You are a busy property manager and all the tasks on your desk are piling up... quickly! In addition to the constant flow of work orders, owner communications, and lead generation – you have a short, urgent timeline to turn over your properties, including property condition documentation and the entire leasing process. Take the time to review these tips during the slow season so you’re not scrambling come spring and summer.

We’re covering the best ways to maximize efficiency, including:

• Tips to remain communicative towards your leads and tenants
• Why you should review your automation and marketing technologies
• A hot take on hiring (and why it's a bad long-term decision)
• And how to use your down time to develop your business!

Remain communicative

It can be easy to let lead generation and leasing take the spotlight during busy season. However, good communication is the key to success, especially if you’re looking for repeat renters. Be sure to communicate any changes or updates to policies and procedures, and respond quickly to their inquiries. By maintaining great customer service and quick response times, this year’s leads will surely turn into repeat renters.

If you need help covering your lead conversations, consider using Showdigs for our in-house Live Operations Team! They cover 100% of lead calls, texts, and emails every day during all showing windows.

Review your marketing and automation

Figure out what’s working: Slow season is a great time to figure out what’s working and what’s not. In addition to reviewing our list of best practices to make your rental listing stand out, try to think of leasing from the lead’s perspective. In today’s day and age, it’s all about convenience. Leads typically want to see the entire property before scheduling a tour, so make sure your listing photos are up-to-date and high-quality before you're swamped.

Use technology to offer convenience: Self-showings and virtual tours are two ways to offer convenience to your prospective tenants. On-demand showings and instant scheduling are essential, as scheduling showings around your ever-busy schedule can be a pain point for the lead and often a deterrent from ever seeing the property. If you’re using Showdigs, make sure to mention that they can schedule a tour in as little as an hour, any day of the week including after-hours and weekends.

Consider your time investment: Changing the automation software that you use can be time-consuming. You’ll need to review different options, sign up for trials, test them out, switch everything over to your top choice, and train your team. However, since software is so intricately woven with business-wide operations, it's worth checking that you're still using the right vendors. You may be able to make improvements to facilities management, property reporting and tracking, tenant management, maintenance request tracking, and more. The initial time investment of switching your software can have a huge impact on your day-to-day operations, so do an audit of what you're using when you have the free time.

Avoid hiring

When you’re drowning in showings, maintenance requests, and move-in/move-out reports, your first instinct is to hire an additional team member to help relieve your workload. 

While hiring another leasing agent, assistant property manager, or showing agent could ease your stress during the summer months, the hiring landscape is incredibly tumultuous and finding the right hires can be time-consuming and expensive. What happens when things slows down in the winter? You can either keep your new employees and be stuck with unnecessary payroll expenses or let them go (only for this cycle to continue the following year). It’s tiresome to your team and unfair to new hires.

Instead, pass your fieldwork along to Showdigs Agents! Showdigs Agents are local, licensed real estate agents who are specially-trained to handle all of your fieldwork needs. From documenting the status of the property before a new move-in to getting full visibility into the condition of the property during tenancy, our Agents are trained to produce high-quality tour and condition reports that can be sent directly to owners.

Use your down time to develop your business

With your excess fieldwork handed to Showdigs Agents, use your down time to focus on scaling your business (possibly after a much-needed vacation). Property management is hyper-seasonal — some months you’re extremely busy, and some months are so slow that the last thing you need is to pay for something (or someone) you’re not utilizing. Check out this list of 10 ways to scale your property management business to ensure you’re spending your time, money, and energy on things that will actually pay off.

Showdigs is committed to scaling with seasonality

Showings fluctuate, but our commitment to your business remains the same. Showdigs offers simple pricing so you only pay for the properties you’re actively leasing. This allows you to scale your business during leasing season, and save money during the slow months! We’re the best software option for property managers looking to scale with seasonality. Chat with a member of our team to find out how to take your business to the next level without the unnecessary costs that typically come with seasonality.