Coping with Property Management Burnout

It may not occur to you that property management could be considered part of the service industry, but it should. Consider the day to day responsibilities:

• Advertising, recruiting, and screening tenants. 
• Updating financial records.
• Tracking the physical upkeep of buildings and landscaping.
• Fielding renter complaints and requests.
• Communicating across various third-party vendors, city and state employees, and service providers.
• Staying updated on legal requirements.

With high professional standards and minimal thank yous, this career is ripe for experiencing burnout. 

Burnout, defined as a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress, is a detriment to your business and your personal life. Consequently, identifying and taking steps to minimize this reaction to long-term stress is important. Fortunately, there are many strategies you can utilize to manage burnout and maintain an appreciation for a career that directly impacts the daily lives of people in your city and neighborhood.

Remember Your Purpose

Property management is uniquely challenging. Tasks change daily, the skills needed range from legal to financial to property maintenance, and the personal interactions require tact, directness, and quick thinking. It’s easy to get mired down in the details of collecting rent, attracting tenants, knowing building codes, and problem-solving, all of which can ratchet up the strain of each tiny task. 

It’s essential to keep a broader perspective. Available housing provides: 

• Dignity and stability to individuals and families.
• Decreased economic stress and food instability.
• Increased numbers of thriving neighborhoods and communities. 

Knowing that your hard work directly impacts the lives of your tenants and the health of your community can help prevent the mundane daily details from robbing you of your sense of purpose and satisfaction.  

Invest In Training

You wear many different hats and each one requires a different skill set and a different level of expertise. Burnout is often caused by overwhelming job demands, inadequate training, and a feeling of not knowing what to do or who to turn to for help. Investing time into training increases confidence and helps build a network of other experts you can turn to when a question does arise. There are a variety of ways to get training:

• Home Depot offers free workshops for hands-on training if you want to learn some DIY skills. 
• YouTube offers videos for 15-minute micro-learning sessions ranging from specific legal requirements to building code to DIY projects. 
• Libraries host financial education seminars for the public where you can learn and ask questions from an expert.

Training is a worthwhile investment of time to build expertise and lower stress.

Invest In Technology

Keeping track of legal requirements, maintenance schedules, rent collections, and the never-ending pile of paperwork is daunting. This is where technology can really make your life easier.

• Automate many of your processes like virtual tours, applications, monthly rent collection, and online repair requests. 
• Build a schedule with automatic reminders for maintenance needs, tax requirements, city code paperwork, etc. 
• Standardize your contacts for different maintenance and repair needs. 

You don’t have to spend your time with the nagging feeling in the back of your mind that you’re forgetting something important!

Manage Your Time

It is very easy to fall into the trap of being available 24/7 for your tenants. After all, a good landlord wants happy tenants. But, unless it’s a true emergency, most service requests can wait for business hours. And by establishing and holding firm on your off hours, you create space to recover, rest, and be better equipped to cheerfully, creatively, and quickly respond to your tenants’ concerns. Automate your service request procedure by making an online form easily accessible so that when an after-hours call does come through, you’ll know that it’s truly an emergency and worth you clocking back in.

Block Schedule

A block schedule helps keep you on track with productivity even when a hundred requests come in from fifty different directions. Designating specific blocks of time in your day allows you to take on tasks without interruption and be confident that things won’t slip through the cracks. A daily schedule may look something like:

• Early morning: administrative tasks, answering emails and online requests.
• Mid-morning: schedule maintenance needs, follow up on ongoing projects.
• Before lunch: advertising, prospective tenant applications, contacting tenant references.
• After lunch: site visits, scheduled meetings with vendors.
• Late afternoon: legal and financial tasks, circle back to any ongoing challenges from the day. 

Get Help and Partner with the Experts

We’re not meant to do it all. If burnout continues to plague your days, this is a sign that you need support! Find someone to help you organize and schedule your days or consider hiring a property management firm that can take some of the responsibilities off your desk and leave you feeling confident and relaxed. Call or text Darla Andrew today at 503.515.3170 to learn more about how we provide the support you need to confidently enjoy the rental process.