Hi Russell,

I think it would come down to the individual.

I myself prefer to be in the office environment the majority of the time. I once worked at an office where we had 3 PM’s. It wasn’t until I left and worked as a sole PM that I realised the benefit of working in an office with multiple PM’s. There was always someone to discuss an issue with if something came up.

As a sole PM I do email other PM’s I have worked with but it isn’t the same.

Hmm at home, With the possible distraction of the tv, friends poping over and other issues.
Also filing cabients in my study with office records…

I think you have to be a very trusting man to allow your PM’s to work at home. Not only would you need to be very careful in your hiring but also there is arranging a meeting point for client and tenant sign ups (where do you meet).

Maybee as a benifit to the pm’s they could have one day a month as a catch up at home, But full time from home i think could be an issue.

I know i would try to do the best work i could, but know i wouldn’t possibly perform in the same capacity as i do know. I also love patricks point about discussion, i think i would be lost with my collegues at my fingertips.

I think you are right it’s not for everyone and I have had to find a good mix of work and home distractions but at the end of the day the work has to get done.

I think you would have to hire a PM on a payment per property and would work best if the PM had a small portfolio.

If you are getting paid per property it would not bother me if you sit and watch tv 3 days per week as long as the properties you are managing are getting looked after.

With the main office to give support and assistance when needed.

Would need to be a person who can take control and run it as their own business.

Console is great for reporting and you would know if there is any issues and if someone was falling behind.

As for meetings with tenants and owners  the way I would work it is the PM would only deal with the tenants No BDM role involved.

I sign all my tenants at the property so that’s not an issue.

Also I am currently working with an assistant that works from home and it is working out great.

This role would not be for an 18 year old that’s for sure.

I still think it can be done and may try it and see if it doesn’t work bring them into the office.

The other issue is how would you structure the pay? Can you have a PM as a subcontractor?

Sorry just thinking out loud 

also Megan i am a paperless office. 

I work most of the time in an office, but I can remote log in from home, check & send emails, look up info on Console. Any printing I do from the remote prints into the office. I find this very handy to keep an eye on the emails as I am the sole PM in our office & they can build up when I am not there.

I am not sure how it would work full time out of the office, as previously mentioned, it is helpful to have someone to bounce things off, but I think part time at home & part in the office may be an option for some.

I think I would have the opposite problem. I would find myself working at night and weekends. I think it would be hard to leave the work without constantly checking.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I am currently not tied to the office. As my portfolio is reasonably remote from the office, there are times that I (or other PMs) are out of the office for days at a time.

Yes, there is always access to email however we use citrix to log in remotely into the database for all our client records. Essentially, the office is paperless (except for invoices). I still have plenty of client contact whilst on the road. As Brenda points out, I am often on the computer until 1 in the morning catching up on what you’d be doing in the office during the day but stuck on the road.

Generally I find working from home isn’t an issue but there has to be a balance between home and office – even if it is to ensure that office requirements are being met, new work/exchange of files etc. WFH has its advantages, a few less hours spent travelling to/from the office each week is a good trade off (easily equates to one day a week saving).

Sure, some of the PM functions are handled from the office but I can quite easily arrange a split between home/road/office.

I find that working from home once in a while can have less distractions than working in the office, if there is nobody else at home during the day.

I would like to be able to log in from home but I don’t think I could work there. There is also the concerns of the company ensuring that your laptop/computer and home network is secure enough to keep client information private.

Also, although our portfolio is devided among three PM’s it is still very much a team environment. We work together and the office contains all the resources we need.

If anyhting I wish we could have remote access on our ipad’s for REST to spend more time on the road and broarden the area the office covers. Unfortunately opperating remote access apps over 3G such as logmein just isnt quick enough. It will be interesting to see if the outlook integration in the new update is also icloud compatable.