What Makes a Good Apartment Manager
An apartment manager is the kind of job you don't hear everyday. No offense, but does hearing the words "apartment manager" make you want to yawn out of boredom? It sounds like a boring profession, sure, some people might think, but an apartment manager is an indispensable person nonetheless. An apartment manager is very important, almost crucial, to the running of a successful apartment complex.
Being an apartment manager requires you to be good at a wide variety of skills and duties. Take note, the duties expected from an apartment manager to take under his wing each requires specific training. So all in all, an apartment manager can be a pretty demanding job at times, no doubt about that.
An apartment manager is expected to perform in the following areas:
1. Marketing
Marketing is one if not the most important aspect of doing business – any business. People say marketing even more valuable than the product or service itself. I know some entrepreneurs would love to challenge that train of thought. But even so, it says a lot about how important marketing is to the daily responsibilities of an apartment manager.
Especially these days with Internet marketing, a good apartment manager is someone who is well-versed in the arts of social media.
2. Staffing
An apartment manager is pretty much useless if he doesn't have an army of staff to guide and supervise. Even a small apartment building needs someone to accomplish billing duties, answer phone calls, do the paperwork, keep the office neat and tidy, collect the rent, etc. You can't expect the apartment manager to do all these!
An apartment manager should have a keen eye for hiring hardworking people into his team.
3. Budgeting
Doing the budget is another crucial responsibility of the apartment manager. The way the collected rent must be sufficient to pay operational costs and still keep a profit is something that must be overseen by the apartment manager at all times. If you hired an apartment manager and you've been on the losing end since, he's obviously not doing his budgeting tasks very well.
4. Leasing
Agents are supposed to take care of leasing concerns. But even so, the apartment manager needs to have a say in it, especially since he'll in charge of dealing with the tenant from here on out.
An apartment manager is expected to supervise the talks between the leasing agent and potential tenant, so knowledge of state and federal legal regulations on civil rights and discrimination is a must.
5. Membership in a recognized guild
Some apartment managers are members of the RAM, or Registered in Apartment Management organization, a cooperative between apartment managers of apartments, housing and condominiums. This particular organization offers training and education for amateur apartment managers under the supervision of the National Association of Home Builders.
The short story by Raymond Carver, Gazebo, described how a motel lost all of its business when its apartment managers decided to lock the entire place up and drink wine in one of the suites. Apartment managers are essential to the growth of an apartment business. Make sure you hire one that hits all the job requirements and then some.
"What Makes a Good Apartment Manager", was submitted 02/12/2012 under category Real Estate.
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