Six Important Qualities To Consider When Hiring A Property Manager

In any business, hiring the right person for the job is a relatively difficult task. It is impossible to predict whether or not that person will be a good fit for the property. A property manager manages the daily operations of a single or a group of rental properties. Duties can include:

• Seeking and screening tenants
• Rent collection
• Property maintenance
• Handling on site staff
• Overseeing the accounting system
• Advertising vacancies

The criteria below outline the qualities of a good property manager, and this will help in making the decision whether or not to hire.

Past experience
A property manager who has previously managed properties is a valuable asset. Ideally one with experience should be well grounded in local real estate laws and regulations and should have good knowledge of standard operating procedures for rental properties.

Communication skills
A property manager will be dealing with everyone involved in the property, so excellent communication skills are very important. Amongst the tasks the property manager will be dealing with is tenant complaint and problems, prospective tenants, negotiating with vendors for maintenance issues and procurement, staff issues, reporting to the owners and many more.

Professional approach
Dealing with tenants, contractors and the owners in a proper and respectful manner is very important, especially when it involves sensitive business matters. The property manager should be able to solve the problem or issue at hand in a kind but firm manner.

Organization skills
Managing a property has several moving parts. A typical day for a property manager may involve renting out a unit, evicting a tenant, dealing with a maintenance issue, dealing with a problem tenant etc. In order to stay on top of all these various tasks, a competent property manager should have good organizational skills.

Computer knowledge
The management of properties has been made more efficient and easier with easy to use property management software available in the market. A competent property manager should be familiar on how to use and apply the software to the existing property. This requires familiarity with technology and software.

Multitasking skills
A property manager’s role is to handle the property and the people. This can be challenging in today’s always connected world with smart phones, social media and email. A manager dealing with a showing may be confronted with a water leak in a tenant’s room. There could be staff absences requiring the manager to fill in the current role and other roles. So the ability to switch tasks and not get overwhelmed is an important quality to have.

Because every property is different, our property management services are customized for each property. Contact us and enquire about our full-service property management that provides solutions for investors and their residential properties.

“Clean your room!” is the battle cry for millions of parents everyday.

With the Holiday season upon us and everyone being home, now couldn’t be a better time to help organize and clean up life in the bedroom and set up some routines.

Make use of these easy organization strategies to bring order and remove clutter from your kids’ rooms:

1) Look at the room from your child’s eye.
Adult furniture and organizing systems don’t fit well with children’s needs. To organize a child’s room, solutions must fit the child. For younger children lower the clothing rods and use child size hangers for easier access and storage. Invest in floor level open containers and baskets to hold toys, store socks, underwear, etc.

2) Teach your child organization skills and maintenance methods.
Look at the organization of the room as a learning activity focusing on the child. Address what’s working and what’s important to your child, and what’s causing the problems. If your child is involved in the organization system, he/she will better understand the logic behind what you are explaining to them and maintain the room.

3) Sort, store and simplify.
Kids cannot get organized if their closets are crammed, drawers are stuffed and there is no place to store their toys. Remove excess clothes from the drawers – if they are seasonal clothes, bag them and store in the basement. Go through the toys and ascertain what is being used and what needs to be stored or thrown away. Use containers to store magazines, books, video games etc. Remove what is obsolete or hardly being used.

4) Make it easier to put something away and hard to get out.
This is the golden rule for efficient children’s storage. In all the storage systems you devise, build the effort into getting out, not the putting away.

5) Label everything.
Making simple graphic labels everywhere – inside and outside of drawers, on shelf edges, on containers – helps remind the child where the item belongs. Playing “match the label” can be fun and turns toy picking into a game!

6) Organize bottom to top.
Depending on the stature of the child, it makes sense organizing from bottom to top. Most toys and belongings should be placed on lower shelves, drawers or on the floor. Higher levels should be designated for less frequently used possessions.

7) Begin a maintenance routine.
Children’s rooms can transform from clean and organized to messy in just minutes. Getting them to clean up immediately after their mess can be frustrating for both parents and children. If you build a maintenance routine where certain chores are done at certain times during the day, there will be less disorder and less fraying of tempers.

To learn more about Virani Real Estate Advisors or to discuss a property, contact us at https://virani.ca/contact/ , visit one of our offices, or call 604-913-1000.