Sometimes, especially when we take over a property or replace a Manager, we find that the collection policy has not been followed, which almost always produces a major mess. Although it would be nice if we could just tell the Residents that “There’s a new sheriff in town” and you better start paying according to the terms of your lease as of TOMORROW, it’s not quite that simple.

When we do not hold our Residents to the terms and conditions of the lease, and we let it go on for a while (30 days or more is a good rule of thumb), most jurisdictions require us to give the Residents a thirty day written notice which tells the Residents that you intend to start enforcing the terms of the lease again.

Following this article, you will find a sample copy of a letter that must be delivered to each Resident at any community where the rent collection policies have not been enforced.

IMPORTANT: I am NOT an attorney! PLEASE have this reviewed by your attorney before you use it – I make NO WARRANTY that this language complies with the laws of your jurisdiction!

Again, the purpose of this letter is to re-state our rent collection policy so that it will stand up in court during an eviction procedure. If a property has not been strictly enforcing the rent collections provision of our lease, a letter such as this must be used to “reinstate” the policy contained in the lease. By sending each Resident a thirty (30) day advance notice of our intention to enforce this lease provision consistently and without exception, we will be able to avoid any surprises if and when we go to court with a delinquent Resident.

The letter should be copied on your community letterhead, and signed by the Manager. Type or print the delivery date on top of the letter, and then print a rent roll for your community and give it to the person delivering the letters. The letters should be delivered to each apartment, and slipped under the door. As each letter is delivered, place a checkmark next to their name on the rent roll. After all letters have been delivered, write the following on the bottom of the rent roll and have it signed and dated by the person who delivered the letters, and have their signature witnessed by one person:

“I hereby certify that on (Day, date and time period) I delivered a copy of the attached letter to each and every Resident listed on this Rent Roll.”

For time period, put the range of time during which the letters were delivered: “Thursday, January 24, 2012, between 3:00 PM and 5:15 PM”.

It is imperative that every apartment receive a copy of the letter no later than 30 days prior to the first day of the month in which you intend to reinstate the collection policy contained in your lease..

January 24, 2012

Dear Resident,

The successful operation of our community depends a great deal on our ability to secure professional services and quality materials, and pay for them in a timely manner. Just as you depend on your paycheck to meet your financial obligations, so do we depend on your timely rental payments, to ensure uninterrupted services to maintain and enhance your rental home.  Given our commitment to providing our Residents with a comfortable and well-maintained apartment home, we are sending you this reminder letter regarding the timely payment of rent.

First of all, let me thank all of you who have consistently paid your rent in accordance with the terms of your lease. I hate to bother you with this letter, but not all of our Residents treat their rental payment obligation in the manner that most of you do.

The lease that every Resident signed specifically states that the monthly rent is due on or before the first day of the month. This means that the rent is late on the second! The lease further provides a “grace period” of five days before a late charge is assessed. The lease is a legally binding contract, and we have never waived this provision, although it may not have been enforced “to the letter” in the past.

This letter will serve as our thirty (30) day notice that, effective March 1, 2012, we will expect ALL Residents to abide strictly by the rental payment requirements stated in their lease.  We will not be sending any late notices or reminders to any Resident whose rent has not been received by the 5th of the month. Anyone whose rent is not paid as of the morning of the 6th of the month will receive an Eviction Notice, and anyone whose rent is not received, along with the late charge, by the expiration of the Eviction Notice will be referred to our attorney for eviction. Any rents paid after the 5th of the month must be paid by Certified Check or Money Order; no personal checks will be accepted after the 5th.

Again, I apologize to each of you who has consistently paid your rent early or on time in the past; this letter is not directed to you, and I appreciate your sense of responsibility regarding your financial obligations. I must, however, notify each and every Resident to make certain that our continuing enforcement of this lease provision is known to all Residents. Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

(Name of the Manager)

