What Self-Managing Landlords Don’t Understand About Property Management (And How to Convert Them)

Landlords who misunderstand a property manager’s role are more likely to handle the job themselves. Learn why this disconnect exists and what you can do to enlighten them regarding your services.

As a property manager (PM), your main competitors aren’t just other companies in the industry. While these organizations could take some of your potential clients, in theory, there are more than enough doors to go around despite other businesses in the space.

Instead, a competitor to be very concerned about is the self-managing landlord. Property owners who believe they can do your job for a lot cheaper are a significant threat to your company and make up between 50% to 75% of the market. Many self-managing landlords aren’t even considering your services, so attracting them as clients can be incredibly challenging.

Self-managing landlords typically opt to handle the job themselves because they don’t understand what property managers do and the value they provide. In this session of Coaches’ Corner, RentScale coaches, Jennifer Merritt and Julia Wojnar, sit down with Strategic PM to discuss why self-managing landlords don’t use property management services and how PMs can better inform these individuals to turn them into clients.

Self-Managing Landlords Oversimplify the Property Management Process

Perhaps the main reason self-managing landlords don’t use the services of a property management firm is that they don’t understand what a PM does. They may know that hiring a PM will save them time, but, for some, time savings aren’t a significant enough draw to invest in this service.

According to Julia, “They’re not yet convinced of all the benefits of professional management, or they have a lot of fears around actually turning over their property.”

Jennifer notes that many landlords think a PM is just there to deal with “tenants, toilets, and termites.”

But, that idea oversimplifies a PM’s role and ignores some vital services they provide.