Now that you have our two cents on the email vs. phone call debate, here are a few other opinions on the matter.

• Read Keith Ferrazzi’s forum, where users discuss their opinions on phone vs. email.
• B2B lead generation expert Brian Carroll provides a great comparison of email, telephone, and face-to-face tactics for producing leads.
• Five years later this is still a great read! 37 Signals discusses why we save emails and compares the practice to having every telephone conversation transcribed. Is there really a need to save email communications?
• See how others view the email vs. phone conundrum. AskAboutProjects.com has a great email vs. phone call discussion.
• Do you want to go back to the old pre-email days? Some might argue that email taken the heart out of conversations.

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Now that you have our two cents on the email vs. phone call debate, here are a few other opinions on the matter.

• Read Keith Ferrazzi’s forum, where users discuss their opinions on phone vs. email.
• B2B lead generation expert Brian Carroll provides a great comparison of email, telephone, and face-to-face tactics for producing leads.
• Five years later this is still a great read! 37 Signals discusses why we save emails and compares the practice to having every telephone conversation transcribed. Is there really a need to save email communications?
• See how others view the email vs. phone conundrum. AskAboutProjects.com has a great email vs. phone call discussion.
• Do you want to go back to the old pre-email days? Some might argue that email taken the heart out of conversations.

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As each year goes by, more and more people utilize iPhones and BlackBerrys. With all of this instantaneous email access, communication skews a little more toward email all the time. Certainly, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing—but it is important to evaluate which situations are most appropriately handled with email and which ones call for a good old-fashioned phone call.

Phone: Making a connection.
It’s basic, but it’s worth noting—if face-to-face interaction isn’t possible, a phone call is the next best way to make a lasting first impression. Emails are great for a lot of reasons, but they do not allow for the voice inflections and dynamic back-and-forth that phone calls offer. When you’re dealing with a new client or discussing potentially tricky matters, a phone call is often the best route to take. It personalizes interactions and allows you put more personality behind your words. Not only do phone calls allow you to sell yourself, but they can also provide a valuable first impression of potential tenants and may help you determine whether or not they are the type of renter you’re seeking out for your property.

Email: Documenting information.
Emails are great for record keeping. When it comes to dealing with vendors, accounting issues, and legal matters, emails create a clear trail of regulations, promises, deadlines, and other important information. As noted above, tricky situations should be handled with a phone call, but it pays to follow up with an email reiterating key points when specific information is disseminated.

To optimize customer service and enhance relationships with clients, tenants, and vendors, be sure that you’re using email for the right reasons. Many people have come to rely on email to avoid uncomfortable conversations. While email may be a quick way out of a difficult phone call, often it’s much better to deal with such situations on a person-to-person basis via a telephone call.

After an initial phone call with potential tenants, sending vacancies via email is optimal. It allows you to send pictures of units and to include all key information such as apartment stats, amenities, and rental information. Having all of this information right in front of potential tenants will make it easier for them to make decisions.

Despite these general guidelines, many people have a preference when it comes to phone versus email communication. When dealing with a client or potential tenant, be sure to ask which communication method they prefer and stick to that route to the greatest extent possible.

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For inspiration, let’s look at some examples of companies that are utilizing YouTube in all the right ways.

• You may not have the budget Intercontinental has, but you can still learn a lot from the great video they created for marketing their residence.
• You can be a weatherman! You may not need a green screen, but this video for San Francisco apartment rentals gets the job done.
• Charlesgate Realty Group in Boston demonstrates how a simple video walk-through of a rental unit is worth more than a thousand words.
• The outside is just as important as the inside. Make sure to let the interior and exterior of your rentals speak for themselves.
• High-def alert! Add additional pizazz to your video by shooting in high definition.

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Over the months, we’ve discussed the value of many different types of technology: websites, Twitter, and social networking sites like Facebook. But one thing we haven’t yet looked at is YouTube. Have you considered including YouTube videos into your online marketing strategy? Well, here are a few reasons you might want to.

Save yourself some time.
Photographs are a near-essential part of any rental listing. With a text-only listing, it’s often difficult for would-be renters to distinguish from one property to the next and, therefore, your units are at a disadvantage from the start.  But even photographs are sometimes misleading. Based on angling and point of focus, it’s possible to (either strategically or inadvertently) make a rental unit appear much different than it actually looks.

