My manager is pretty capable and handles a lot of problems, but he is not very good at keeping me informed. He just goes ahead and solves whatever crops up. Recently, a resident gave notice of wanting to sell his home but the manager did not inform me. The first I found out about it was when he e-mailed me and told me he had a buyer for the home!! All well and good, but I am worried about him doing something that could get me into trouble at some point.
What about the rest of you? Would having such a manager be a good thing or give you reason to worry? What do you recommend I do, if anything?
Would suggest you have a weekly call with your Manager to go over everything that happened the prior 7 days. You may need to have a scripted checklist to jog their memory. 1) Any police activity; 2) Anyone leaving; 3) Any infrastructure issues;
@jhutson the weekly conference call is a good suggestion. To keep everyone on the same page communication wise, we set up a shared Google spreadsheet which we use to track management tasks, so we know what’s been done and what still needs to be done. Instead of constantly trading emails, for non urgent issues and tasks we update eachother the using our Google sheets iPhone app. This way, we can “trust but verify” that our manager is doing her job without calling for status updates every day. Of course, this requires smartphones and not every manager is tech savvy, or responsible enough, to make this work.
So we use a forum to communicate, and managers are required to give us a Friday update. It is like a blog- anything that has happened over the last week, including who is late, status of late rents, homes for sale, and work being done in the community etc. I never did like email. In a forum everything stays as a record of communication, even as managers come and go… It is also great to keep any investors updated without needing to contact them every time something happens- they can just watch things unfold.
In case people ask- I use vBulletin, and I host it through network solutions, on the back side (no links) of one of my web sites. Managers just have a ‘shortcut’ tot he link. There are lots of hosted options though. I am not saying my way is right, but back in the day there were not hosted options so, this is what I did. It is pretty easy to set up and operate. We have an android and iphone app- so we all can use computers or phones to communicate.
So- the first shot is after you click on the main form for a park, the second shot is how each park is broken down, separate areas to post differing things, the last page shows when you click on the page, what it looks like
In short, it works just like this forum does, but on here there is only one ‘topic’ page. My forum is indexed. Internal communications, then just a place for late rents, then each park has its own area, and each park is broken into areas. I can control what each person sees… so a park manager can only see their park and their late rent thread.
Wow. Very impressive and it looks like a good way for multiple parks to be efficiently managed. Frankly, this looks like a lot more work than what is required for a mom and pop operation - especially when the owner is a Luddite:-) I really need to find out how to get the manager to communicate better without upsetting him.
We had the same problem, our Manager’s seemed interested in sharing the gossip (and even getting involved in it) but not sharing the important stuff, who’s paid, who’s moving, etc. We finally had to have a sit down and explain that this is our park and we want/insist that we know what’s going on and they not need to get involved with the gossip, etc.
There are many free options for a forum, or even with the one I use, they will host for like $15 per month.
I used this when I had one park, and now with 5. The less time you dig for info, or are searching emails and texts- well… you will be out doing other things. Like, buying another park, or going on a bike ride, a hike, skiing with your family or taking a cruise…
if you and your mgr both have printers, they most likely are capable of scanning documents. You can provide him with some blank Daily Log Sheets to keep on his clipboard. This simple log sheet is a very easy way for him to jot down communication with tenants, maintenance calls, project and repair status, emergency situations or problems with outsiders or tenants, etc. Then, first thing every morning he can scan it from his printer and it can fax straight to you to either print out or leave on your computer. This is the easiest way to do it old school and all he needs is a clipboard, a pen or pencil and a forty dollar printer. This is a great way for you to see what is happening and what your mgr is doing too. It is also very helpful in an eviction. Hope this helps
