4 Skills Required to Manage Property

Those that manage property need to be multi-skilled to meet the demands of their tenants and those that they are looking after the property for. We have to consider also the difference between hard vs soft facilities management. The difference here is that hard services will relate to the physical materials that are unable to be removed from a building. Hard facilities will be legally linked to the safety and welfare that needs to be considered for employees and customers. The regulations will ensure that employers take responsibility in respect of health and safety.

So, let us consider the skills a property manager should possess so that they will be able to help tenants and all those concerned with a tenancy.

Communication Skills

A property manager will require excellent communication skills to negotiate with tenants who will frequently have issues that need dealing with promptly before they become complaints. These types of customer care skills can be transferrable from a retail environment.

Useful communication skills will include empathy and having a helpful manner. It is about being able to reassure a tenant as much as having the means and contacts at your disposal to deal with their concern. This might be maintenance that needs sorting on a property. To leave it too long before attending to will annoy a tenant as much as it could those leasing out the property, should it turn into an even bigger maintenance job and so cost more money to repair and put right.

Property managers will also need a knowledge of social media and be capable of a degree of persuasion. They are, after all, generally responsible for advertising properties to leases and for showing those looking to lease around properties or premises. Similar skills for property management will be required as an estate agent would need these to be successful. Selling skills, in other words, and being able to highlight the best features of a property that will best suit a client’s needs are key areas of any property manager’s repertoire.

Maintenance Skills

In many cases, light maintenance tasks will be expected to be carried out by those managing a property. This will save much expense when this can be done in-house as it were. It will also mean that routine maintenance can be carried out in a timely fashion.

Maintenance will cover routine cleaning and knowing how to perhaps easily remove certain types of stains. It will certainly be beneficial to know how to deal with dampness and mold that may be growing on walls. It is also about knowing when to call in professionals, such as plumbers to fix a recurring leak, or power washing services to clean the sidewalks, decks, and concrete. There is a fine line between knowing when a job is outside the remit of a property manager, and when it is not.

Accounting Skills

A property manager should have some accounting knowledge or the knowledge of property management and accounting software to record correctly the taking of rent from a tenant and other similar data. They will also generally be the ones responsible for banking that money. So, they will need to be a trustworthy individual with a trustworthy face and build something of a relationship with their tenant when it comes to the expectation that rent will be paid on time. Of course, this collection process can be made easier by having the collection of rent dealt with by direct debit. There will be many tenants not that financially well off, however, who will still want to pay in cash when they get paid by their employer. They may, for instance, earn their money from casual labor. A rent collector will need to be able to deal effectively with all walks of life and know what their clients will prefer and what works best for everyone concerned.

Knowledge of Architecture

As additional skills, it can be considered useful if a property manager has knowledge of buildings in terms of their architecture. This is as an extension of maintenance or basic building skills. It is about the terminology that can be used to describe a building in promotional material and when in discussions with potential tenants. And it doesn’t matter whether the person in question, learns this through a course, from the experience of people already in this field (Michael Teys, for example), or by simply working more in this field. What actually matters is how efficiently he can manage the property and answers the queries of the people concerned.

It is about coming over as professional and knowledgeable as it is these kinds of traits that are indicative of someone being trustworthy. This is how experienced professionals from reputed property management companies would want to come over at all times. Firstly, to attract tenants. Then secondly, to continue to serve the needs of tenants that rely on the property manager just as those leasing out the property will. It is in a sense a piggy-in-the-middle situation, but one a property manager must get used to when satisfying all. There are many more skills required beyond that of an estate agent.

To conclude, the skills to have as a property manager should be along the lines of having good communication skills, adequate maintenance skills, and sufficient accountancy or finance skills. As a bonus, a knowledge of building terminology will help describe properties to tenants and to gain respect because of the professional knowledge displayed.