Videos allow potential tenants to obtain a more realistic feel for what a given unit really looks like. As opposed to photographs, videos can provide a potential tenant with a realistic vision of the layout of a unit, its size and, if you’re feeling really ambitious, exterior and building features.

Providing this sort of “advance preview” means that you can save yourself a lot of time by paring apartment showings down to those who are really interested in putting in an application on your unit, saving you a lot of time in the long run by allowing you to hone in on serious potential renters.

Show off your stuff.
Because videos inherently provide a more all-encompassing, realistic preview of your units, they allow you to demonstrate why your property is more desirable than comparable properties from the get-go. Again, pictures may just not do your place justice. Reel tenants in by showing off your airy layout, your building’s amenities, and that great view from the balcony. Don’t forget that video is also a great way to convey verbal information. You can talk while filming, adding a personal voice to your sales pitch and easily conveying information that is sometimes more difficult to get across within the confines of a written listing.

Do away with the distance factor.
Videos are a particularly valuable tool for appealing to potential tenants who are looking at properties from out-of-town. From a renters’ perspective, making a long-distance move can be rather intimidating. Some simply don’t have the option of in-person viewings. And, even for those who do have that option, you may well put yourself ahead of the competition if you provide them with a means of avoiding a long apartment-hunting trip.

No matter how sophisticated or nominal your web presence is, YouTube can be easily incorporated into your online rental unit marketing program. After uploading videos to your free YouTube account, you can embed them in your website, providing potential renters with all the information they need in one online location. And if you don’t yet have a website, YouTube is still a great solution. You can easily link to your videos through Twitter, Facebook, or even on a Craigslist posting.

As always, the more information you can provide to potential tenants, the better off you are. There’s no doubt that YouTube is a simple, inexpensive way of doing just this.

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This week we discussed equal opportunity housing. Following are some helpful links about important elements of the United States’ Equal Housing laws.

• Be careful! You may be breaking equal housing rules without even knowing it. Review these 8 fair housing violations to avoid.
• Test yourself! Do these two cases violate fair housing?
• Did you know that April is Fair Housing Month?
• Here’s a biggie: In 1988 the Fair Housing Act was amended, barring housing decisions based on disability, among other things.
• Be prepared, disabilities include the right to emotional support of a pet in no-pet housing.

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Juggling and staying on top of the frequently changing federal, state, and local laws that apply to rental housing is one of the trickiest tasks you’ll have to master as a property manager. At the top of the list of housing regulations you must abide by are equal housing rules and regulations as determined and enforced by the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO). As always with rules and regulations, it’s imperative you stay on top of regulations as they’re subject to change. With that in mind, following are some basic equal opportunity housing rules and regulations that every landlord should be aware of.

The Civil Rights and Fair Housing Act mandate that landlords may not discriminate against potential tenants based on their race, color, familial status, or handicap. It’s important to note that, under the Fair Housing Act, it is illegal to refuse rent to families with small children, based on that fact. (For more information and tips for renting to families with kids, check out our previous blog post.)

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act also applies to landlords, as it makes discrimination unlawful “with respect to any aspects of a credit application on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, or because all or part of the applicant’s income derives from any public assistance program.”

Additional anti-discrimination rules apply to those properties that have received federal funding. For instance, under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, HUD enforces anti-discrimination based on disabilities as it relates to “state and local public housing, housing assistance and housing referrals.”

Essentially, these laws all mean that you must offer people of all legal ages, races, creeds, nationalities, family types, and physical capabilities an equal shot at renting your units. This includes not establishing discriminatory terms or conditions for your rental units, denying that housing is available, or advertising that your property is only available for rent to certain types of people (for example, you cannot specify that you rent only to individuals 25 years or older). These laws also apply to third parties; for example, you may not instruct a rental agent to screen out tenants based on any of the above factors.  Also remember to check your state and local laws as they may have additional rules and regulations that must be adhered to when it comes to equal opportunity housing.

Being as clear as possible about what does and does not constitute discrimination is extremely important. It’s essential that all landlords are well versed on equal opportunity housing regulations to avoid making any sort of mistake that, despite the best of intentions, may actually constitute discriminatory behavior. Landlords that are suspected of discriminatory behavior are subject to investigation by the United States Department of Housing and Development (HUD). Should you be unclear on equal housing laws and how they apply to your situation, be sure to contact HUD for clarification.

