PM Collective - The ART of property management

Can larger agencies still offer a personal service?

• Ashleigh Goodchild

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Is it possible to be a large agency AND offer your clients a personal service? Join us for a conversation with Deb Gidman from Resident Property, who shares her previous career from managing 200 properties to a staggering 5,500. Deb is now a solo operator and her expertise in office management, acquisitions, and integration provides a unique perspective on the dynamics between larger and smaller property management agencies. 

Our discussion also uncovers the complexities of providing personal service within large real estate agencies. Through engaging stories, Deb emphasizes the importance of attention to detail and end-to-end management, illustrating the role of remote professionals in streamlining tasks. Communication with landlords emerges as a critical aspect, especially during vacancies or management transitions. In a world where operational efficiency often conflicts with personal service, Deb shares how "good news calls" and tailored communication methods can enhance client relationships while maintaining a balance.

As businesses grow, so do the challenges of team dynamics and client experience. Deb and I explore strategies for managing these challenges, highlighting the importance of consistent processes and the personal touch. 

We talk about the benefits and challenges of both small and large teams, where a single main client contact and a mindset of working as if for oneself can significantly enhance service. 

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Speaker 1:

We have the lovely Deb Gidman from Resident Property joining me today for the podcast, and this podcast topic came up from a recent discussion you and I were having in regards to larger agencies versus smaller agencies. So can you just sort of let people know that haven't heard you before. Just give a brief history of where you've been and where you are now.

Speaker 2:

So I started in property management about 14 years ago and the agency I started with had 200 managements and when I left that agency after 10 years they had 5,500 managements over three states. So my role was I did office management, but I also did acquisitions and integration. I then went on to join a corporate team as a BDE helping the property management departments and about 16 months ago I decided I would give it a red hot crack on my own and started Resident Property, which is property management focused, and I'm, yeah, doing my best thing on my own.

Speaker 1:

And pretty much the polar opposite of what you were doing before, because now you just manage yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, it's a big adjustment and it is very different being on my own just me as opposed to a big team. So it's taken some adjustment, that's for sure.

Speaker 1:

So when you had the business was at 200 properties, you do some acquisitions. You now then have 5,500 properties under management. Was there a lot of planning of what the next stage was for that growth Like? Was there any like points at like 500 or with each acquisition that you were like, okay, we need to change something, or did it sort of just grow?

Speaker 2:

It actually did just grow. It was an organic process and we didn't really. We probably in hindsight could have sat down and structured it and thought about it, but the acquisitions happened quite fast. But what we did was we had one structure which was end-to-end management, as a lot of property management departments do, and then as we grew, we had a couple of segregated roles. So we had a leasing and we had a BDM, and then, as they grew, we also had then an office manager and the thought was that the office manager would step into each of those portfolios as the PMs was away. Because that's the biggest thing is, when you've got, say, five PMs in an office and they're all going to take four weeks of annual leave, who is going to oversee that? When you're doing a large portfolio end to end, you don't really have any spare time to assist another portfolio. So we had an office manager who would run the office, keep that all streamlined, but also would step into the each of the portfolios when that team. That team was away on an annual leave. So no, it was, it was. It was.

Speaker 2:

You know, we had a plan that we wanted to open up an office. So we had four offices in WA. So we knew we wanted to open up an office. So we had four offices in WA. So we knew we wanted to open up an office and we'd find a rent roll in that office. And we took over this office space and we just carried on and plugged and played. We took what was working in our original office and just plugged it back in there and, yeah, used it in all the offices.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so it doesn't sound like necessarily processes and policies change or procedures change, but it was more of a change of staffing structure to help it run smoothly.

Speaker 2:

And that evolved massively over the time because we thought we would be more efficient by changing things and so that efficiency came, or the thought process behind it was we'll get some more softwares because that will make us efficient and we'll also split off some roles. So a big part of a property manager's day is outside work, so inspections and routines and home opens and all of those things. So in order to try and give property managers more time, back then there were inspection offices that were introduced and obviously the letting officers would do the home open. So we tried to make it so that the PMs were just in the office doing office-y things and the other people were taking care of the things outside.