Property Manager

Water trucks roll in and out of our apartment community entrances daily. No fewer than 15 different companies deliver bottled water to various residents. At times, we have traded referrals for free bottled water in our offices. However, we have never really benefited from a concerted shared marketing effort... until this month! There is nothing more refreshing than an ice-cold glass of water when it’s over 100 degrees outside! However, I get tired of paying the horrendous bill every month for all the bottled water consumed by guests, residents, employees, landscapers, and vendors who stop into our offices for a drink. I want everyone to enjoy the water, but my owners have never approved the cost of bottled water in the budget. This month I decided to call the shots. I contacted the various water companies and found one that was willing to work out a deal that would benefit all parties... the residents, the management office, and the water company. As a result, only one bottled-water company has received our endorsement at all of our properties. This company now offers bottled water at a substantially reduced price to our residents. We provide them free advertising in our newsletter and distribute their fliers in our resident mailings. The company provides free samples and literature to be left in the apartment for new residents at the time they move in. We also include an order form in our move-in packets. Each office now has a new cooler with an unlimited supply of bottled natural spring water—provided compliments of the water company. According to the volume of referral business, our staff will also receive a commission! I no longer have to pay huge water bills. The residents get bottled water at prices much lower than they ever could before. Everyone who comes through the apartment community  offices gets ice-cold water. And one happy vendor is getting all the bottled water business from all the residents at each of our properties. Everybody wins!

Contributed Chad W. Brown, Vice President, Florsheim Properties

Today, I came across this an article that a dear friend of ours wrote years ago and it is still very appropriate for today. Enjoy!

by Frank Basile

Have you ever had days when you worked hard but seemed to accomplish nothing? If so, welcome to the human race! Unfortunately, we all have days like this. However, the high-earning leasing agents and other property management people are those who are effective at minimizing those days and effectively using their time. For most of us, unless we are part owners of the property or management company, our only investment is our time. How effectively we use our time will determine our income and career advancement.

Frederick Crawford, founder of TWI, Inc., put it well: “Time is the secret of wealth; time is the secret of all progress. You only have a few thousand days allocated to you, and the greatest waste of wealth in America today is the waste of time.”

Ben Franklin put it into total perspective: “Do you love life? Then do not squander time; for that’s the stuff that life is made of.”

The purpose of this article is to relate some timesaving techniques that I have found to be effective through the years. However, remember that these can only be effective if you have first defined your goals and priorities. It is impossible to organize time unless you know what you are organizing to accomplish. Hard work is worthless without purpose and direction.

1. Commit your goals and timetables to writing.
2. Plan or schedule each day’s activities. In effect, this is your “to do” list.
3. These activities should support your goals. If not, change the activities or change the goals.
4. Prioritize these activities in the order of their importance in accomplishing your goals.
5. Do each activity in the order of its importance.
6. Do one thing at a time. This is the only way you can focus your attention on the task and do it effectively in a minimum amount of time.
7. Discontinue activities not essential to accomplishing your goals to allow more time to do those activities on your list. Don’t mistake activity for accomplishment.
8. Scrutinize the way you spend your days to avoid or minimize such time-wasters as telephone interruptions, drop-in visitors, ineffective delegation, personal disorganization, procrastination, idle conversation, and the inability to say no.

Eighty percent of all time management is this “to do” list. Everything else is elaboration, including such time-management techniques as effectively using prime time, reading mail only once, bringing reading material with you to occupy waiting time, and delegation. These techniques are important, but they are secondary to ensuring that your daily activities are goal directed. When this occurs, you will almost automatically use these effective techniques, most of which are common sense.

The simpler the time-management system, the better. You can become too sophisticated and too complex, and spend too much time planning and organizing and too little time implementing. I have seen property management people burdened with three-inch three-ring binders that they carry with them everywhere, under the guise of good time management. If this works, and if this is what you need, then do it. But for most people, and in most cases, this is overkill.

An effective time-management system can be built around the basic “to do” list that we have discussed, plus the following items:

1. Individual sheets of paper or 3 x 5 cards to record each of your goals. These can be left at home or work. I carry the two or three cards containing goals I am working on currently. These are in a leather holder that I keep in my inside coat pocket.
2. A calendar to schedule activities that cannot be performed now.
3. A tablet or notebook where a listing can be made on individual pages for items to be covered with those significant persons in your personal and professional world, such as your boss, spouse, and key employees.

Regarding item #3, these lists enable you to cover all pertinent items with an individual when you are meeting with him or her, either personally or via telephone, in a minimum amount of time. It precludes ending the contact without having accomplished all of the items and then having to return to cover those missed during the initial contact, or leaving them completely uncovered.

