cannot compete with professionalism or offer professional opinions. Property managers need to remember that. Your content is your professional opinion. Google’s Thoughts on AI and SEO Another big question Marie gets a lot is whether using AI will provide an edge SEO-wise. The answer is no. Google’s algorithm updates all the time, and it basically says that their algorithm prioritizes helpful content and useful, authentic content. Their stance on AI is that they don’t care. Let’s think of it like a cake. If you’re asked to bring a cake to a potluck, maybe you’ll spend a full day making everything from scratch. Or, maybe you’ll buy a cake from a store. When you show up to the potluck, people will be very excited about the homemade cake. They might judge the store-bought cake. But it really comes down to taste. How does the cake taste? Google doesn’t care if it’s homemade or store-bought. They care if it tastes good. If you’re a property manager thinking about marketing for owner leads, maybe you’ll find a middle ground. You’ll buy a cake mix from the store but then add your own flavors and personal touches to that mix, creating an original cake that tastes great. Don’t focus on the how. Focus on the what. Action Items for Property Managers If you’re not doing any content, here’s what you should do tomorrow: Go through emails and online chats and see what owners are asking. What questions do they ask and what problems do they have? Make a list. With that list of topics, start thinking about whether you have personal stories and professional opinions related to these topics. Create content providing solutions to that list of questions and problems. Should you make a video or write a blog? Ideally, both. At Fourandhalf, we help property managers create content and we think video is more powerful because when people see you, there’s extra credibility. They feel like they know you. Positive associations are established. If video is a bridge too far, start with a written blog. When marketing and content of any kind is not for you, Fourandhalf can help. We will collaborate with you to create original, organic content. We encourage property managers to share those unique and authentic original stories with us, and we’ll get them out there. It’s more than throwing money at a marketing budget. Some effort is required so the content is specific to your company. You don’t have to be a content creator. You just have to be you: a professional property manager with good information to share. Marie remembers working with one property management company that hired an actor to get their content videos out. They weren’t fooling anyone. It was clearly not a property manager, and that hurts trust. You don’t have to be perfect on video. You just have to be authentic. People will relate. Thanks to Marc Cunningham and his engaging podcast for having Marie on to discuss owner leads and AI. At Fourandhalf, we don’t shy away from AI. We help property managers succeed, so if you have any questions about property management marketing, content, and finding more owner leads, contact us at Fourandhalf. Instagram This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. First Name (Required) Last Name (Required) Email (Required) Phone (Required) Company Name Comments or Questions This field is hidden when viewing the form Date Submit The post AI’s Role in Attracting Owner Leads for Property Managers appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers .

December 31, 202425 min

PART 2: Why the Vendor Bidding Process Is Broken (and What It’s Costing Property Managers)

Can vendor bidding solutions like RoDevia Brigham’s Proposabid create more transparency and detect fraud? That’s where we left off during Part 1 of this discussion on The Property Management Show. Let’s pick up the conversation about how the bidding process is broken, and how property managers can avoid wasting time and money. Here’s Part 2. How has Proposabid Contributed to Fraud Detection? When RoDevia was talking with her partner, they discussed how a lot of vendors would inflate pricing or maybe there would be work that was needed but didn’t really have to be done in the particular way that a vendor believed, or at a higher price point. There are a couple of specific cases that she was able to detect, and she cautions owners and property managers that things like this could be happening without them knowing about it: On-site staff may claim that work is necessary, or they’ll be billing you for work that may not be completed or required. If you’re an owner in Arizona with properties in Tennessee, you may not know that what you’re being told isn’t true. If your manager is overstretched and has 76 different properties to manage, she may not know that 34 doors need to be replaced in a specific way at one property. There could also be a conflict of interest or some self-dealing going on. Staff or property managers may use companies they own. In San Francisco, we had a cleaning company that got a $15,000 per month contract at one property for 150 doors. It was on-site staff that was registered and had an EIN. Family members worked at this company, and