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Triple Win Property Management Blog

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Introducing Group Rate Internet from Second Nature

At Second Nature, we strive to deliver the best possible experience to residents and property managers alike. We’re always looking for new opportunities to help property managers provide better service, grow their businesses, and give residents homes they want to stay in. Now, with the introduction of Group Rate Internet, we’re able to deliver yet another benefit that residents want, while improving the experience for property managers. What is Group Rate Internet? Group Rate Internet is gigabit-speed˙ internet delivered directly to single-family rental homes, incorporated right into your lease. Thanks to the power of our network, Second Nature has negotiated group rates with some of the nation’s largest internet service providers, and we’re passing the savings on to you. Residents get high speed internet at a discounted rate below what they could get on their ownº, while property managers have a new way to grow their business. Why are we doing this? These days, internet service is a necessity. But until now the process has been time-consuming, frustrating, and expensive. Subscribers face complicated setup and cancellation processes, and when they need to reach customer support, they’re often left on hold. We wanted to bring a better experience to residents and modernize the way they receive internet service. Understanding the single-family market 98% of residents across the United States pay for internet service in their homes. But until now, they’ve struggled with inflexible contracts that don’t align with their lease terms, convoluted phone trees, and expensive hidden fees. Most single-family property managers haven't had the ability to negotiate better rates with ISPs, leaving residents to pay retail prices for essential services. That's where Second Nature comes in. By leveraging our nationwide network, we're able to secure group rate pricing that's lower than what's available on the market—giving property managers a new way to offer high-quality, affordable internet without the headaches of individual negotiations. Difficulties of scattered-site Internet coverage areas can be confusing. When you have properties in multiple areas, they may be serviced by different providers, making it even more difficult to negotiate a one-size-fits-all deal. That’s why Second Nature works with multiple major ISPs to provide maximum coverage, no matter how wide your management area is. Cutting costs and making life easier On average, customers typically pay $80-120 per month for gig-speed internet. Plus they get hit with fees for equipment, setup, early termination, and more. Now, with Second Nature, property managers can provide gig-speed internet, with no installation or cancellation fees, at a fraction of the price that residents are already paying. How does the program work? Like all of the pieces in our Resident Benefits Package, we’ve designed Group Rate Internet to be as easy as possible. From data exchanges to support, we fully manage the process so your teams don’t have any extra work. Integration with property accounting systems to check eligibility Second Nature starts by gathering property details directly from your property accounting system (PAS) to automatically confirm which ISPs serve each property. We confirm eligibility and pass that data back into your PAS, so it’s always available to you. Once a property is marked as eligible in the PAS, you’ll be able to include an internet service addendum in any future leases for that property. Billing operates directly through the PAS, with no extra tools or logins to keep track of. Integrated with the lease cycle When a resident signs a lease that contains the Group Rate Internet Lease Addendum, they’re enrolled into the program, and Second Nature works directly with them to complete setup. We’ll reach out directly to residents to make sure they know how to get set up. If necessary, they’ll schedule professional installation for equipment at a time that’s convenient for them. Because there’s no separate internet contract for the resident, there are also no setup, equipmentª, or cancellation fees, and no struggling to align their utility contract with their lease term. Internet is billed right alongside rent, so residents don’t have an extra monthly bill to manage. Dedicated support We all know the pain of waiting in a phone queue to try to solve a technical issue. That’s why Second Nature offers dedicated phone support for residents using Group Rate Internet. That way residents aren’t calling you for help or getting stuck in phone trees with their ISP. Residents call Second Nature directly, and if they need technical support from their ISP, we can make a warm handoff, making sure they’re on the line with a representative before our team leaves the call. No endless transfers from person to person. Easy transition at turnover When a lease is up and a resident decides to move out, Second Nature provides move-out information to residents. Depending on the ISP, the resident may not even have to return equipment. In most cases, it just stays with the unit, and service is turned off until the next resident moves in and a new lease starts. When a new resident moves in, one phone call is all they need to get their gig-speed service up and running. It’s a simple transition when someone else moves in, all managed by Second Nature. Get started Want to see how you can provide gig-speed internet to your residents? Schedule a demo with a member of our team to walk through Group Rate Internet. ˙ Compared to average nationwide gig speed price of $80-120/mo (source: USA Today) º Up to 1 Gig Internet speed, subject to availability. Internet Service powered by Second Nature is provided through Second Nature's preferred third-party Internet service providers. ª Residents may be subject to fees if equipment is damaged, lost, or stolen.

