After six years in this business, I’ve learned the houses are never really the point. The people are.
After six years in this business, I’ve got a confession: I don’t really manage properties. I manage people. The properties are just where it happens.
Nobody ever calls me about a house. They call me about a furnace that quit on the coldest night of the year, with a baby in the house. They call me about a rent increase they didn’t see coming. They call me about a tenant who’s been great for three years and just lost a job. The building is always in the background. The person is always in the foreground.
And here’s the part nobody tells you when you start: you’re never dealing with one person. You’re dealing with all of them at once, and they all want different things.
The tenant wants the repair done yesterday. The owner wants it done right and done reasonably. The vendor is booked out two weeks and needs someone there with a key. My job is to stand in the middle of that triangle and make sure everybody feels heard and the problem actually gets solved. Not in a bossy way – nobody hired a boss. They hired someone who can handle spinning plates.
The hardest skill in this business isn’t knowing the regulations or the maintenance schedules, though you absolutely need both. The hardest skill is looking at a situation from both sides of the front door at the same time.
From the tenant’s side, this is home. It’s where their kids sleep. A broken dishwasher isn’t a work order, it’s the thing making their Tuesday miserable.
From the owner’s side, this is an investment they’ve trusted me with. Every dollar I spend is their dollar, and I treat it that way.
Both of those things are true at the same time, and my job is to honor both without shortchanging either. That’s the whole job, really. Everything else is paperwork.
“If I wouldn’t be comfortable letting my own son live there, I don’t want to manage it.” – My one rule
That rule has never steered me wrong. It keeps the standard where it belongs – not at good enough for a rental, but good enough for family.
Six years in, here’s what I know: the houses will always need something. Roofs age, furnaces quit, paint fades. That’s the easy part, because it’s predictable. People are the unpredictable part, and they’re also the best part. Every tenant who renews because they feel taken care of, every owner who sleeps well because they trust the person watching their investment – that’s the work.
I don’t manage properties. I take care of people and the properties come along for the ride.
– Penny Borden Garnet Property Management