Chalet, a big-small property management company
Ali Boone’s post on the BiggerPockets blog titled “Which is Better: A Large Property Management Company or an Individual Property Manager?” caught my eye last week. Not only is she a pragmatic writer for all things landlord and rental related, but a lot of what she discusses as pros and cons between large and small property management companies have been top of mind for us here at Chalet.
We’ve been working hard for the past couple months talking to as many property owners as we can, trying to understand what they really want and need when it comes to their rental properties. Our mission is to make owning and living in rental property amazing. Based on all of the conversations we’ve had with owners and renters, and looking at Ali’s insights, we truly believe owners need the best of both worlds — a big property management company that acts like a small one.
Owners deserve to work with a management team that actually cares about their property, knows who they are when they call, and has the flexibility to adapt to each unique home (Pros of Small Property Management Companies).
Ali mentions Communication as her favorite topic in “Pros of Small Property Management Companies”:
“Hands down, no question, communication ability with individual property managers is my absolutely favorite pro about them.”
We live in an age where technology puts all of the world’s information at our fingertips. Why can’t a property management company do the same? Property management companies don’t often build technology to have their data accessible to everyone on their team, nor do they enable their team to effectively communicate with customers to solve problems. This has been a recurring theme we’ve seen from both owners and renters when it comes to dealing with their property manager. At Chalet, we ensure that we’re able to know our customers by name and answer their questions clearly and immediately.
In addition to communication, owners also deserve to work with a firm that has processes and relationships with vendors in place to get issues resolved quickly and affordably (Pros of Large Property Management Companies).
In particular, Scale stands out as one of the biggest benefits in “Pros of Large Property Management Companies”:
“Anytime you have large quantities of anything, you have a better chance of getting things cheaper.”
Ali nails it here, scale generally implies cost savings, and if a property management company is legit they’ll pass those savings to their customers. In addition to the cost benefit, owners working with a property management company at scale generally get faster and more reliable work as well. The plumber who does the majority of their business for a single property management company definitely wants to keep that customer happy. At the end of the day, that is a huge benefit to the property owners and the renters who will live with the work.
The end of the post mentions the idea of “boutique” property management companies that try to hit the best of both worlds by living in the in-between zone. There are some really great boutique property management companies, for sure. At Chalet, we think our customers are best served by a true big-small property manager — one with the benefits of a large property management company, but the personality of a small one. Using technology we are able to serve our customers more efficiently and effectively with a true human touch. We’re focused on scale so we can pass those benefits to our customers as well. We’ve also been building some new services that go above a regular property management relationship which our customers will love, but I’ll save those for another time.
What do you think? Is it possible to truly have the best of both worlds and keep the pros from both categories? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so tweet at us or write a response below.
If you like how we think about property management, we’d love a ❤ below!