Calendar icon March 19, 2025

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Four Keys to Successfully Scaling A Property Management Company

Today we're looking at the best ways to successfully scale a property management company. And we're going to an industry expert with our questions: Patrick Freeze. Patrick Freeze was once a professional poker player. Now he is the CEO of Bay Property Management, a Baltimore-based firm that has scaled to nearly 6,000 doors and is one of the largest PMCs on the east coast. While his personal origin story is one of the most interesting in the PM industry, his company’s growth story and the tactics used to go from nothing to a heavily-scaled PMC are equally interesting. Through a marketing-focused approach that was complimented by intentional and detailed process optimization, Freeze achieved an impressive amount of growth at Bay, and he joined us to explain exactly how he got there. Four Keys to Successfully Scale Your PMC Here are Freeze's top strategies. Optimize Your Marketing for Efficient Growth From day one, Bay Property Management has invested in its organic marketing efforts to help attract new business. Freeze himself became an expert in SEO early on and it’s the primary focus of his robust marketing team today. “I started reading everything I could on online marketing, so SEO, pay per click, etc. Over that coming year, I became really skilled at doing all the marketing on my own,” says Freeze. “So if you were to type in property management companies, Baltimore property management companies, or any variation of those keywords, we could come up number one. And then we started getting phone calls 24/7.” Bay grew rapidly as a result of its ability to generate web traffic and organic leads through SEO, and Freeze doubled the size of the business on a yearly basis for several years after the initial launch, eventually expanding into four different markets. Freeze credits his and his team’s investment in low-funnel digital marketing tactics as the catalyst for his rapid business growth. The CEO estimates he gets between 120 and 140 new single-family leads a week, with almost all of them coming from online sources. “We have 10 people in our marketing department that solely focus on that. Google is actually going through a big algorithm update right now, and you have to be on that. If you’re not on top of that, you’re not going to rank well in search. We spend a lot of time on that. Someone could probably argue the other side and say you should be more diversified, but at least that’s worked for us.” Process Improvement Never Takes A Back Seat One of the biggest pitfalls as a business grows is its process development and refinement. Scale requires processes, and enacting and optimizing these can often be a much bigger challenge than actually growing the client list. A rapidly growing PMC has already optimized its process for finding new business. Defining the systems your company will depend on to be efficient is a new undertaking, something Freeze learned quickly as Bay grew to nearly 200 employees. “When you’re managing 500 units, you know everyone at the company very well, and you can get away with not having systems, policies, procedures. When you have 190 people, you really have to have your systems down,” says the CEO. Freeze notes that the challenges that come with a large company are not universal, and what you have to be prepared for at 50 employees is different from 150. It pays to have continuous improvement and always be optimizing. Process management is never something that’s done. “So I think probably scaling from let's call it, you know, five employees to 15 to 50 To 100. You have to keep iterating. You have to continuously make improvements on what you're doing. So what worked for, let's call it 200 doors is not going to work for 1,000. So a good example, I guess when we started out. We had one person handling maintenance, we had one person handling accounting, we had one person as the property manager, right? And I would go out and get new business. Well, as the company continued to grow then we had two people on maintenance. And then we had two property managers. And as we were growing, we realize, wait a second, when a work order comes in, whose work order is that?” Early on in the company’s growth, Freeze sought to define the exact responsibilities of all positions within the company in order to minimize overlap. Overlap in roles leads to inefficiencies that can be avoided with clear guidelines as to exactly what role is responsible for what upcoming tasks. “We have a handbook for our property managers that’s probably 80 pages. We have a procedural guide for every single position,” says Freeze. “I don’t think anyone whom I’ve talked to that has scale has not had very, very defined policies, procedures, handbooks, because if you don’t, it’s going to be a total mess.” Structure has helped create more traceable outcomes, which results in processes that are “more easily optimized and improved as the company continues to grow. “We made a change when we had about 1000 or 1200 units from having maintenance coordinators and property managers to just having the property managers handle everything. It was a big switch for the company, but I think it was for the better because we know exactly when there’s a mistake that’s made. We can trace that and see exactly who was responsible for the problem instead of having four hands in the pie.” Quality Employees Are The Backbone of Growth “I don’t think there is anything more important than having good quality employees,” says Freeze. “You can get all the new business you want but if you don’t have good employees managing the new property, you’re going to lose it as quickly as you gained it.” Bay did not grow to almost 200 employees without a developed process for finding good quality workers. While the hiring process has become much more role-specific now, Freeze credits a unique interview design that’s much more action-focused than response-focused as what has helped him pick the most suited people for property management. “I had a list of 30 to 40 questions that had nothing to do with property management. I would ask questions like ‘who is the vice president?’ ‘What is 46 times 24?’ I used to have this brick wall in my office and I would ask how many bricks are on the wall. I would ask them to name something that’s complicated but you know really, really well, and take five minutes and explain it to me. And I would just keep going on and on for probably 30 minutes with these questions.” Freeze never particularly cared if the candidates got the answers correct. He was much more interested in their process for getting to the answers and how they handled the abnormal interview. “In property management, you’re constantly dealing with problems. You’re basically problem-solving when you’re a property manager, and if you can’t deal with complicated questions, you’re probably not going to be able to deal with complicated situations. So I would just start blasting off for 30 minutes all these random questions, and some people did great with it and we would hire them. We probably had 25% of all people who wouldn’t even finish the interview.” Resiliency is a key trait for a property manager, and Bay’s interview process succeeded in testing for one of the harder traits to ID in an interview setting. Freeze’s process also includes a timed writing test designed to see if candidates can write clearly and quickly when applying for a company that’s very email heavy. The process is designed to test ability more so than experience, and it’s helped get the right people in place from the beginning, allowing Bay to offer a better property management service that is more marketable. Compliance Is Key Compliance is hard enough in the heavily regulated world of property management, but one of the biggest challenges as you expand into other markets is managing the different laws and ordinances in each individual market. Freeze believes that compliance is “far and away” the biggest challenge of scale. “All of our leasing agents have to know different things in different jurisdictions that we’re in, because the requirements are different,” says Freeze. “We have attorneys review our stuff every single year, all of our lease documents, addendums, etc. Even with all that said, there is so much legislation that is passed every quarter that it can be tough to stay up on it.” Managers at Bay’s regional offices are required to be diligent in remaining current with the nuances in local leasing laws and ordinances, which can change monthly. “They really are changing that much, as crazy as that sounds. And then when COVID happened, it was a complete and utter nightmare. They were changing weekly, and the odds of getting hit with a big class-action lawsuit go up, and you can be sued for something that you don’t even know you’re doing wrong. So always make sure you are totally buttoned up and spending extra money on compliance. I can’t say that enough. You can’t spend too much on that.” Advantages of Scaling a Property Management Business With these tools for scaling a PMC, you can increase the size and scope of your business in order to achieve higher levels of efficiency, profitability, and growth. Let’s look at what benefits you stand to gain from scaling your business. Business growth Scaling a business can help to grow your business by expanding the customer base, increasing sales volume, and improving operational efficiency. Improved profitability As a business grows, it can benefit from economies of scale, which can help to reduce costs and improve profitability. Competitive advantage Scaling a business can help to create a competitive advantage by allowing it to offer a wider range of products or services, enter new markets, and achieve greater brand recognition. Improved access to capital A larger and more successful business is often able to attract more investment and secure better financing terms, which can help to fuel further growth. In the case of property management, it can also drawn clients. Attracting and retaining top talent Scaling a business can help to create new opportunities for employees, increase job security, and improve overall job satisfaction, which can help to attract and retain top talent. Increased innovation As a business grows, it can invest more resources into research and development, which can help to drive innovation and create new products or services. Tools You Need to Scale Your Property Management Business The property management industry is an enormously tech-savvy group of people. In our network of property management companies, we’ve seen quick adoption of new tools and tech like AI, cloud-based systems, etc. Of course, the property management tools you choose will depend on the specific needs and goals of your PMC. Second Nature’s RBP aims to provide tools that are customizable across multiple property management levels, needs, and niches. With fully managed and integrated services that add value for residents and investors you can much more easily see the benefits of scale. Here are some other tools and property management software we’ve seen most highly rated in our industry. Slack: A cloud-based platform that makes communicating with your team easy. You can get immediate responses from team members, and even vendors or clients you add to your channels. LeadSimple: Sales CRM and process automation RentCheck: Automating property inspections Process Street: No-code, simple process and workflow management Airtable: a low-code platform to build collaborative apps to visualize data, processes, etc. Zapier: A tool that allow syou to integrate all your applications and set up automated workflows between them. These are just a few of the many property management tools available. It's important to evaluate the specific needs and goals of your business, and choose a tool that best fits those requirements. How Second Nature Helps With Scaling Second Nature was built on the idea that we could help make property management easier for everyone involved – residents, investors, and especially property managers. To that end, we’ve built fully managed services that generate greater value for your PMC by delivering better resident experiences. Our team takes care of the details for you so that your team can focus on growth, reputation, and quality. Learn more about Second Nature’s industry-leading resident benefits package and how it can help you scale with greater ease.