they managed to claim contracts across other properties for almost $500,000 over three years without the owner knowing. There was no bidding process at all. If you have a third party that doesn’t have a dog in the fight and can source bids for you in timely fashion and has comparables for you, the process is fully transparent. Proposabid also posts their bids online so other vendors can compare. Any number of issues can crop up when a company is just assigning someone to source bids who isn’t qualified to do it or is too busy to give it the necessary attention. Challenges for Property Managers in Analyzing and Comparing Bids Let’s say a property manager does manage to get some bids. Now it’s time to analyze and compare them. What are some of the challenges and issues would a company face at that point in time? First, RoDevia would be wondering if you have enough bids. When you do, you have to ask if the bids have expired to the point where they’re no longer viable. One of the main things she has noticed is that property managers won’t necessarily know what the vendor does not offer. For example, there was a hazmat fentanyl situation at a property, and the building had to be closed down. Police were involved. To get bids for the cleaning, you also have to think about what the vendors are not offering in those bids. Proposabid needed to analyze that particular piece. What all five vendors didn’t offer was to post drug testing. Can you post it once it’s clean? Also, what about repairs and renovations after the cleaning. It might be necessary to tear into a wall. Asbestos and lead testing might be necessary depending on what’s found when you do open up the wall. Always consider whether you know what you need beyond the bids themselves. This is the most challenging part. Another challenge can be the number of hands in the pot. If you have a board or an HOA, there could be some extra time needed. One HOA client had three good bids, but they wanted more. That’s fine, but the three best bids are still going to be the three best bids. So, who is making the decision? Can you get in touch with the right people at the right time? The person receiving the bid probably cannot sign off on the awarding of that bid. Often, staff does not know what they’re looking at or what the next move is. Another example: RoDevia had a client with seven roofs. Four had allegedly been replaced and three more needed to be replaced. But as she gathered the bids from roofers, all of them pointed out that one of the four actually had not been replaced by the original vendor. Because of her RFP process, all the vendors bidding went out to have a look, and they all reported that four roofs actually needed replacing, not three. So, is there a lawsuit with the previous vendor, and how do we prove this? It’s proven with the bids. Multiple roofers confirmed it. So now the owner has to decide whether to pay for three roofs or four. The challenges are everywhere. What you want is someone who will strive to get you in line to make the next decision and help you narrow down the options so you can make educated decisions. Property Managers or Owners: Who Is Making Decisions? Even after good bids have been gathered and all of the information makes sense, someone has to make a decision. Marie asked RoDevia in her experience, who should bear the brunt of making the decision? Each relationship is different, and in the property management world, it can play out any way. The property manager is representing the property and has the authority as outlined in their operating agreement. Many owners want their manager to handle it for the purposes of efficiency and expertise. They’re just not there and they just don’t know. And, if the property manager has relationships established and the expertise that’s needed, it’s an easy call. But, there are a lot of owners who want to make the final decision, especially if it is financially impactful. So in this case, a property manager would gather bids and present them. The owner gives the final approval. In a mom-and-dad situation or with independent owners, it’s whoever has the resources and the bandwidth to make the decision. It’s also how did the vendor make them feel. That gut feel aspect along with the warranty and the expertise and quality assurance and safety record and insurance all counts. Bidding and Documentation Documentation is always your friend, so document the bidding process. The problem is that over the last few years, RoDevia has noticed that documentation is all over the place. It’s in emails. It’s in a text. It’s in a voicemail. There’s no real solid database where all parties will go to find the same information, and that’s something Proposabid has built in for clients. Here’s how Proposabid works at a high level: They get to the property and do an intake. They create an RFP. That RFP is marketed out to their vendors. They gather those bids and aggregate them. Those bids are submitted to the property and the property makes a decision. The process is completed in 15 business days or less. This works for a $15,000 bid or a $3.5 million bid. It covers office remodels, concrete, and