In the fall of 1997 I was approached by my father with an opportunity to take a part-time position with his property management company. Expecting our first child, I decided to take the opportunity to move into a new field of work. What began as a part-time job to evaluate an opportunity turned into a 22 year career. Over the years we grew to over 2500 units under management. By 2020, as president of the company, I negotiated and facilitated the sale of the final 806 units.
January 1998 I began as a part-time leasing agent at one of our most difficult properties. From the beginning I knew that I needed to learn the business from the bottom up and that being the “boss’ son”, I needed to earn the respect of the employees.
As such, I was doing the type work that one day, I would be asking others to do. I went out on the midnight calls for emergency maintenance as the “tool mule”, trashed out units, painted units, cleaned units, and cleaned the maintenance shop. Any and all jobs, I did. It built trust and respect and I had real life experience of how property management works on the ground, in the field.
I have two qualities that make me somewhat unique, I have a creative mind that loves to evaluate processes and systems, and I am an early adopter of new technologies and ideas. It was the dawn of the internet age and it was apparent that our systems and processes needed a total revamp.
One of the first things I did was teach myself HTML and purchase a server. I created a corporate website that not only served as a place to display pictures and floor plans and such, I created forms to submit rental applications, work orders and credit card payments. Keep in mind, this was the year 1999. What is now commonplace, was at the time, brand new. We were one of the first property management companies to do this. Certainly one of the only to do it “in house”.
The next project was to harness the internet to streamline the entire business. Up to this point, the company had four computers, all in the home office. The most advanced technology at the property level was a fax machine and an alpha numeric paging system.
At the home office we were operating one of the very first versions of Yardi with “two seats”. Yes, only two computers could work in Yardi. Over the years we went from that desktop version of Yardi, to Yardi ASP to Appfolio. Along the way it created efficiencies, we gained access to stronger technologies and cut costs.
When I began the revamping of our home office system, we had three full time employees and one part time employee. When we sold the final 806 units, the home office staff consisted of one full time employee. That is how much efficiency we gained over the years.
During these years the advertising landscape sure did change. The “books” and the newspaper went by the wayside. Everyone believed you had to be on all of the websites with all of the legacy advertisers such as, Apartment Guide, Rental Guide and For Rent. The industry was hypnotized by number of calls, clicks and search returns.
The problem in my estimation was that is was a rigged system. The large companies could buy search result positions, placing their properties at the top of the list, whether it was an appropriate result or not. As a smaller company, I was never going to be able to make those purchases and our properties would always be lower on the list.
So one day, Apartments.com called on me and made their pitch. Immediately I realized what looked like advertising was really monetized search results. Rather than giving the prospect what we wanted them to see, Apartments.com was giving the prospect what they wanted to see. So, if we didn’t have what the prospect was looking for, our properties would not even come up in the search.
The industry had been so conditioned that to most people this sounded like a negative. But to me, it was perfect. If we got that call, it was a real lead because we have what they want. After a short test run, I pulled all of our properties from all other advertising outlets and went exclusive with Apartments.com. I was the only one in my market to do so. People thought I was nuts. What happened, costs were cut by almost 50%, call volume went down and occupancy went up. To me it was a no brainer.
The other thing I do well is build relationships. The cornerstone of our business was the relationships we built with our employees, contractors and suppliers. At the final sale of our properties I had three managers that had been with the company for over 20 years. In fact, each of them began as cleaners. We invested and built into them, allowing them to progress into new opportunities. They could have taken these skills to another company, but they didn’t because they felt they would not be treated as well as they had been with our company.
Personally, I am a man that likes to push my personal limits. A number of years ago I became an endurance athlete, focusing primarily on long course triathlon, full and half ironman, but also have completed ultra marathons and marathons. I love seeing just how far I can go, and then taking it to the next level. Recently I experienced a fall that has required me to refocus and adjust, but this is how life works.
So what can I bring to your company? With my experience, I can provide a maintenance shop to home office troubleshooting. My creativity provides me the ability to evaluate work flows, communication strategies, maintenance programs, leasing strategies etc. Evaluation and adjustment is the name of the game in life. I hope that I can have the opportunity to bring my enthusiasm and creative skills to your business.