Calendar icon March 21, 2023

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Property Management and The Experience Economy

What is an experience economy and why is it relevant to single family rental property management? There are 3 questions driving the future of value creation in professional property management. How do we create an experience so good, residents never want to leave? How do we create an experience so good, investors never want to sell? How do we create an experience so good, talent wants to be in this business forever? The word experience is key. Whoever creates the best experiences will create the most economic value as the service side of property management becomes commoditized. In Joe Pine’s book, The Experience Economy, he reveals a critical insight that transcends real estate to other industries. It’s about the staging of value creation through the lens of commoditization and customization. In today’s highly competitive world, companies often focus solely on process improvement, optimization, cost-cutting, and driving efficiencies. While these are critical to remain competitive and improve margins, they are the playbook of a game that ends with operating a low-margin commoditized business. Some business leaders even talk about their industries being commoditized as a badge of honor. Interestingly enough, that thinking is self-fulfilling; by not focusing on creating higher-value offerings, they are riding the train to commoditization.History contains many examples of innovations so groundbreaking they captivated people and led the way for economic prosperity. Artificial light, telecommunications, automobiles, to name a few. While these were all once higher-margin innovative offerings and the most attractive businesses to be in, they have grown to be stale and competitive industries, forced to compete on price, leading to lower profits and company value relative to size. For example, Ford and GM, once praised as innovators in manufacturing goods, are now in a sea of competition and worth a mere 0.4x revenue at the time of this writing. The Experience Economy dives into these macroeconomic trends and shows the change over time in their Progression of Economic Value chart. The macroeconomic trends demonstrate how we have gone from extracting commodities to making goods to delivering services to, finally, staging experiences as the current primary driver of economic growth. One of the many great examples included in the book is the staging around birthday party: A birthday party at home that consisted of a cake and celebration requires the commodities, flour, sugar, butter etc.. to make at a cost of <$0.10. Then companies began offering “cake mix” which was more convenient that cost $1.00, followed by bakeries making the whole cake as a service for $15, and now, people outsource the whole birthday party to a venue like Dave & Busters or a party planner. There’s a party, invitations, custom napkins, entertainment, and yes, a cake is part of it. So someone can be in the pennies for cake materials business, the quarters for cake mix product business, dollars for a fully-made cake, or thousands of dollars for a full birthday or wedding or celebration event experience. That’s the commoditization to customization journey. Many property managers have correctly said, “We’re in the service business.” However, looking at where the most economic value will be created, today’s industry leaders have already started the shift to “We’re in the experience business.” They’re seeing different opportunities, which lead them to different choices that yield different results, and they find themselves in differentiated businesses. Professional property management is fast approaching a “hotelification” phase, where premium amenities and hospitality-grade service are creating a rental experience so good that more people choose the rental experience for longer periods of time. Hotel staff are called upon to enhance the experience of a proposal, an anniversary, a birthday celebration. And the great ones answer and emotionally connect. They are “moment-makers'' who create enduring loyalty, allowing them to drive more economic value. Consider how many of life’s meaningful and memorable moments are created at home. But how many people can name the owner of the apartment they lived in as easily as the hotel that elevated that special moment? So what are property management leaders doing today, and talking about doing tomorrow to create the #1 resident experience? The