whatever needs to be done. Looking to the Future for Property Management and Vendor Bidding What do you need to know about future trends? RoDevia shares lessons from the field: Cash for Bids. This is starting to happen more and more, and it will be devastating for property management companies. Vendors are looking for cash deposits and payments up front to secure the bid. Those payments can be several thousands of dollars. And that’s just to get the bid. Some of these things have to do with reduced risk of nonpayment. (It’s highly recommended to pay your vendors on time). This will probably not become a gold standard. Some vendors may adopt it, but overall it shouldn’t be normalized because of client pushback. Rising Costs. When projects are delayed or bids are incomplete, costs rise, and that is a huge burden on the budget. More so than it was five years ago. For commercial buildings, the average increase is 5 to 8 percent per year on labor expenses and materials. There are also continued supply chain challenges. For multifamily buildings, that rate of increase is 6 to 10 percent annually. Inflation pressure is outrageous. A project costing $90,000 four years ago would be $124,000 now. Get your properties in order. Get your bids organized. One big recommendation RoDevia has is to be honest with your vendors. This will protect your reputation. When you’re sourcing your bids, be honest if you’re just shopping for bids. We always let our vendors know when we’re just budgeting only. A client may simply need some numbers. So you’ll just get the quote not the full breakdown. If you just go fishing and then never award bids, your reputation is damaged. Mitigate around that and be honest about your intentions once you do have bids. Each estimate costs about a hundred dollars an hour, so most vendors will give a bid even if they know they won’t necessarily win the award. They know up front that they might not get any work from it, but there’s still a bid in place that may be honored later. It actually lowers costs for the client. If any of our listeners want to learn more about the bidding process or what to look out for, visit Proposabid.com. And if you have property management marketing or reputation questions, contact us at Fourandhalf. Email This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. First Name (Required) Last Name (Required) Email (Required) Phone (Required) Company Name Comments or Questions This field is hidden when viewing the form Date Submit The post PART 2: Why the Vendor Bidding Process Is Broken (and What It’s Costing Property Managers) appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers .

December 19, 202431 min

PART 1: Why the Vendor Bidding Process Is Broken (and What It’s Costing Property Managers)

It’s been a long time since we put out an episode of The Property Management Show and today we’re excited to talk with RoDevia Brigham, the founder and CEO of Proposabid. The vendor bidding process is an entire industry on its own, and this is a topic we have not covered before on the podcast. Introducing RoDevia and Proposabid Proposabid does bids and estimations for properties and repairs across US. Their niche client base is property management companies, real estate investors, and mom-and-pop investors. They work with people who do not know how to go about sourcing bids for work. The idea for this company came from a shower moment. RoDevia’s background is in computer science and IT, specifically cyber security. She has an approach to her work that follows an “if this, then that” process. She’s always thinking about how to automate things. While in the shower, she asked her partner an important question: What could she automate if she could automate anything in her day as a property manager? The answer was: bidding. She said if she could just get good bids that reflected apples for apples, and those bids came in on time, and vendors would pick up the phone and submit things relevant to the work that needs to be done, then she could submit those to her property owners who could make financially responsible decisions. That, she said, would be great. RoDevia took all of that seriously, knowing it was an everyday problem for her partner’s clients. Four years later, Proposabid is doing the work that needs to be done. Property Management’s Vendor Bidding Problem The vendor bidding process in property management is essentially broken RoDevia believes. While it seems like most property managers know their vendors and have good relationships in place, why would bidding be necessary at all? RoDevia and her company focus on projects that need three bids, minimum. The process at a high level looks like this: A property manager has to contact the three companies Three different prices are submitted Proposals have to be gathered The lowest bidder is selected But in that process, there are some key items that a property management company’s staff might not be familiar with or cannot do. The phone calls and the emails go back and forth. Then, there’s the hurry up and wait while those bids come in. This can be immediate, but usually it takes a couple of weeks. Sometimes, you