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Hiring a Property Manager, Is It Worth It?

I am often asked is hiring a property manager really worth the money? My answer is it depends.

The most common tasks associated with property management include collecting the rent, responding to maintenance requests and handling all of the paperwork such as the lease and disclosures. Although these duties are valuable, I don’t believe they are the most valuable services a property manager has to offer. In fact, I think the 3 MOST VALUABLE services a good manager can offer are often overlooked. So what are they?

The 3 most valuable services a property manager can provide you are:

1. Act as a neutral party between owner and the tenant.
2. Save you time.
3. Protect your privacy and your property.

Why? Because when it comes down to it property management is less about managing the property and more about managing people. Sure, the property has its requirements, but the property doesn’t clog the toilet or beg to have a late fee waived. PEOPLE DO. Situations involving tenant relations is where a property manager can really shine.

Reason # 1

If you decide to manage the property on your own and deal directly with the tenant they will always know you have complete control and final say over enforcement of your end of the lease. When the tenancy is peachy-keen and everyone is happy this isn’t a problem, but the moment the rent comes in late is where the rubber meets the road and things can get rocky. So there you are, it’s the 5th of the month and still with no rent. As part of the lease a late fee is now due and so you send a notice to notify the tenant of the late fee being assessed. Next thing you know you get a call from your tenant and they want YOU to make an exception. They tell you they’ve been a great tenant, they always pay the rent on time, they’ve been a good neighbor and that they have even done maintenance around the house. Now you have two options, make an exception which would set a new tone for the relationship and may encourage future bad behavior, or stick to your guns and turn your good relationship with your tenant sour. Remember the tenant knows you have final say and will take your decision to not be flexible personally. Suddenly you’re no longer on their nice list and they won’t be going the extra mile for you in the future. Either way you go, you loose. This is where having a property manager can be great. The manager can politely tell the tenant it is their job to enforce the lease and although they wish they could give the tenant a break, they have to comply with fair housing laws and treat everyone the same. The tenant may not be happy with the outcome, but it is a lot easier for someone to understand another person “just doing their job” than a landlord they perceive as being greedy and ungrateful.

Reason # 2

It may not seem like it, but managing a property can be a time intensive task. Collecting the rent requires you to keep a record and make a trip to the bank. Maintenance requires you spend time building good relationships with contractors in the area, scheduling maintenance, doing follow ups to make sure the work is complete and paying the invoices. Individually these things may not seem like much, but together they can eat away a lot of valuable time you could be spending with friends and family. Instead of handling it all yourself you could hire a property manager to take over these duties and regain the most valuable asset you have, time.

Reason # 3

In this day in age privacy is priceless. The last thing you want is a disgruntled tenant showing up at your home during dinner because they are unhappy about a fee they’ve been assessed. By hiring a property manager you can prevent this situation from arising. Instead of you, the manager will be in charge of collecting the rent and all related charges. By having a manager they can shield you from unpleasant experiences with your tenant and provide you with the privacy you deserve.

If you are considering renting your home please ask yourself the following?

1. Do you have good people skills and can you enforce the lease while preserving the relationship?
2. Are you OK with spending the free time you have on your property?
3. Do you value your privacy?

Depending on your answer you may want to consider hiring a property manager in your area.

Plan To Succeed With Information Product Creation: Why You Need To Split Your Process Up

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.

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How To Succeed At Online Product Creation The Easy Way

Product creation could be a frightening subject for a lot of Internet marketers to face. Some folks who get in the game with the intention of making a full time income are completely ignorant as to how an online business operates. One of the most profitable ways to create online cash is by creating a product that others are happy to pay for.

Product creation is legitimate method of generating money through internet marketing but many entrepreneurs get it wrong. They start by imitating their Internet marketing gurus by creating information products on Internet marketing in hopes of getting rich the way their heroes did. The problem is that they usually don’t know what they are doing and enter a highly competitive niche with very little marketing experience or connections.

Here are a few tips for effective product creation that may help you get on the right track:
Start by finding a profitable niche with low to moderate competition. If you conduct some rudimentary market research and keyword research, you’ll find many opportunities in areas that will surprise you. Amazon and eBay are two great places to brainstorm for product ideas.

Developing Your Product does not have to be a difficult project. You can find experts in the right field for your niche and pay them to write the material while an artist designs the packaging and website or blog. You can outsource the entire product creation part of the project after you conduct the research and testing to ensure profitability.

Sales and marketing strategies should be created while developing the product and learning about the market. Some experienced marketers use pay per click to drive traffic to their offer page; some folks outsource the entire marketing campaign to affiliates through ClickBank or other affiliate programs.

Product creation does not need to be hard, particularly when the merchandise is electronic. E-books, videos, audio and multi-media products sell very well. They are distributed immediately to customers electronically. Once you have a good feel for a niche market, try to service your customers with associated products and upgrades. If you want to earn money online through product creation, you must understand supply and demand. The majority of new online marketers fail miserably because they go after highly competitive markets or forget to research their chosen niche properly. You have to create your products according to the needs, wants and desires of the prospective customers.

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