Speaker 2:

In hindsight, you know, maybe it wasn't the best plan. You open yourself up to a lot of dropping the ball points when you add in extra people. So I know that there's a lot of people that do pods and it's very successful and it works for them. I know that there's a lot of people that do pods and it's very successful and it works for them. I think for the company that I was in, you know somebody would go out and do a routine and they'd come back to the office and they'd forget to relay information to the property manager and then the report was sent out and then the property manager would get a bit of an angry phone call and they didn't have the knowledge and the information. So if you're going to change the structure, I think you need to think about how to make those transitions really seamless.

Speaker 1:

Because the idea of having that pod system and the people that have the pod systems their comments are it makes people more accountable, because there's people they have to answer to, as opposed to a portfolio manager who looks after everything, where they can potentially hide things. So that's sort of like what the pod people say to get business as opposed to the portfolio. So what you're saying is that that is a communication. Like if you don't have the communication, it's going to fall apart.

Speaker 2:

It's going to fall apart. And just going back to the so when we did the whole portfolio when the PMs were managing it, the way that we found out if people were hiding things is we would do weekly KPI meetings so the office manager would sit with the property manager and the softwares that we used gave us great visibility over what was happening. We could pull up arrears at a glance, we could pull up lease renewals, we could pull up vacant properties. We had all of that information and we'd sit down and have weekly conversation. And I know it is super time consuming and you probably say counterproductive, but when you do have a large team it's like you say, it's very easy for somebody to sit in the corner and not do that lease renewal and you know, not get that property leased as quickly as they can and let their arrears slip and not worry about the invoices. You know there's so many moving parts in a property manager's role and so the accountability part was that sitting with the manager. So they would have to prepare the report. They would sit down.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes it was a lengthy process, sometimes it could just be a 10 minutes. Your arrears are at 1%. You've got all your lease renewals up to that, checking those things off. So they had to meet their KPIs in order to get a financial bonus. So there was a vested interest for them to have all of that work. So we kind of structured it like a business within a business. So they got their base salary but if you hit all your KPIs, you could hit this target as well. Yeah, so when PMs are financially motivated, I find that there's a. That's always yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

They don't got to hide anything. No, if you were, do you remember the first staff member that you brought on that changed that whole structure? Like, was the first person a leasing coordinator or was it an inspector? And I'm asking this for purely selfish reasons because, like my business is at that stage of that growth who was the first new staff member?

Speaker 2:

We actually had BDM first because a property manager is so busy in their day-to-day a new lead coming in. What is that? That's additional work. They're not looking at it as a business. That's more money coming into the business. They really, in my opinion and yes, you can incentivize them, but even incentivizing them it's a lot of work when they've got all of this workload anyway. So the BDM was the first thing. So the PMs were incentivized to pass a name and number onto the BDM and the BDM would run and do that deal. And then we found that we were getting more deals that way than just leaving it to the property. All right, so I've done that.

Speaker 1:

You've done that one, I've got the BDM, so take that one. Who's the?

Speaker 2:

next person, then the next one was the leasing. Okay, but we took on a leasing exec. When do you remember the times that we're probably heading back into? Yes, but but where we had to beg, borrow and steal to find a tenant and we had to offer them a brand new TV or a washing machine A couple of steps on the balcony to attract people to look at it.

Speaker 2:

You know it was two weeks free rent, a month's free rent, bond pay. There were like all sorts of incentives that we so we brought the leasing exec on in those times because they were having to call every tenant. Oh, I see you've expressed interest. When would you like to go what? 12 o'clock tonight. I'm there. That's when we decided that the leasing exec and then obviously in the better times where we were inundated, it still worked because there were so many applications and there's a lot of work involved in leasing. So that was definitely. The next role we took on was the leasing Okay.

Speaker 1:

So I love hearing this because for me we have the 1200 properties and I bought on a operations manager recently, so that's my first person, but you're probably your business. Would the company would have already had that person. I would have thought, yes, yes, yes, yeah, okay. So I'm a little bit behind the eight ball with bringing someone on there Trying to do everything yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, correct so.

Speaker 1:

I've done that, so with and I'm only just looking at this for people that are going through the same sort of growth, so that you know what your next plan is, because I think it's really. We find that our team really like doing their own viewings, because they really like to see who is coming through, because it actually makes the process easier, and they probably are lacking a little bit of trust in a leasing consultant as well and they probably find it a little bit hard to approve.