won’t get the bids in at all. When those do bids come in, you have to compare them: Are they apples for apples? Do they come with the right warranty? Are they offering considerations or concessions? Is scope of work correct for the price? Are the vendors even qualified? Are they in a database for licensing and insurance? Then, you may need to make corrections to the bid, and that could include going back to the phone calls and the emails. Bids are re-submitted and reconsidered. Once you have something everyone agrees on, a property manager will go ahead and submit those bids to your property owner or the landlord, and together you might decide on the vendor. That process alone can take a couple of weeks or months or in some cases, it may not even get done. Someone has to be responsible for this process. It could be a director or an asset manager or an office manager. Maybe you have in-house maintenance folks who are taking all of these bids and working on the information. This can add up to 10 hours a week, which might cost 400 to 520 hours per year. All of that labor comes with no guarantee that those bids are even getting done, and those are hours that can be utilized elsewhere in your business. Financially, the costs of a broken bidding process can be $30,000 to $40,000 lost purely on bid management. When you’re considering the roofers, the asphalt, the mold remediation, building codes, and things like that, you have to consider how the vendor bidding process looks across multiple owners. Property management staff is busy collecting rent and going to court and dealing with residents. They may not have the time to deal with this process across all the properties you manage. Standardization is necessary but not always present when it comes to RFPs and bidding. If you don’t have a consistent and standard Request for Proposal (RFP), how do you attract the right vendors? You need to understand project requirements and have direct comparables, otherwise staff will have trouble closing on those bids. There’s also the problem of limited reach. Vendors may not be responding to calls or emails, and time is wasted. Owners might find themselves facing fines and penalties because inspections and permits are expiring. You might choose the first bid that comes along out of desperation, which might not be the right one. There’s sometimes a lack of transparency. If you don’t have the right vendors in place and the right RFPs in place, you don’t have the transparency you need. You’re getting the only bids that you can and that’s not the best thing to do. Proposabid has two clients: the vendors and the property owners. The business is run anticipating what they each need. That’s the part that’s broken, RoDevia says. Taking responsibility off the plates of the property managers and handing it over to a third party who can take the time to make this process work is the way to fix it. This is all they do at Proposabid; her team can allocate time and resources to some of the most important aspects of property management. Project Management for the Bidding Process The bidding process requires a lot of project management and knowledge. Bidding happens for bigger ticket items. Maintenance coordinators within a property management company may be in charge of communicating with vendors over day-to-day preventative maintenance and immediate repairs that are needed at a rental property. Larger projects are anything that requires three bids or more. These might be insurance claims or capital improvements. They’re often projects that will cost between $50,000 and several millions of dollars. If you have to lay asphalt or concrete or you need a new roof or you’re installing adjustable arms for your parking garage, you need to source out those bids. Property managers may have on-site staff that can do the sourcing, but it’s going to depend on the property and the project. RoDevia offered a couple of statistics that show why time can be wasted and inefficiencies can be present in this part of the property management process. Thirty (30) percent of vendors will actually submit a proposal when asked. Why is it that when properties are calling vendors, they’re not responsive? Part of it has to do with there not being an RFP, or the RFP is too vague. If a vendor has no information to work with, they’re not going to submit bids. It may be resource constraints, and vendors don’t have time to respond to those bids. Or, they’re focused on other bids that have a higher dollar amount, or are found in better neighborhoods. Vendors also tend not to submit to properties with a poor reputation. Let’s say you had a roofing project you needed done two years ago and you sourced and collected bids but never awarded anyone a contract. Four years later you’re re-asking for bids from these same folks, but they’re not going to trust that you’re actually going to award a bid. There’s a lack of trust. Some bids may vary by as much as 150 percent. How can this be? It may have to do with contractor overhead, or it could be the market conditions or the bidding strategy. Insurance costs are going up, for example. There’s office space and