In today’s real estate landscape, property management has become quite a complicated job tied up with different kinds of details and diverse people. To run your business seamlessly and in a profitable manner, you need to deal with greater responsibilities beyond those conventional bill paying and rent collection processes. As property management is mostly a customer-centric business, the more time you’re able to spend dealing with the tenants, your vendors and your staff, or developing and executing programs which will increase the experiences of all these people, the better. But, in reality, it’s easier said than done. Here’re some of the biggest property management problems along with their solutions to help you out:

• Emergency repairs and unexpected maintenance: Emergency and unexpected repairs are never easy to deal with and can be costly. That’s why you always need to add reserve and contingency accounts to your budgets. Also, it would be wiser to schedule a preventive maintenance plan and have T&M contracts in place. These steps would help greatly in driving down the expenses and let you stay within your budget.
• Hiring new contractors: When you come across a maintenance issue, it’s easily understandable that you always want to get it done as economically as you can. Since contractors can charge almost anything they want, it’s always advisable to make a short survey among a couple of contractors, which will definitely lower down the cost a little. However, if you spend a couple of weeks only to find out the cheapest contractor, the tenant complaints will be skyrocketing as well. Ideally, you should try to develop a network of responsive and trusted contractors whom you can call as and when an issue emerges. This way, you’ll be able to get the job done in a faster and efficient manner and keep the tenants happy.
• Tenant complaints: You need to accept that property management isn’t just about managing the properties you own. Instead, it’s about dealing with different kinds of people. Complaints do come in all sizes and shapes and could be anything from simple to serious problems. Irrespective of the issue, the best way to deal with a complaint is to address it right away. Remember that the longer you keep it unaddressed, the more the problem would escalate. Meet your tenants as soon as you can, listen to them carefully and reassure them that you would be doing your best to solve the issue. You may not be able to fix that immediately, but you’ll earn their trust and respect. 
• Communication: Proper communication matters a lot in resolving different property management issues. Simply put, it’s the mortar that holds your building together. To make your business run seamlessly, you’ve to make sure that everyone in your building understands one another. As the property manager, you’re the go-between for everybody in your building. It’s not an easy job when it comes to dealing with different people with varying personalities and different kinds of jobs that require immediate accomplishment. You need to listen thoroughly, understand and translate the messages between everybody – tenants, staff, engineers and vendors. To maintain an open channel of communication, you can hold quarterly tenant, staff and vendor meetings.