Speaker 2:

Well, a lot of the time the leasing is a junior person. People think that it's a junior role and so they just get sometimes unqualified, unregistered people in to do that role and I think that's the piece that they're missing. You actually need somebody that is very experienced, because we do a lot of people reading. When we're at an inspection, we're visually're, visually. You know how do they present, how are they talking to us, how are they communicating? We're making notes. You're absolutely right For a good PM. That's the foundation of the tenancy and you want to make sure that you get that right. But if you find that you have an experienced, it's essentially another PM. You know, it's a really experienced PM that takes on that role. And if your PMs then have the trust that that's going to be done well, I think you'll find that they'll soon get on board.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that they'll be on board when things change a lot and it's becoming more of a pain point. But I've done a podcast previously with a mature guy I think he was about 60, maybe a little bit over 60. And I remember him coming on and he was telling me he was a leasing consultant. He was also a BDM as well as a leasing consultant. My first thoughts were how weird having an older man being a leasing consultant because we're so conditioned that this is such a junior female role. But in fact I thought, no, that office is incredibly smart because they've got someone with life experience. He would make great decisions on who he thought was the best fit and I thought it was an absolute genius move getting them in. So I think that as an industry we are just so preconditioned with junior female and they then do leasing and then they go do inspections and then they become a property manager.

Speaker 2:

But the leasing role is probably should be a senior, the most experienced role because, like you said, if you get that right, the whole tenancy is an absolute dream and also you know that if you've got that experienced person, if they go to the property and there is an issue, they're going to act on it, because that's another thing that the PM probably worries about If they get to the property and they've noticed a leaking tap or something, they can come back to the office and they can action it, whereas if it's a junior, they may not report it, and then you're setting up the tendency to start with a leaking tap, which is always not great. So, yeah, no, definitely an experienced person in that role.

Speaker 1:

Have I ever told you the story about my young, young, young young? I'll say she's a pushers property manager, just new. But she did a viewing and I get a call from the neighbor at about nine o'clock that night in an area of Perth where you don't want to leave your doors unlocked, and the neighbor had called me to say hey, just letting you know that the doors open and the lights are on. I said what do you mean? It's like unlocked? She goes. No, no, the door's wide open, the lights are on. She goes. I didn't want to go in the house, I've literally just snipped it at the back and pulled it shut. And my young property manager literally has done a home open and just walked out the door and I'm sure the car was probably facing the house and she probably saw it and I don't even know what went through her head.

Speaker 2:

She was probably rushing to get to the next one.

Speaker 1:

Let's blame it on that. A 65-year-old male would not be doing that.

Speaker 2:

No no, no, and you know what. It is the small things, because you may leave a light on or the air con on or something, or the back door unlocked, but if the owner goes round at the weekend to do a few final things and sees that again you're setting the whole tone for the management in that we haven't done our job properly during that home open. So it is a super important role.

Speaker 1:

So, coming back to the structure for large agencies and just bringing it back into that, you know, is it possible to offer a personal service in a very large real estate agency? Is it possible to keep portfolio management, where you've got to start to end property manager in a large team? Like, is that possible? Because what you were sort of talking about was that you've, you know, had to bring the leasing consultant and property inspector, bringing all those people in as more of a pod system. What do you think?

Speaker 2:

My personal preference, having sort of experienced a few things, is to keep it as you manage it, end to end. Yes, the leasing and the BDM separate. But you doing your inspections, if you're not attending the property and you don't see that property deteriorating yourself, how can you confidently speak with your owner about the property? This is what we're managing. Is that asset? And if it is slowly getting worse during this tenancy, you will know. Going there four times a year, you'll know and you'll be able to relay that to the owner.

Speaker 2:

If somebody else is doing it, it's different eyes and different perceptions and so I think end-to-end is definitely the way. Assistance yes, fantastic. Two people working on the same portfolio. Rps I've just been educated. Vas is not the lingo anymore. Remote professionals definitely have a place in my opinion, and a lot of people don't agree with that, but I feel like the. You know, can you draft this lease? For me, like sitting and drafting a lease and taking four minutes or whatever it takes to draft that lease is really not productive use of a PM's time. So there are certainly things that I would add in to help, but personally I still like it when a property manager manages end to end.

