To me, property management is literally the hardest, most thankless part of real estate investment. Lousy property management can wreck a great deal. Excellent property management can turn around a mediocre one. Property management is easily the most crucial part of any asset investment; that’s why I started my management company first! My extensive experience in this area has helped my team create the best property management machine possible.
At BAM headquarters, we have me, my partner, and our executive team. Our job is asset management, which is managing those property managers of all the various locations. I consider asset management a three-legged stool. One leg for accounting, finance, and compliance, one for your property management team, and one leg for construction and maintenance, who execute our business plan at the site level. BAM has well over 65 employees, with nearly 95% of them involved in the property management hierarchy in one way or another.
At every apartment complex, you’ve got a staff, you’ve got a team, and together that team is on-site five or six days a week helping to run that business. Back up at the mothership, you’ve got the asset managers that are focused on helping those teams in the field. This asset management team makes sure we’re staying on budget, and that our renovation projects, our capital expenditures, are being executed effectively and efficiently. Remember, training, company events, and lots of communication is what it takes to run a successful real estate management company.
So, what separates BAM from most management companies is we have this extra 15% or so of margin that we can reinvest in our people. In the management company, we’re not focused on profit or execution. Instead, we can reinvest those dollars into better people and give them better tools for success.
I found this little secret out several years ago: by paying people well, and what they’re worth, I tend to attract great people. My team does a great job and sticks around longer because they are valued.
A question that comes up almost every time I speak with potential investors relates to my team and what’s it like to work with us at BAM. First and foremost, it’s not just me you’ll be working with as an investor. Once you participate, I’ve got an investor relations team. We also use a platform that allows the investor to log in to a dashboard and get real-time measurements of how their assets are performing. The dashboard includes details from a return on investment, to cash on cash returns and a few other metrics that most investors appreciate.
On a monthly basis, we also distribute an investor reporting package. Each quarter, we also share a report with a little more narrative and detail on how the investment is performing. I would say on average I speak directly with my investor clients at least once a quarter, often more. I especially enjoy that time because I get a chance to catch up and see how the investor is reacting.
My investment into these tools and the way we report to our investors is further enforcement of our transparency core value. At BAM, we want the investor to have 24/7, 365 access to the data dashboard. If that information doesn’t paint a complete picture for everyone, we also take the time to get down in the weeds with our investors until everyone is on the same page and has a clear understanding.
Watch my video on this topic here.
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The weekend of August 24-26 saw BAM’s founder and CEO, Ivan Barratt, attending the Rod Khleif Multifamily Bootcamp in Chicago. The Multifamily Bootcamp boasted industry insiders of all different kinds: sponsors, brokers,...
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