About Property Management Businesses

If you've ever rented a home or an apartment, there's a good chance you've dealt with a property management business or two. Property managers aren't landlords in the traditional sense of owning property; they serve the legal owners instead. What do these businesses do, and what can you expect from them? What does a career in property management involve?

The Basics

Property managers provide landlord services. They are hired by property owners to take care of the business, maintenance and legal aspects of property rental. This allows property owners to collect regular profit from the buildings they own while doing little or no work themselves. Owners and tenants alike can benefit from the experience that management services provide; management companies must be aware of and respect all local tenancy laws for the sake of protecting themselves and property owners from liability. This in turn helps protect tenants from illegal abuses.

Business Sizes

The size of property management businesses can range from lone individuals to large, multi-state corporations managing hundreds of rental properties. Rental properties include business and professional building space, but the largest market is for homes, including houses, duplexes, apartment complexes and condominiums.

Attracting Business

Though tenants may provide all cash flow to a property management business, the primary customers in this business are the property owners. Property management starts with the creation of relationships between managers and owners, with managers advertising to acquire the business of those who own rental property.

Leasing

Once a contract is signed with an owner, a property management business must take charge of all responsibilities to the landlord and tenants, including the process of finding new tenants when leases expire or former tenants are evicted.
Many property management companies will organize the leases on their properties to end at the same time of year. This allows the managers to work on finding tenants for just these few months and to spend the rest of the year focusing on serving the property owners and acquiring new business.

Maintenance

Property management companies must be responsible for all required maintenance and repair on rental properties and appliances. This includes requirements specified by law and any contractual obligations in the terms of the lease with the tenant. Managers take maintenance requests from tenants, then either hire professional third-party contractors, such as plumbers or electricians, or they will dispatch assignments to their own internal maintenance team.

Conflict Resolution

Property managers must resolve any disputes that come up between tenants or between themselves and tenants. In the case of tenant disputes with one another, managers must determine which tenant is at fault and instruct them to change their behavior. This may involve a fine or the threat of a fine. In the case of tenant complaints against the company, there is little actual resolution required unless the tenant has grounds to take legal action or the managers fear the tenant may do something illegal or dangerous in retaliation.

Eviction

Property managers collect rent from tenants and keep records of which tenants are overdue on payment. If tenants cannot or do not pay in a timely fashion, property managers must take charge of the eviction process. While laws vary from state to state, it is generally illegal for managers and landlords to ask or force a tenant to leave. Instead, they must file for a court-ordered eviction, following which law enforcement officials will remove the tenant. For this reason, property management businesses have a regular lawyers or team of lawyers.

Resources

• National Association of Residential Property Managers