Speaker 1:

So maybe support whether that's, like you said, leasing BDM RP, that is, not directly client contact, so that the clients at the end of the day this is who we're referring to the client fuels that personal service with that one point of contact and that's probably the most important part of it.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, absolutely. You know we used to, we used to. So I was just thinking about it on the drive when we've sort of said we were going to discuss this. The most intense time or the most sort of like time that you're communicating with your landlord is when the property is vacant and you're leasing it or when the new management has come on they're nervous about. You know, a lot of them are first time investors. They don't have multiple properties, they haven't done it before and they need our guidance and they need our expertise and they may be quite sort of thirsty for knowledge and calling you and emailing you, but this is the absolutely most important time where you need to give all of that communication. So yes, it might be intensive at the start, but once you've built that trust, how often do they actually call you during the tenancy? You know it's generally if you've proven yourself at the beginning. They're not.

Speaker 2:

So what we used to do and I've heard it used quite a few times is a good news call. So the only time a property manager calls you is when there's maintenance or your tenants vacating or some financial implication. So we used to flip that on the head and we used to have a good news call and just say oh, just to let you know, we've just been told that your tenant had a baby, they're loving the property, they pay their rent on time, they're just gorgeous and everything's going really well, and just sort of flipping that narrative so that not when they see your number pop up on their phone, expecting that doom and gloom call. So we used to do good news calls but communication is so subjective. So for me, if you've emailed me, it's clocked that you've communicated with me.

Speaker 2:

But for a lot of people that doesn't work. They'll say you haven't communicated with me. But for a lot of people that doesn't work, they'll say you haven't communicated with me. You say but I've sent you four emails. So we need to understand what kind of client we're dealing with and we need to make sure that, however they want to be communicated with, that we're focusing on that. So if you've got a client that wants a phone call, pick up the phone and do the phone call and that has to be your main property manager, not an inspection, in my opinion, not a third part, not even the leasing exec. So the leasing exec should do all of the work, but the property manager should present the application to the owner. That's my opinion.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, and some people I have heard hand it back through to the leasing department to handle all that and then bring it back to the property manager as a cycle. But I guess that's probably the biggest the easiest way to create that personal service in that large team is by keeping that property manager as one point of contact. And, yeah, whoever else you've got working around, they report to you and you report back. So the reason why we're talking about this topic it was actually around council rates and if you just want to sort of share what we were talking about in regards to the difference with large teams versus small, teams.

Speaker 2:

Well, you can imagine, I think there was 4,000 managements in WA, so if you've got 4,000 rates, notice coming in, there was no way that we were going to be offering clients the option to pay in full, pay in two installments or pay in full. They all got processed as four installments and that was it. And I was recently processing mine and, because I'm smaller, what I did was I processed them all as four but sent an email at the same time saying if you would like it processed as one payment or two, please let me know. I have processed it as four and if I don't hear from you, this is how it'll continue. And it just got me to thinking that that is a really nice touch. Hopefully people will feel that I'm doing a good service by offering that, but I think you said your trust accountant does offer it. She does.

Speaker 1:

But it's funny because I'm the one that's actually saying to my trust accountant, like, don't waste your time doing that. We don't know that. To me that's not a great use of time. In a larger agency it's just like they all go on four and this is probably, I guess, the thought that we probably should put in our actually sorry, let me just reframe that my trust accountant does it because she's quite meticulous, but if I was giving that job to a property manager, I don't think the property manager would have time to do that.

Speaker 2:

I didn't ever have a trust accountant, so the software that we were using the trust accounting was done by them, so the PM was responsible for uploading all the invoices, paying them, all all of that kind of stuff. So I suppose that's where it was born from. You get your installment, you put it in, you process one. The next one comes through a few months later and you process two. So, yeah, we didn't ever have an in-house trust accountant, so maybe that is something that you do differently with an in-house trust accountant.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think the question that probably property managers should put through their mind is if I had the time, would I do this differently? And if I had the time, would I contact each owner and ask them about the council rates? And if you have a think about that, that's probably a very easy way to make sure we maintain that personal service by just having that thought, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean it's. You know, I had an owner contact me the other day and he wanted separate bills for the use for the water, for the service charge and the usage. I don't know about you, but I get the bill all in one, process it and oncharge it and it's quite a seamless thing. But he wanted the separate and so that was quite easy for me to jump onto Watercorp and change. How annoying. Why did he ask that? I don't know. I don't know because I'm still paying it from his account and oncharging it to the tenant.

