Some great tips Emily.  One thing that I believe is important with grow is making sure is maintainting the properties you have well ie retention.  I went to a seminar recently where the speaker says they went and did some consultancy work for a firm. The principal was really happy because the business was gaining 5 new managements a month. When they looked in a bit deeper the business was losing 4 a month as well. What's the point of gaining new managements and then losing others out the back door. Every new management and every termination requires heaps of extra work so why bother going in either direction. We need to maintain the properties we have really well and then go with growth.

Also I have a bug bear about people judging how good you are by the number of properties you manage. I don't believe that numbers is what is important. I think it is about business profitability. As an example it is better to only have say 200 well managed profitable properties to manage than 400 properties low class properties with lots of problems that are difficult to manage and in the end do not generate good profit for the business.

Margaret www.dmrealty.com.au

Thanks for the tips Emily - I will be using these in coming weeks... I agree Emily and Margaret no point in bringing in lots of managements if you losing what you hold already.  Self reflection is a good thing here... out of interest how many properties do you think a good Mgr should have to care for?

Mel - that is the 64 million dollar question!  In the absence of 64 million dollars, my theory has two parts.  Part one: geography combined with demographic and delivery on service to landlords will give you the number.  Part two - part one will be irrelevant with apmasphere.

Hi Emily,

This is a great article!  I love the tips in here.  I was with an office today who makes 5 calls per day, but what they're not doing which you've highlighted, is asking for more business at this time, which is crazy when you think about it as they're actually doing all the work. 

Margaret, your bugbear is on the money - quality properties producing more income is far, far better than more numbers for the sake of numbers.  Profitabiility is what counts.  Rockend advises that a good management will produce about $600 profit, so that's what I'm having our staff aim for.

Mel, I agree with Emily.  It's the question everyone wants to know...Emily, perhaps we could complete a questionairre on how many rentals you have vs how many in the department including rationing out any part-time staff working on accounts etc and see if we can come up with an answer through these forums.  I know it's a lot to ask everyone to divulge this kind of sensitive information but it would benefit us all...perhaps only those that part-take actually are revealed the answer?  I'm not sure how this could be structured - perhaps you have some thoughts on this? Do you think it's possible?

Jodie and Mel, I think the number of properties that can be managed by one person is going to be a different number depending on the geographical location of the properies and the type of demogrpahic you work in.  A good example of this would include an area with large family homes including gardens and swimming pools located in a highly congestured traffic area or located some distance from the agency.  This type of property takes more time to lease, manage and deliver on service to the owner so a property manager managing this portfolio would have to have less propties than say a portfolio made of up of many aparments in only a handful of buildings.

Ayway, why do we need to know the answer to this question?  I prefer the question: how much does it cost to manage a property in your business?

There are so many variables to structure, fees and the time required for travelling to be remotely accurate on these numbers.  Maybe what we could look at though is structure.  This is something all property managers have experienced and in some cases, they have more than one experience to share.  Further, an opinion on the best structures for them?

"Also I have a bug bear about people judging how good you are by the number of properties you manage."

SO true Margaret! I used to manage many more properties than I do now, however I am a much better property manager now as I actually have the time to dedicate to giving my owners & tenants the very best service.

I think that is impossible to know how many properties a PM can manage due to so many variables as Emily mentioned. If the relationship between a principal & PM is a good one, this should be something that a PM can bring to a principals attention & vice versa.

Any PM Structure is as only as good as the systems and procedures in place. Portfolio structure is great but depends on the fail safe systems and personal organisation of the Pm and measurement from the business manager. You can have a structure of Property Inspectors, Leasing managers, BDMs and Office based PM's with all the various skill sets but if work flows are disjointed, communication and procedures fail the structure is irrevant.