Local presence for owner/manager

mobile home university
1

I own two parks about four hours from where I live. I maintain a local post office address and a local phone number for all my tenants. I’m trying to give the impression that I am local in order to avoid anyone taking advantage the situation that I am four hours away. I do most of the management myself with a few tasks done by folks I know in the area.

However from all the Posts, it seems like having a PO Box out of state for rent collection is common.

Am I wasting my time maintaining a local phone number and the local PO Box presence or is it no big deal for tenants to know that I live so far away and am an absentee owner?

Also, for an owner manager, what’s the best way to communicate with tenants regarding issues? Email? Text? Etc…

Thank you.

2

We have rent mailed in and it may be out of state or local depending on where the property is. At the property we have phone numbers (that are local - and thats more so to not confuse people , especially prospects ) that forward to other phones. when you get a call back ,it may not be a local number to you but all of our call backs have the same area code and same pre fix . We communicate with letters, with texts, with emails. ( Email is preferred , not everyone does it, a lot of people text ( this could be proof of rent payment or something) and now , the management softwares can text on your behalf and such.

We don’t have a typical operation with a property level “manager” so there may be some confusion but when you call in , the goal is to have an all star answering who can get whatever issue is resolved. This will entail having a point of contact at the property as its sometimes needed . Smaller parks you have to piece and patch a management system together . Larger parks can be operated a bit different if you can afford a decent full time manager.

If it makes you feel better, you can have a tenant take advantage of you locally :slight_smile: To me it doesnt matter, but just have your operations in order to run it without you being there. Im pretty dependent on a couple of people who would be more like a “centralized manager” and virtual assistant but they know how the system runs and kick butt at it. It actually kind of amazes me some times but it really works very well . I also believe that I work with all stars in general so my strategy hinges on working with all stars. It might not work with average people :smile:
Hope that helps .