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Don’t have the time to organize yourself? Surely, learning how to save time takes times. Here are some links to get you headed in the right direction.

• Sixty-one is the magic number when it comes to the time-saving tips offered by the Project Management Source.
• The Dumb Little Man breaks down time saving tips based on activity. Pay special attention to the work section, but you may also be able to apply these tid-bits to other areas of your life as well.
• Get in touch with your inner rocket scientist while learning a few things from Cal Poly’s Time-Saving Tips.
• Need to get your life organized? LifeOrganizer.com has a list of 5 quick time-saving tips, which may cut out some of the chaos.
• Get more done. GetMoreDone.com digs deep into their vault for time-saving tips that will improve your business.

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One of the biggest challenges for property managers is staying on top of all the tasks they have to do in a given day. What with unit inspections, apartment showings, incoming and outgoing payments, resolving maintenance requests, signing leases, and responding to various queries, it’s all too easy to look at the clock at the end of the day and wonder where all the time went. Following are a few tips to help you make the most of each and every day.

1. Stay Organized
Sometimes it can feel like there’s no time to actually get organized. But the truth of the matter is, no matter how time-pressed you are, investing in organizational time is almost always worth it in the long run. Time saved trying to locate paperwork, contact information, financial records on your computer, or any other number of other items adds up quickly. Creating a system of organization (the more automated the better) will allow you to perform all your duties in a more streamlined fashion … which ultimately results in a whole lot of time saved.

2. Prioritize
Some days you may have to choose between getting one or two time-consuming tasks done versus completing a number of smaller tasks. Whatever the case, it’s most important that you use your time wisely. Take stock of your task list and check items off not according to the amount of time they’ll take, but by which issues must be resolved most immediately.

3. Stay on Task
There’s no doubt about it—we live in a world of multi-tasking. And while it’s true that modern technology allows us to do this (and there is a lot to be said for returning calls while on the road or responding to emails while waiting in line), it’s also much easier to be distracted than it once was. These days it’s hard to get anything done without being interrupted by a ringing cell phone, an incoming email, or the distraction of a web link. Don’t let technology get the best of you. A simple 10-minute task can be dragged out to an hour or more if you keep stopping in the middle to take care of those little distractions. Make the most of your time by staying on the task at hand. Flip your cell phone on silent, shut your email down for the time it takes to complete your task, and shut down your web browser. You’ll be shocked at how much more quickly you can get things accomplished.

4. Resolve Problems as They Occur
The most successful property managers have built a reputation on accountability—both to their property owners and their tenants. And accountability means being efficient. Don’t allow problems that can be resolved quickly to linger on your to-do list. The task will become more daunting, the issue at hand may expand, and your customer service will diminish. Make a point of taking care of those maintenance requests, queries, and miscellaneous requests within a 24-hour period. Your to-do list will remain more manageable and, best of all, you’ll keep your clients happy.

5. Check in with Yourself
Always know where you stand. It only takes five minutes at the end of each day to review your day’s progress and get a handle on what needs to be taken care of tomorrow. Having a clear idea of what’s done and what needs to be handled allows you to manage your time accordingly. And if you find there’s too much for one person to take care of, it also allows you the opportunity to delegate tasks to other staff or vendors to ensure that even if you’re simply out of time, nothing falls through the cracks.

In the world of property management, chances are there will often be more work to do than can be accomplished in one day. And that’s okay. But these tips will help you make the most of the time you do have and guarantee that those must-do items are always taken care of efficiently.

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If you’re apprehensive about quick fixes, check out these fun videos that demonstrate how to deal with specific maintenance problems.

• Small holes in the drywall? Learn how to patch ‘em on up.
• Fix those gutters! Lowe’s offers a great how-to video for beginners that demonstrates how to repair and clean your gutters.
• Updating bathroom faucets is a valuable skill to have. This Lowe’s video explains how to replace a bathroom faucet.
• Do you know the proper way to clean your units’ electric stoves? Follow these simple instructions to learn how to clean an electric stove.
• Grout can get pretty disgusting. Prevent tile grout with routine maintenance cleanings. This is one of those quick fixes that can save you lots of money.



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