PROPERTY MANAGERS

Jackmartin

I am writing this question from a position of frustration. I think everyone reading entries on this site has dealt with property managers at sometime. I have come up with a list of traits these people seem to share and I would like to see if I am in fact just being too judgemental. They never know anything about the system they call you to service, but always believe the last person they call, even if the advise is from another planet. Regardless of what the problem is ,they always want to get a lower quote, after you have been foolish enough to tell them exactly what the problem is. They always think bigger is better. The more pressure the better it wiil Heat, the bigger the pipe the better it will work, the bigger the trap the more efficient the condensate removal. Simple solutions are always wrong, it has to be complicated because they do not understand the problem and if it was simple, they would be able to figure out the solution themselves. The last one is my pet peeve; politics. I hate politicians and I am the worlds worse politican, if I have a problem with you I will speak to you alone out of ear shot of anyone else. Why does every new property manager taking over for the previous encumbant ,have to do everything in their power to denigrate the person they replaced? I am a person ,who thankfully ,does not suffer from high blood pressure until I run into this back stabbing. My blood pressure goes up every time I am presented with this scenario, silly I agree, but in my case reality. All the best Jack

STEVEusaPA

I lump them in with landlords, and usually just say not interested.

EBEBRATT-Ed

.....and never give them ANY information in your quote on how you will fix things.

They will peddle your price and your quote to every contractor in town

JohnNY

I work in New York City. If you want to do service work in volume in NYC, you're going to have to deal with property management companies to some extent and I agree with you, Jackmartin. The homeowners have no idea how bad they are at selecting contractors and awarding work. All the work is given to the company with the lowest hourly rates, all the time. And they talk to the contractors like crap, make unreasonable demands, and are slow to pay and quick to renegotiate. Their job is to come between you and the client's money. Period. They do not have the clients' best interests at heart, ever. I've had management company reps tell flat-out lies about my company, our prices, and our service to get their (new) clients to use their own crappy plumbing/heating companies. This is a big issue for me and while I'm not glad you brought it up, I'm glad to know it's not just me.

Jamie Hall

Um... guys... not all of us are that bad. Really. Although I will agree that many are. Part of the problem is that the property owner usually select the manager based on the lowest wage/price they can get away with... and will raise holy whatnot if the manager spends an extra dime.

GroundUp

Thank you @Jamie Hall . As a landlord and PM myself, I will agree 100%. I work for other PMs on a daily basis and yes, a lot of them are exactly as described. Bashing their predecessor, telling us how to do our jobs, etc is normal. Just need to take that garbage with a grain of salt and do what you know is right without deviating from the PM's plan too far. I have yet to run across a PM that wasn't willing to cooperate once the options are explained and discussed. As Jamie says, it's almost always the owner that sets these rules. Low bidder always wins these things- if you're decent at it you won't likely be the low bidder, so nothing to worry about. Often times they'll just take the band-aid knowing full well it's a band-aid and pay again in a month when it acts up again. Having spent a lot of time in conversations with other landlords, it's a very common practice to just band-aid something 10 times at $100 vs just replacing it right away at $300. I don't do it because I know better, but most of them just look at capital expenses as a negative when it should be regarded as an asset.

JohnNY

Jamie Hall said:

Um... guys... not all of us are that bad. Really. Although I will agree that many are. Part of the problem is that the property owner usually select the manager based on the lowest wage/price they can get away with... and will raise holy whatnot if the manager spends an extra dime.

Jamie, as I understand it, you handle one property. I'm talking about management companies with 20 or so young, inexperienced and marginally paid agents handling 100 properties. That's what we deal with here. For them it's nothing more than a daily game of checking off long to-do lists as cheaply as possible.

Jamie Hall

JohnNY said:

Jamie Hall said:

Um... guys... not all of us are that bad. Really. Although I will agree that many are. Part of the problem is that the property owner usually select the manager based on the lowest wage/price they can get away with... and will raise holy whatnot if the manager spends an extra dime.

Jamie, as I understand it, you handle one property. I'm talking about management companies with 20 or so young, inexperienced and marginally paid agents handling 100 properties. That's what we deal with here. For them it's nothing more than a daily game of checking off long to-do lists as cheaply as possible.

I agree, @JohnNY (though actually I now manage four, all historic -- which is quite another ball game. Lots of fun, lots of opportunities for creative solutions as they say). And I truly sympathise with the hassles folks like you have to go through; working on bottom feeder properties, never mind trying to work with the dimwits who manage them, is something I wouldn't go near with a barge pole. I truly don't understand how you do it.

DavidMarasow

Jackmartin
I am both and I have lots of properties. In NYC and other states.
While I sympathize with you and I see my freinds and partners talk this way, I’d like to show you a bit of other prop prospectives.
1 many times the property/building cannot afford the proper replacement especially in 1 shot, lots of guy would rather have a bit a headaches and save money..... especially in NYC where the laws are very very pro tenant there are lots of tenant not paying rent whereby landlords cannot fix!!
I have properties I cannot pay my mortgage forget about boiler replacement.
What most guy FAIL to realize is when you replace vs fix you can get tax credits, in NYC you can get rent raises for such a expense AND you can get weatherization assistance in the right neighborhood... if you know what your doing....
But it all cost money out of pocket.....
2- I have had many times Contractor’s install a system but they don’t really know and understand what they have installed whereby causing long term stress..... very larg reputaple Guys/companies.... so some times you just think about lowest number because NOT because it’s expensive is it better quality job....
3- paperwork!!! Some hearing guys are not good paperwork guys and vs versa so I can get a job done right but not signed off so it drags out the job..... it’s NYC after all paperwork is %50!!

4- in this business any good owner/pm NEEDs to learn and study heating.... read and lean all you can .... most don’t know crap
So when someone sells them the cheaper price they run with it even though they may leave the old crappy 1000 year old mixing valve.... they don’t understand...... I truly sympathize with you!!

I haven’t been on this site in a while, winter is coming... starting to feel the pain.... I come back for emotional preparations!!! LOL