Your rent roll is its own sales market place

It is becoming more popular these days to have a property management only business. The marketplace has noticed that some sales or broker businesses, may not have their primary focus on their property management clients. Saying that I work with many businesses who have acknowledged this themselves and are now ploughing resources into their property management business, in an attempt to offer a specialized property management service to their clients. Either way, one thing that neither are doing well is treating their rent rolls as a unique sales and growth marketplace.

I'm going to throw some numbers around, and while they may not be exactly accurate for your business, consider more the concept than the numbers themselves. We know that up to 10% of landlords could be looking at selling in the next 12 months. While this figure isn't as commonly known, up to 30% of our clients, both landlords and renters, could be looking at buying in the next 12 months. We, in a unique market, have an undersupply of product for our marketplace.

We can flip the sword two ways here. Firstly we have knowledge of our properties that investors are looking for when they make a purchasing decision for their next investment. We know the actual return on investment. We know the quality of the tenant, the annual maintenance spend, the increase in return, the condition of the property and the average days on market. If we were to package this up as an investor profile report, we could then market this to the 30% of our clients looking to buy a property in the next 12 months. We then keep the sale in house, retain the sales commission and most importantly, we keep the property in the rent roll, maintaining our asset.

Secondly, we currently have an undersupply of properties in our unique marketplace, with 20% of clients still looking to buy an investment property. I have spoken in previous blogs post about the business employing a buyers advocate or buyer's agent. This is a person whose role is solely to seek other businesses properties for your clients. Their job is to go to the open market to find properties that meet your investor's expectations and market them to the 20% of your clients left looking for an investment property. This promotes sales revenue for the business and also promotes growth for the rent roll.

As a property management focused business, I wouldn't completely discount having a sales or brokerage arm, as the internal sales process is actually protecting your business against attrition and promoting growth. As a mixed sales and property management business, this strategy is outside the norm of what most people are doing today. I challenge you to look outside your traditional sales cycle and review your own rent roll for leads, sales and new business.