Speaker 1:

The difference is that you have gone and sorted out for him where maybe someone in a larger team would have been like what's the problem, like why wouldn't you leave? It's fine, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I certainly feel like I am. I feel like I'm over servicing all of my clients at the moment. Yeah, because I have come from a larger team where it was very business um, whereas now, you know, I'm popping down after this to go mop some floors in a new build a larger team wouldn't be doing that.

Speaker 2:

He would not be doing that because I just, um, yeah, I think as well, because it's my business and I have this is my thing. I've got skin in the game. This is what I say to prospective new landlords I am prepared to do that little bit extra. I don't know how long that will go on for, but you know, I am happy to offer that and in the hope that they'll jump on, give me a good review or speak to another investor and I'll be able to grow my business. So there's ulterior motives for me doing it, not just the kindness of my heart, I want to give that service so that they're saying gosh, you've got to get onto my PM, she's the best.

Speaker 1:

It's nearly more of an emotional business that you're operating, as opposed to the larger agencies, where it's quite unemotional process.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're doing a job and you've got to get through these tasks in order to get your paycheck, whereas, yeah, it's completely flipped with me. I'm very invested in it.

Speaker 1:

You don't get any KPIs at the end of the month. I don't get any KPIs, no, at the end of the month. So benefits? Our last question for this discussion is benefits of a large team. So you're a BDM in a large team, you're going out to sell your service. What sort of points of difference are you using?

Speaker 2:

There are so many. You know it's the team that I created when I was working with a bigger team was that we all helped each other, like that was so important to us. So if somebody did call in sick and they had four inspections, we didn't cancel the inspections. Somebody else would go out and do them. It's inconvenient to the tenant, it's inconvenient to the PM that's got to reschedule them. So we, although we worked on our own individual portfolios, we were very much a team and we would jump in and help.

Speaker 2:

So if I was a BDM, I'd be selling that. You know there's always going to be someone on hand to do a home open if we need it. Or, you know, run a set of keys around to a tenant, whatever it might be. There's more team to do it, whereas me now, if somebody needs something in Baldivis right now sorry, you know I can't do that. So there are so many benefits to having a big team If your team is cohesive and if your team wants to work together as a team and I know that there are some teams out there that don't want to perform like that they're very much I'm coming, I'm doing my job and it's you know, that's the BDM's job? I'm not doing that. Or that's the lifting person's job. I'm not doing that. But yeah, if you build the right culture in your office where everyone wants to see each other succeed, it's a huge benefit.

Speaker 1:

So making sure that the team events and culture is in place for that large team as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I just caught up on Saturday with my old team from three years ago and I still catch up with quite a few of them, so, like we worked, we were in the trenches together. You know, as property management is a tough gig and you know I would go out as I was, you know, an acquisitions or integration, whatever I would go out and do a PCR or I would go and do an inspection if I needed to help the team, and I think we all felt that, that you know, everyone was working towards a common goal, which is ultimately what you want.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, big teams are great as well. I mean the social events and the mental health side. You know you can see if somebody's sitting next to you and they're feeling a bit flat. You know what's the matter. Shall we go for a walk? You know like there's so many benefits to having a big team.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I was just thinking that you probably had. Do you have like a dog at home or a cat?

Speaker 2:

no, my dog passed away oh no, sorry, sorry.

Speaker 1:

How am I meant to finish?

Speaker 2:

this podcast. I actually have a connection of people that I call on being a and yeah, so I will. I call on so when I you know I've I've worked with various people, so I will give them a call. I had a, I had a. You know, something happened yesterday and I'm on the phone to three people going how would you deal with this? Yeah, I find it in other ways Excellent. Not my dog.

Speaker 1:

Please don't say that word again, all right? So just in summary, larger teams that, as opposed to processes and procedures necessarily needing to be changed because they should be consistent regardless of the size, we're definitely looking at bringing in new team members for that scale and to allow that personal feel. Plus, we're also trying to ensure that the main client contact is consistent with one person and if you have got a team around you, that the client doesn't feel that there's too many people around. And then the third thing would be, just if you are in a larger team, having that thought, if I had time or if I was working for myself, would I do this any different? And maybe that can help create that personal service, just with that thought process. Absolutely Amazing. Thank you, deb.

Speaker 1:

It's always lovely chatting to you. Thank you for the memories and I will see you soon, thanks.