occupied experience is being defined by the “Resident Benefits Package”. From conference events like IMN, to NARPM, to PM XChange and PM Grow, it is hard to find an agenda that doesn’t include it. It’s a hot topic. Property managers and service providers have figured out how to turn persistent problems into a suite of proactive solutions that residents will pay for. Some of these services have been amenitized, like 24/7 maintenance coordination, vetted vendor networks, home-buying assistance, multiple payment options, and more that have become standard practice in professional firms. But there’s also a list of emergent ancillary services that are making their way from initial adoption to the definitive standard in the professional management experience. Move-in Concierge - Getting utilities and home services set up is a hassle for residents. Instead of 4 phone calls to get water, energy, internet, and TV services set up after researching who services the address, now residents can make one phone call and speak to a concierge who has looked up the discounts and promotions available and can confidently guide them through the process. In the future, this service likely expands to moving itself, deals on furniture with offers to assemble it, coordinated home cleaning, and landscaping. Air Filter Delivery - HVAC has been the #1 maintenance line item in SFR in most markets, second to plumbing in more temperate markets. And it has been a persistent problem of getting residents to change their filters on time. A 2020 HVAC Data Study that looked at over 7,900 SFRs in 4 markets, over an 18 month period, showed a 38% reduction when comparing a scheduled filter delivery program over the status quo of leaving a stack at move-in or hoping the resident remembers to go to the store. Every 2-3 months, residents are getting a box on their doorstep, where convenience makes it easier to do the right thing than to forget or ignore the responsibility entirely. Credit Building - every month that residents are paying rent on time, they get the benefit of that activity contributing to their credit file. A Goldman Sachs study showed a 42 point average increase in credit scores over 4 months. The credit bureaus also allow for up to 24 months at the same address to be back-reported which can provide a meaningful boost. Property managers are able to incentivize on-time rent payment and help residents build their credit over the course of their lease. Rewards - Residents are used to getting points and rewards for their loyalty with hotels, airlines, their credit cards… why not on their largest monthly expense? And while a rewards platform offers residents a unique benefit and savings on both everyday and luxury items, it is an incentive platform for the property manager. Rewards points allocated for on time payments, timely renewals, and ticky-tack maintenance like flipping a circuit breaker or resetting a GFI outlet mean more of the resident behaviors property managers want. Leveraging it for concessions and leasing incentives also means savings over cash offers, or higher perceived value at the same cash expense. Washer/Dryer Rental - Some properties may have these appliances installed or the residents come with their own, but we’ve seen the impact on prospective applicants choosing homes due the convenience of having the washer/dryer available. Smart Home - From thermostats to keyless entry to water leak detectors and more, there is hardware and technology alike growing more popular each year. Not only are they appreciated by residents, but they provide critical operational efficiencies to the management team. In addition to these, there are many more innovations that are going to dramatically improve the experience of renting and raise the bar on what’s expected. The companies that architect the best experiences will be the market leaders and capture the most upside in this future economic environment. We constantly are asking ourselves, what might the professional property management industry look like in 2030? The shift from transactional services to transformational experiences is one of the surest bets on the table. The big winners will be the players who embrace the new discipline of experience design. We believe the future belongs to the professionals, the trusted, the innovative… the people dedicated to changing the way people live forever.

Calendar icon October 25, 2022

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Why You Should Host Quarterly Zoom Calls with Your Investors

