“Landlord” is one of those terms everyone knows and can pretty well define, but no one, except maybe the landlord, understands. And that’s before we start throwing out terms like “property manager” or “manager” or “agent.” So who is a landlord/property manager/manager/agent and what do they do all day?
First, we know that when we rent a home or an apartment, someone else owns the property. This can be either an individual person, a group of people, or a company. The owner can then decide it they want to look after the property themselves, hire an employee to do it, or hire a professional property management company. Any of these people can be colloquially referred to as the “landlord.” However, if they are a property management company, or an employee of the owner, they may also be called “property manager” or “manager.” And if they have their real estate license, “agent.”
In our office, the property manager is responsible for overseeing the complete running of the property. From beginning to end they:
-List the property for rent (KSL, Craiglist, Rentler, etc)
-Show the property to prospective tenants
- Process any incoming applications for the property
- Sign the lease with the new tenant
- Approve/coordinate all maintenance requests that come in from the tenant
- Make sure all rent is collected on time
- Post eviction notices if rent doesn’t come in on time
- Help coordinate evictions if things really don’t go well
- Attend trainings and conferences held by local, state, and national apartment and realtor associations
- Complete periodic inspections of the property
- Handle any complaints that come in from tenants or neighbors (neighbors disturbing each other, people not cleaning up after pets, roommates not paying utilities or their portion of the rent, roommates not getting along, etc)
- Handle any questions that arise (can we add/subtract people from the lease, who does the cable, who does the internet, can we sell the contract, when does the lease end, who is in charge of snow removal, when can we renew, are rents going up next year, what does this clause in the lease mean, what are the restrictions on ____, etc)
- Coordinate tenants selling contracts (new application process and new lease for the new tenant)
- Confirm tenants who will be renewing
- Send out new leases for tenants renewing
- Provide rental references for previous tenants
- Complete deposit dispositions for outgoing tenants
OR
- Start the process over again with finding a new tenant
At a glance, that is what your property manager does each day. This is just a simple outline, but it does highlight the main and busiest points of a manager’s day. Some days are busier than others of course, but if you ever couldn’t get a hold of your manager and wondered what exactly they could be doing, now you know!
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