It’s not what you know, It’s who you know – Property Managers

If you want to be a successful Self-Storage Real Estate Investor, then you want to surround yourself with people who can help you be successful. There are a lot of moving parts in self-storage from your Realtor and lender and money partners to your property managers. Each of these people will help you in some way or keep you from being successful if you are not careful who you listen to.

This is a great time to find highly qualified people to work with you. The candidate pool is extremely deep. A lot of very qualified individuals have been laid off due to Covid 19 and this is your opportunity to snatch them up. You may want to evaluate your current staff members and replace the ones who don’t seem to fit in very well with your current office dynamic or replace staff that aren’t performing very well.

Your property manager is your contact or your face that your tenants associate with your self-storage property. If you have a bad property manager, your tenants are not going to want to send you referrals. They are not going to want to rent with you long term and this is going to hurt your business long term. Make sure that you have highly qualified property managers. If some of your properties aren’t performing very well, take a look at your property manager and see if you need to make a change.

When you are hiring, you can use the Myer Brigs personality test to see if this is someone who will fit in with your culture. You don’t want to bring in people who are not going to fit in with the culture you are trying to create. These people are your contact with your renters, make sure that they are going to represent you well.

On the other hand, if you have a great property manager, they may know other owners who are ready to retire. They can give you an introduction to these owners and that may allow you to purchase a property before it even goes on the market. This is true of everyone that you know. You want to surround yourself with people who know people in self-storage so that you will hear who want to retire first.

This is a great time to be in self-storage. The current economy has increased the demand for self-storage units and occupancy levels are higher than ever. Make sure that you are staffing your facilities with people who fit in with your culture. Take the time to find the best people out there so that you have great employees. You want people who will help you grow your business and represent you the best way possible. As always, happy investing.