If you’re sitting at about 50-100 properties on your rent roll, and you’re struggling to get past that number, this article is for you.
When you first start your rent roll (especially if you’ve started from scratch) you might find that you’ll grow to 50, 60, 70 properties and then stop.
Sure, you might list one or two properties here or there, but then you have a couple of landlords move back into their properties, so you lose a couple.
So it feels like you’re just stuck with rent roll growth and not really able to keep growing.
But there’s one thing you need to do, in order to keep growing your rent roll when you hit a plateau like this.
Create a void.
Usually, if you’re the only person in your rent roll, you’ll hit a plateau when you’ve hit your workload capacity. So if you’re really busy being the property manager, and the trust accountant, and the leasing consultant, and the routine inspection officer, and the BDM and the marketing manager, and everything else… you’ve probably run out of time to focus on rent roll growth activities. I mean, you probably gave it much more attention when you first started your rent roll, but now you’re busier, you can’t give it as much focus.
So you need to create a void.
This means, freeing up time in your week, so that you can concentrate on rent roll growth activities again.
How do you do this?
Here are 3 easy steps you can take to create a void.
1. Do a time audit.
Start by doing a full audit of your week so you can see what time you’re spending on each task.
My favourite tool for doing a time audit is Toggl , but you could also use Rescue Time or Time Doctor. They’re all great tools.
Once you’ve done your time audit, identify the tasks that could be:
- Automated OR
- Outsourced OR
- Systemised
If you have the ability to automate or outsource any tasks, do it right away. If you have other tasks that can’t be automated or outsourced, look to systemise them so that they don’t take as much time.
2. Use an Ideal Week
You’ve probably used some version of an ideal week before. But in order to create a void in your week, you’re going to need to diarise time for this void.
Map out your ideal week to allow you the time to complete all your property management tasks, but also giving yourself time to focus on rent roll growth activities.
I highly recommend that you schedule growth and BDM activities in the morning. In property management, you’re likely to have surprises pop up throughout the day, so if you get your growth activities completed in the morning, you’re less likely to cancel it when a surprise pops up.
If you want a copy of my ideal week, you can download my ideal week here.
3. Triage Property Management
“In medicine, triage is a practice invoked when acute care cannot be provided for lack of resources. The process rations care towards those who are most in need of immediate care, and who benefit most from it” – thanks to Wikipedia for that definition.
In property management, there are always going to be people looking to use your most valuable resource: time. This means you need to triage everything you touch in property management. Determine what needs your attention right now, and what can be “shelved” until you’re spending time working on a particular task (like maintenance, or rent arrears, or planning routine inspections).
If you take this approach with everything that hits your desk, you’ll be better equipped to say no (or “not now”) to some things, allowing you to create that void in your calendar.
Using these 3 strategies in your property management business will help create a void in your week, so you have the capacity to grow your rent roll. And once you have the capacity, and you get back into your rent roll growth and BDM activities, you’ll be able to shift past that 50, 60, 70 properties point, and continue growing to 100 and beyond!
And if you need some extra ideas about how to grow your rent roll, check out my training on 5 ways to grow your rent roll.