Three veteran property managers who have implemented quarterly video calls with their clients. They speak to exactly how and why they operate these, and the specific value it creates for their companies. In late 2019, Real-Time Leasing CEO Deb Newell launched a new communication initiative aimed at building a better investor experience. The concept was simple but effective: a regularly cadenced zoom meeting with all their investors. “We invite all of our owners and we basically do a ‘state of the union’, a state of our company,” says Newell. “You pull back the curtain, you’re really showing them what’s going on behind the scenes and inviting them to have a little bit more information as to what the day to day may be.” Other PMs have since recognized the value of disclosing the innards of the business to investors, including Bryan Jenkins of AHI Properties and Karen Jordan of HBR Rentals, all of which appeared on a panel at PMLX with Newell to break down how they run these calls. What is the goal?‍ These investor zoom calls have one main goal, which is to keep the investor informed about and engaged in the processes of how their asset is being managed. When it was pioneered by Deb Newell, CEO of Real-Time Leasing and professional property management consultant, the intent was to provide such a thoroughly informative session that investors would leave feeling like they’re being kept in the loop and their questions and concerns were heard. This has proven more than successful for Newell and Real-Time Leasing, as well as other companies that have adopted the practice. It’s an obvious win for the investor, but the resulting relationship development with clients is also a big win for property managers. In the new age of property management, where lifetime value has supplanted immediate cash flow as the PM’s north star, making efforts to keep investors in the loop helps build a relationship that contributes to said lifetime value. Newell notes that a lot of investors think that the only time they hear from their management company is when there is a problem. That can really strain the client relationship, but it’s such an easy thing to fix and doing so will usually come as a surprise to the investor. Many probably aren’t expecting to be this informed. Their experience with old school PM companies would give them no reason to. “We’ve heard nothing but positive things about it. They were amazed that we did it in the first place,” said Newell. Bryan Jenkins of AHI Properties, part of the PURE Property Management family, has seen similar positive reviews after adopting the quarterly zoom call concept. “We've had nothing but positive feedback on the two that we've done this year. I've got clients that have properties in multiple states with multiple managers. And their comment is always no one else is doing this. And they're just blown away that it's proactive versus reactive.” How do you run them? Newell recommends doing these meetings quarterly and generally tries to provide investors a holistic view of the company’s status and the performance of the assets it manages. “The idea was to say ‘hey, we’re just going to tell you exactly what’s going on in the company, how well we’re doing, how well rent has been received, what our percentage of occupancy is, what our percentage of delinquency is, that way they felt more engaged.” Newell typically lays out an agenda that features a run through of all those things. “That usually lasts about 45 minutes, and we do open it up for questions. So we’ll have somebody monitoring chat . . . they can definitely ask questions during the chat, then at the end we open it up, let everybody unmute and ask questions.” Jenkins and AHI take a slightly different approach, electing to focus on the strategy for AHI’s decision-making and making sure their clients have a good understanding of why they’re doing what they’re doing. “We want to have our clients understand the why, why we’re doing certain things, why we’re deploying certain systems. They don’t need to understand the how, it’s the ‘why’ portion of it.” Jenkins hits on an important point, which is that it’s worth identifying what’s important to your clients and focusing exclusively on that. You could probably talk about what you’re doing as a company and why for hours, but whittling down to what’s most important to the clients can result in a more streamlined and efficient meeting that loses fewer people over the course of it. “We're explaining why we're doing things, how we're doing it for their benefit, and we focus on the triple win. We even talked about on our last call that we're looking for a win for the owner, the resident, and the manager and once we focus everything through that lens, it's easy. And we're also focused on the education of our owners and educating them on the way that we want them to think as investors.” Jenkins, Jordan, and Newell break their meetings up into segments, each with time allotted to different speakers within the company. Karen Jordan of HBR Rentals remarks that this helps clients put faces to names and build a more direct relationship with employees beyond just company execs. “I loved that they can put a face to a name because a lot of our owners have only met myself. So they haven't met the team. So to see the face of who's our maintenance coordinator, who's the Resident Experience Manager, to really get to know them, I think it really helps them,” said Jordan. Creating a Triple Win The extra communication with investors Newell, Jordan, and Jenkins are striving to create is another great example of how property managers are realigning their business toward lifetime value via triple wins. The benefit to the investor of being in the know and feeling like their questions are addressed is obvious. On your side as the PM, this is a great opportunity to forge a strong relationship with your clients, but it’s more than that too. Regular communication with clients also gives you an opportunity to teach. Investors may not understand everything you’re doing, why, or how your long-time priorities have shifted as a triple-win driven property manager. Jenkins focusing on “the why” provides powerful insights to investors on this exact question. As a property manager, you’re trying to provide value that investors can’t easily replicate themselves or with the assistance of technology. These quarterly calls are great opportunities to ensure your clients understand exactly what value it is you’re creating for them. When investors and property managers are on the same page about the future of property management, creating a great resident experience is even easier. That's a triple win.

Calendar icon May 19, 2022

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