Multi-Family Ownership Package

[Tyler Lewis]

My partner and I are about to take over our first MF deal in the New Year-A 9 unit building that has some very long-term tenants (10+ years). The property has been self-managed for the past 20 years with the old owners being very involved with the building and tenants. We have a property manager in place but I am wondering if we should provide some sort of welcome package to the tenants with a little information about my partner and I as well as maybe GC to a local shop.  

Has anybody had any success with something like this or just best to turn the building over to the PM and stay in the background?

[Greg Scott]

Yes, we regularly provide welcome packets to our residents, particularly at takeover.  At a minimum, it should include the following:

1) Notify them that the property has been sold 2) Explain how to pay rent 3) Explain how the resident contacts you if their are maintenance issues or other problems 4) any other hand-over issues that are critical

If you have a property manager in place, you are doing yourself and them a disservice by giving residents your contact information.  Anytime they do not like a policy, they are skipping your property manager and contacting you directly.  You have taken away all power from the property manager.  If someone becomes angry because they are evicted or non-renewed, do you want them to have a lot of information about you?  I'm also not clear why you would give them information about the GC.  Do you really want residents calling the GC about repairs before they call your property manager?  It is generally better to give your property manager room to work.

On our small properties, even when we had a property manager, we were often onsite.  If a resident asked who we were, we just said we were managers of the company that owns the property.  Some times they would complain to you about the property manager which is good feedback worth noting.  The only time residents ever could contact us directly is after we took over self management, and then we used a Google Voice number, not only for privacy, but also so any one of us could pick up the call or text.