Keeping such a list entails jotting down ideas that occur to you (while driving or showering, or at any other time) on the page with that person’s initials at the top. In this way, you don’t risk forgetting to cover those items. Nor do you have to concentrate on remembering them to the point of excluding other important things; you can keep your mind free to concentrate on whatever is happening to you at the moment.

Since most of a leasing agent’s work is accomplished with and through other people, this control enables you to maximize the use of your time when you meet, either formally or informally, with those persons.

It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of spending your time wisely. In his classic book  ( free ebook )How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, Arnold Bennett says, “The proverb that time is money understates the case.  Time is the inexplicable raw material of everything. Without it nothing is possible. You have to live on 24 hours of daily time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, contentment, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. Your success in life depends on it.”

Frank Basile, CPM was the President of Gene B. Glick Company, Inc., in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Frank had responsibility for the management of Glick’s total portfolio of 21,000 apartments in 13 states, and is an accomplished author of both books and articles about property management.

At our community, we began marking each move-in and move-out date on our site plan. To our surprise, we found that certain apartments turn over more frequently then others. We then began walking the apartments with the higher turnover to look for a "reason."

One reason we found was light—a particular apartment that turned more frequently was located in a dark area of the community. We had to tour the prospect through a dark hall, only to enter a dark apartment. By increasing lighting and installing some apartment upgrades, we were able to lease the apartment leased within twenty-four hours.

We now look at our communities differently-and are approaching high-turnover apartments with an eye toward fixing their specific “problems.”

Contributed by Jeff Solliday

1.   Don't use the word "take-over"—ever when changing apartment management companies! This implies a hostile environment and immediately puts existing employees on the defensive. Use instead "transition.”

2.   Keep in mind that the transition, regardless of how smoothly it goes, will initially be very stressful for the existing all on-site employees.  Treat them with respect and empathy.

While the reality is that some will not prove a match with your company, they are people—parents, spouses, Little League coaches, Sunday school teachers—just trying to make a living.  And they are probably scared to death. You can rest assured that your interaction is the main topic at their dinner table tonight!

Be sensitive, professional, and kind. And don't make any career promises.

3.   Don't go onsite without a Plan. No one appreciates strangers hanging out, watching them work. You can observe a LOT while doing something productive. Just make sure you aren't overtly staring while pretending to work or making a non-essential phone call. They have eyes and ears.

4.   All Transition Team members' activity must be carefully planned, coordinated, and prioritized before anyone calls or visits the site. Nothing is more frustrating for the onsite employees than a dozen "armies of one" who are convinced their own mission deserves all of the staff's attention.

5.   Keep in mind that conscientious employees will feel that the operation must go on while you're trying to accomplish your "transition" objectives. Don't take it personally if they get up to answer the phone while you're attempting to shed light on how to fill out a form.

6.   When trying to teach your company’s procedures and policies, keep in mind that you have to "sell" the reasons why what you practice makes sense. Show the benefit to them. No one over the age of four responds to "Because I said so."

7. Catch them doing something right. While it may be that your firm was brought in to help improve the operation, no one likes to be constantly criticized. And, unless you have a busload of trained employees outside ready to walk in and assume every position, you need (at least some of) these people. Constant criticism creates terrible morale.

8.   Learn quickly to perform your own area of expertise at that property. Whether it is leasing, doing unit turnovers, or handling a resident's concern, you will make much swifter progress if you can lead by example.

So if the phone rings, and you are trained to handle a leasing call—just do it. And do it well! Actions speak much louder than words. You are demonstrating your company’s philosophies and standards in whatever you do, and you will be amazed at how much more effectively what you do is imitated than what you say is obeyed.

9.   "If you touch it, you own it." Disaster occurs when someone pops in from the "outside," stirs up the operation, and disappears.  Establish continuity and ensure results through constant communication and follow-through.

10.  Keep objectives clear. "Baby steps" are usually okay, as long as there is consistent measurable progress. So always praise the heck out of each "baby step" that is accomplished, and continue to reinforce in a positive manner the benefit of why you do what you do.

Relax! And make it fun!