labor to pay for. If a contractor has high administrative costs, their bid can be 30 to 50 percent higher than others. When we talk about market conditions impacting the bidding process, there might be a scarcity of materials and labor shortages. There’s inflation. Bidding is also seasonal. A roofing bid in Wisconsin during November will be much lower than it might be in the spring. Bidding strategies depend on the company. Larger and established firms may have a 20 to 40 percent buffer while smaller and newer companies might be more competitive. The Importance of the RFP and Scope of Work Marie thought she had a roof issue, but it turned out to be a mold issue. Looking for roofers took time, and there were drastically different bids from two roofers. The mold problem had to be addressed immediately, so by working with Proposabid, seven or eight bids came in within a few days. There was a discrepancy with pricing. With RoDevia’s help, Marie could create a matrix to compare how much each company was actually charging for the inspection and all the add-ons and testing fees. After reviewing the matrix, it turned out that the vendor who seemed most expensive was actually cheaper because the quote was all-inclusive. There was time and effort requirement for one home. For a property manager sourcing bids for an apartment complex, it can be difficult to understand what you’re looking at when you have all these bids with up to a 150 percent variance in pricing. How do you choose? RoDevia says it depends on who is spending the money and what that person values. The RFP is the dog whistle that gets the clear information to attract the right vendors. Maybe the client values expertise. Or certifications. Communication might be most important when choosing a vendor. Customer service. By sourcing at least five to seven bids, there’s a better chance of finding a vendor that will provide what’s needed and valued. It requires the right RFP. A strong RFP and the sequential cadence on contacting vendors and giving them what they need will make a big difference. Maybe it’s floor plans or drawings or blueprints or recommendations from state or city. When you receive those bids, take your top four bids with the good pricing, the right warranties, appropriate itemization, and an understanding of what they do and won’t do. It depends on what does the client value. If they’re just looking for lowest price, then it’s more about who is spending the money and what the end result is. Are you looking for long term quality over immediate need? Are you choosing based on aesthetic or for longevity? The RFP is the request for work. The scope of work is how that work gets done. With Marie’s mold example, Proposabid created an RFP based on the intake that was done and from the test results. That’s how the scope of work was created. The vendors knew what was needed and could respond to the RFP. The scope of work has to be rock solid, and property management companies don’t always have the resources to come up with a detailed and specific scope of work. The necessary components in a Scope of Work include: Executive Summary Project requirements Timeline and milestones Budget and cost constraints Evaluation criteria Submission instructions What is the time frame and date line? Vendor qualifications and experience Legal compliance requirements You need to provide information on how to contact you, and you need to explain the Q and A protocols. At Proposabid, the RFP is created with clarity. Apple to apple comparisons are made. Evaluation is easier because there are clearly defined project goals and expectations. This reduces misunderstandings. Think of the RFP as a Handshake The RFP builds trust. It’s Iike a handshake. When a vendor receives the RFP, thy can say no right away. Or they can ask for more information. Maybe they’ll want to do a site visit. You’ll attract the right vendor with higher quality bids. An RFP can also provide a foundation for the properties when team members move to another department or new team members come on board. So instead of starting all over, you can pull the RFP when someone new comes on. There’s a paper trail and extra transparency. Some of the repercussions for skipping an RFP might be: Misalignment with expectations between vendors and owners Increased project delays Difficulty comparing bids Damaged relationships with vendors because of lack of structure RoDevia said a good RFP helps with fraud detection, too. Wait, did RoDevia say “Fraud”? Stay tuned for Part 2 where we continue this discussion. We’ll also talk about common issues with collecting and analyzing vendor bids, as well as future trends to watch out for. Make sure you’re subscribed to our YT channel or the FAH newsletter to not miss the next episode! Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. First Name (Required) Last Name (Required) Email (Required) Phone (Required) Company Name Comments or Questions This field is hidden when viewing the form Date Submit The post PART 1: Why the Vendor Bidding Process Is Broken (and What It’s Costing Property Managers) appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers .