What does success look like when you’re renting out a property?
In the Tampa market and the surrounding areas of Hillsborough County, we believe success looks like an occupied property, where the well-qualified tenant is paying rent on time and helping you take care of your investment. Success looks like a property that’s increasing in value. Success, from our perspective, is consistent rental income and long-term equity and appreciation.
How can you unlock that success?
With local property management. This can be a secret weapon for a lot of investors. Partnering with a property manager who has both industry knowledge and local expertise will allow you to leverage all of the tools, resources, and expertise that they bring to the table.
Property management and real estate are industries driven by relationships. There’s still a place for personal service, even while technology and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to grow and evolve.
Large, national property management companies are buying up a lot more real estate. They’re even buying up some smaller property management companies. They have a lot of money, and they make a lot of promises. They rely almost exclusively on technology.
We don’t doubt that they can do a good job managing your property. But, we believe that they’re missing something critical: local market knowledge.
We want to talk a bit about the invaluable role of local knowledge in property management.
Local Tampa Rental Market Knowledge
Even at Hoffman Realty, we use a lot of technology to price properties, screen tenants, and engage in strategic and smart marketing strategies. It’s essential. We automate what we can so that we have the time to focus on more important things – like tenant retention and owner satisfaction.
The technology we utilize is supported by our presence in the local Tampa rental market. Interpersonal relationships always come first. To us, this is important. Living and working here allows us to understand the trends and the tastes of tenants. We get to see competing properties and walk through the homes that we’re renting out. We talk to contractors and we know what mortgage lenders are thinking. This local market presence and knowledge provide a competitive advantage to our owners that you don’t have when all of your property management functions are automatically generated or coming from somewhere outside of the area.
Relationships with Owners, Tenants, and Vendors
Property management requires excellent listening and communication skills. Problem-solving is needed, and a willingness to resolve conflicts and disputes before they escalate.
It’s easier than ever to communicate electronically. We send emails and text messages all the time.
However, as local property managers, we also have the opportunity to really get to know the people we’re working with, and we find that contributes to a better rental experience for everyone.
We do our jobs better because we know the owners that we’re working with. We take the time to talk through your investment goals and your challenges. We alert you to potential opportunities because we know what you need and where you want to grow.
Our tenant relationships are equally as important. It’s our job, as your property manager, to hold tenants accountable to their lease agreement. We’re committed to collecting rent on time and protecting the condition of your property. But, we are also focused on providing exceptional customer service. We want to deliver great homes to good tenants.
Positive tenant relationships improve your investment experience. Our ability to work closely with our residents leads to fewer turnovers and shorter vacancies. That translates to more money for you.
Vendor relationships are also critical. If you’ve tried to hire a plumber, a drywall expert, or an HVAC tech recently, you may have noticed that they’re busy. They can pick and choose which projects they decide to take on, and when they decide to complete them.
With our strong local presence and our ability to provide a large volume of work to vendors, we found that we’ve been able to develop great relationships with preferred service providers and leverage their best rates. This is a benefit that’s passed on directly to you. It makes it easier and more cost-effective to protect the condition and value of your investment.
Maintaining Accessibility and Responsiveness
Getting a vendor out to your property to make a repair or respond to an emergency is one thing. Because we’re local and committed to your investment property, we’re willing to go a step further. A property manager with local knowledge and a local presence can get to your property themselves.
When something goes wrong unexpectedly, we can get over to your property and make sure the tenant is okay. We can assess the situation ourselves and then report directly back to you about the extent of the damage and the efforts to mitigate further costs.
This is only possible when you’ve partnered with a local Tampa property manager.
It’s a big city, and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. But we can cover it because we’re here. We’re responsive, we’re available, and we’re accessible.
Your local property manager will be able to communicate in many different ways, not just over an online chat. There’s a lot of value to that. We can respond to any form of communication quickly, and we don’t rely on a few canned responses or automated phrases. We listen. And, we care.
A local property manager is always better than someone you don’t really know working out of a remote office. You cannot leave all of the property management functions to AI. We respect the way technology is growing in our field, and we love trying new things. We also understand the importance of being right here, where our tenants and our managed properties are.
Smart real estate investors understand the value of local market knowledge and responsiveness when it comes to property management. They always will.
If you’d like to talk about this further, please contact us at Hoffman Realty. We’d love to discuss how we can help you have a more profitable investment experience.