With everyone thinking about their personal New Year’s resolutions for the year, now is the perfect time for landlords, investors, and property managers to take a step back and set smart goals to bring success to your rental business in 2024. This year, be specific about what you want to achieve, create manageable benchmarks, and find your top objectives to ensure that (with the help of some industry expertise) you start the new year off on the right foot. Whether you are hoping to grow your rental portfolio, add more clients to your property management business, or simply want to focus on finding the most responsible tenants to fill your vacancies, a little goal planning can go a long way.
New Year’s Day may have passed, but it’s not too late to take a step back and create your business and personal goals for the new year. If you are ready to say goodbye to the obstacles of last year and want to step into this next year with some fresh goals, here are some great new year’s resolutions to bring success in 2024.
The new year is the perfect time to refocus and reflect on the last year. While it had its share of challenges, you likely gained some valuable insight about your business and your management style. Look to refine methods and tasks that worked well for you last year, and seek to eliminate those that did not.
Set Quantifiable Goals:
Be specific about what you want to achieve and how you will want to achieve it. Don’t settle for vague goals. Great New Year’s resolutions seek success through realistic and measurable means; vague goals are untrackable, and failure is much more likely to occur when you are unable to track your progress. Goals like “get more organized” can be quantified in specific ways. Instead, think more specifically about what you are meaning by that goal and translate it into a quantifiable task. Your goal could be to reorder the filing cabinet, go paperless, or learn more about your PM software, whatever organization looks like in your life, list those measurable goals.
Create Manageable Benchmarks:
To avoid insurmountable and unrealistic goals, decide to set a few manageable benchmarks for your resolutions, rather than unreachable aspirations. Studies suggest that successful New Year resolutions are easier to manage when they are simple habits rather than arduous goals and that writing down the good habit you wish to achieve–or announcing it to friends and coworkers–will increase your chances of success.
Find Your Top Objectives:
Another reason that New Year’s resolutions may fail is that too many were set at once. Even if your resolutions are completely realistic and entirely trackable, you, realistically, will have only so much time and mental space to address your goals. Managing a property takes time and effort. Therefore, adding new goals to your regimen is highly valuable but should be done incrementally. Reflect on your past year and evaluate the highs and lows.
Make a few goals to maximize the highs and evaluate ways to diminish or eliminate the lows, find ways for your property management team to focus on one resolution at a time. This can mean only making one reachable goal this year that you focus on full-force or setting various goals to alternate between monthly or quarterly.
Resolutions for Success:
In the market for a few target New Year’s resolutions for 2024? Here are a few great resolutions for landlords and PMs to ensure that you start the new year off in the right direction.
Befriend Industry Experts:
Find an industry mentor to glean techniques from. Learning the best tips and tricks from an experienced person is vital, and having a friendship where you can vent any business difficulties is invaluable.
Get Organized with Your Property Management Software:
Create a list of any ways that you are not currently using your software to the fullest. Stay up-to-date on any updates your software has made so you’re always utilizing every tool available. From online rent payments to tenant portals, there’s no doubt that we’ve seen how useful these tools can be–especially when social distancing. Make a note to follow up with support if find that you still have burning questions.
Find (and Keep) Great Tenants:
Make tenant screening a priority this coming year. Dealing with poor tenants is no fun. Make 2024 the year that you diminish stress from lousy tenants by focusing on effectively finding the great ones out there. Give yourself or your property owners rent security by screening tenants effectively.
Create a Resident Retention Plan:
Make this a goal with a detailed plan to get there. Shoot for a specific amount of retention tasks per month. This could be small (like a card or text to check-in) or larger (like a movie party or gift.) Realistic and specific goals will help you succeed.
Retain Employees:
Focus on rewarding great work. Employee turnover rates within the apartment management field are far from ideal. Keep your best workers by ensuring they feel appreciated and valued. Cater lunch, write a thank you note after a hard job, or set aside funds for special benefits.