Communication Strategy for Property Management Clients

Our property management client's come to us to help them manage their rental or HOA community, and this relationship requires that our property managers and our clients be on the same team. Property Managers are an extension of the HOA boards or landlords team, and the key to any effective team is clear communication and understanding of the expectations.   Homeowner Associations and landlords have similar desires to be communicated with, but our team has developed different solutions for each of them.

Landlord and Rental Property Communication

It is a constant battle to balance handling the issues for our owners and the actual communication and updating regarding the status of the issues.  When you are working for multiple owners at various properties, it is extremely difficult to give live updates as vendors will be scheduling on their availability and tenants will also have to ensure their availability.  This makes it practically impossible to give live 24-7 updates. 

Owner seeking property management are requesting the service for a variety of reasons, including:

• The property is in a market where the owner is not located.
• The owner is an investment company focused on acquiring properties, but not focused on operational functions
• The owner is not knowledgeable in landlord law and Texas property code in the local area
• The owner has other obligations and does not have time to handle random items or repairs as they come up.

Landlords are looking for a property management company to provide their expertise in handling the operational day to day of managing a rental property (single family or multifamily).  Therefore, when an owner seeks out a property management firm they want to ensure that they are hiring someone that will help handle the day to day, but are also looking for our systems to handle those random moments, processes, and expertise in the laws governing the industry.

However, landlords want to know what is going on regardless of whether they have a single home, rental portfolio, or multifamily. To help address the owners need to be updated, we have created the following plan:

1) Repairs: Our property managers and staff alert owners about repairs that are put in the system. Our teams are instructed to let owners know if the repair is higher than the authorized amount.

2) Weekly/ Bimonthly Update: Our property managers send a minimum bimonthly update to give owners updates on various key metrics (update on collections, maintenance updates, renewal updates, outstanding items (estimate approval, etc.)

3)  Monthly Disbursement (Draw Analysis):  Our property management team reviews and summarizes the months activities when disbursing funds to owners.

Homeowner Association Board Communication

When dealing with homeowner association boards, you are dealing with multiple people who have varying schedules and time. This has often made homeowner association board communication regarding key issues like approval of an estimate, or bid for services, into a jumble of emails.  Over time that email thread is lost to time and boards and the management company struggle to recreate it.  Additionally, homeowner associations have board packets that are printed and lost to emails or printed and not kept up. Finally, on various board request and follow ups, there is a good chance that will be missed by board members who are volunteers with other time obligations.

As volunteers, association board members need to find ways to juggle their responsibilities to the community with their obligations to family, friends, and careers that are important to them as well. To facilitate better communication, our HOA property management team has created the following tools for the HOA.

1) Live Sheet:  Using an interactive workbook with key metrics and issue, our managers update this to create a "living" document that board members can visit to see where board request or key issues stand.  Instead of having to search several emails to find the latest update, the "Live Sheet" gives the board and the association managers a chance to keep up with latest items or update everyone where a project stands. Some of these key areas include.

• Delinquency/Collections related matters for the association
• Board Request - designed to track board request
• Repair related matters that affect the community

2) Board Approval Section: It is a common issue board debates happen over several emails and these emails can clutter a email inbox, and final resolution can become clear between board members or the board based on the discussion. Therefore, Ashoka Lion utilizes an "Approval Section" on the board member's portal (board members get additional access).  In fact, contracts, board bid approval, service contracts, and other important decision are made on the system to ensure that there is no confusion.

3) Board Members Packets: Board member packets are provided on a monthly basis with copies of invoices for board review.

4) Board Meetings and Calls to Our Company are recorded: Our firm, to avoid confusion, has begun to record calls and meetings for quality and assurance purposes. This way when boards want to review notes from meetings that they have access to make sure the minutes are correct. Additionally, if homeowners call in, then the board can review calls with our staff to hear any issues.