Building a reputation begins by doing your best work on a daily basis, consistently. Over time, you develop a reputation for service excellence in your industry. We strive to achieve this in every aspect of our business, and recently, that level of service generated positive results and a strong referral for a new client’s apartment portfolio in Columbus.
In fact, this was the client’s assessment after only a few months of work:
“I wanted to let you know that Julie and her team are working hard and doing a great job. Occupancy is up, collections are good, and they are thinking ahead about the major renewal push for the summer/fall. Kevin has really taken control of the reporting and dealing with all the issues. With everyone’s continued help, I expect the properties to continue performing.” – I. Boris
Here’s how the story started…
Case Study – Part 1
Borror Properties Management was referred to an east coast investment firm who requested a proposal to manage three Columbus apartment communities with over 1000 units. In this initial process, we were properly researching and vetting out the communities to verify we were the right team for the job much like they were comparing Borror Properties Management to competing property management companies vying for the same contract.
Why did they select Borror Properties Management?
- LOCATION, location, location! We were local to the Columbus metropolitan market. It is difficult to comprehensively manage apartment communities from afar. And, we know the market very well.
- EXPERIENCE. We have an experienced apartment management team that is well versed in assessing a community, dissecting the operations and the financials, implementing best practices in every discipline, and building and managing investor returns. In this case…within six months we had achieved great results.
- APPROACH. We approach all projects with disciplined, well-defined procedures and processes. Through the years, we have developed these standards by experience and success rates. Plain and simple…it’s what works.
Discovery Phase:
Once we had secured the contract, we immediately began our transition phase on July 1, 2015. During this phase we reviewed the financial reports, including rent rolls, scheduled lease expirations, marketing vehicles, employment history, staffing needs, maintenance logs, work quality, etc. It is important to note that we completed this phase for all three properties simultaneously, which is quite an undertaking.
Key findings in this phase were:
- 70% of all rental leases were scheduled to expire in Q3. Therefore, we needed to develop a resident retention plan, and implement it immediately.
- The maintenance list for outstanding tasks and needed repairs was quite large, and was causing great frustration with residents.
- The staff needed to be integrated and trained in the Borror Properties’ way to perform at the level required for positive change.
- There were a number of scheduled and unscheduled capital improvements that needed to be scoped, bid, and implemented.
To some, these key findings could be intimidating, but we knew that our thorough processes and upbeat, creative team would rise to the challenge. We will share the “how” in our next blog post.