Property Management Tips: 7 Ways to Get Organized You Need to Know to Rent Your Places Faster

I can’t tell you how many times early in my career as a property manager, a prospective tenant called me and caught me off guard. I quickly learned that I was saving 5-10 hours a week and renting more houses by being well prepared. Here are my best tips.

1) Application Forms
A property manager must carry at least 50 blank rental applications with them at all times. Quite often, you’ll find yourself listing a new rental home and you won’t have any appliances to put up in the kitchen. You want to have apps around the house so you’re not always running to your car during a visit.

The property management company should also have the rental application saved on the computer in a format that can be emailed to your clients quickly. You don’t want to just send a fax or ask them to pick up the form. This is very quick and painless.

2) At least 10 copies of blank leases
Quite often, you will approve a tenant and you will need to meet with them to sign the lease. Leaving the office at the end of the day, she completely forgets to print and bring copies of the lease. Even the most organized person gets sidetracked. Having the blank lease in his car ensures that he will never show up empty handed.

3) key tags
You should bring a small box of key tags so you can tag the keys you receive from new listings/owners. In the past, she constantly forgot which keys belong to which properties and had to throw them away. This means the rental could not be rented until he could get a maintenance guy to change the locks. With just a little extra discipline and labeling the key as soon as you receive it, you save yourself a lot of hassle.

4) digital camera
You should keep your digital camera in the car as much as possible to ensure that you are ready for new announcements. Half the time, the new owners have cleaned up their property and it is ready to go. With your camera ready, you can simply take all the photos you need to list your rental on MLS or Craigslist.

5) Property Management Agreements
Just like your lease, you should keep 10 copies of your management agreement in your car. This will make preparing for a listing appointment much easier and less stressful. If you bring your camera, business cards and the management contract, you have everything you need to register the new owner. You also want to have the agreement in an email format to quickly send to owners over the Internet.

6) Pens and Business Cards
It is embarrassing not to have any on a leasing list or appointment. Professionalism is in the details.

7) Organizer To Carry Everything
You can purchase an organizer at Office Depot or Staples that can store all of the items listed above. Some people prefer a briefcase but I personally use a black plastic box with hanging folders. Use what suits you best, but have it all in one place in your car

Note: A prepared property manager will create an automatic task in Outlook or a daily planner to fill in all items once a month. Getting organized is useless for your property management company, if you don’t have a tracking system in place to make sure you stay organized.