Real Estate Professionals are Outsourcing Property Management Services Offshore and Here’s Why!
OFFSHORE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT – Saying that building a successful business in the real estate industry is hard is a major understatement. It takes indescribable amounts of hard work, dedication, and perseverance that get you through this hyper-competitive industry.
For this reason, the best real estate professionals are using all of the modern tools available to get even the slightest edge over the competition. However, there’s only so much you could do before encountering major hurdles in your business. Unfortunately, it’s often not about getting new property or clients – it comes in the form of scalability.
When you’re starting with your first 10 doors that’s easy enough to handle. But what if it goes to a hundred or a thousand? Instead of celebrating, Property Managers need to deal with mountains of administrative work. So, what often happens?
Businesses start hiring locally to handle the heavy workload. But this can cost a premium and as a result, owners would task in-house staff to handle the admin tasks – easy enough – it’s just paperwork.
Now, here’s the problem – studies suggest that these simple admin tasks can take up to 60% of the workload of your average employee. And, with more than half of the working hours spent on non-profit driving tasks – productivity and efficiency significantly decline.
Because of this repeating cycle of unproductivity, a business’s growth can become stagnant. Luckily, more and more real estate professionals are embracing the trend of outsourcing their property management services offshore.
Why Are Property Managers Outsourcing?
There are a lot of stigmas that go along with the term “outsourcing“. Granted, there are several risks involved – especially when your business is on the line.
But, thanks to advancements in technology, outsourcing not only saves you money but also mitigates risks and provides solutions to some of the most pressing business problems.
During a Podcast on the Property Management Show, Todd Ortscheid of GTL Real Estate said outsourcing has greatly benefited his business. On the show, he said:
A huge portion of our day – basically the first few hours were spent looking through service request that we got, dispatching vendors, and trying to get in touch with tenants that haven’t scheduled their repair work orders, which is taking an inordinate amount of time.
Sadly, this isn’t just an isolated issue. Earlier, we discussed how back-office processes can take up to 60% of a worker’s daily workload. To solve this issue, Todd said that he invested in outsourcing.
He contracted a call center to handle maintenance calls and has Property Management Virtual Assistants to handle tenant-related processes which include:
- Screening Tenant Applicants
- Data Entry work
- Collecting unpaid tenant balance
- Repair and Maintenance Requests
- Customer Service
These are just five examples of tasks property managers can outsource. If you want to get an in-depth look at the services you can offshore, check out our article below:
What Can Property Managers Outsource? – Key Considerations
Outsourcing Takes Away Tenant Interaction
One of the most underrated benefits of outsourcing is minimizing tenant interaction. Imagine how productive a property management team can be if they didn’t have to chase after tenants late on rent or take a 45-minute call about how a maintenance fee should be waived.
All of this can be automated with the help of outsourcing. Thanks to virtual assistants, leasing agents can do entire tenant-related processes from screening all the way to rent collection hands-free.
In fact, Todd Ortscheid said that he only has five employees in-house and has the rest in service contracts or outsourced. So, the only time they need to interact with clients is during major issues that need to be addressed personally.
This way, you don’t have to do a lot of leg work and focus on meeting more property owners, marketing, or other profit-driving endeavors. Not only that, the less you’re at work, the more time you get for hobbies, friends, and loved ones.
Offshoring Property Management Services Helps Your Business Scale
Smart Property Managers are those that know their limits. After hitting milestone after milestone, it’s easy for businesses to forget how quickly back-office processes pile up.
That’s why good property managers realize that sometimes, it would be irresponsible to keep the business growing. Here, the saying “Don’t bite off more than you can chew” rings true.
If your rental property business stops growing, owners or managers need to look at several factors. You’d see this scenario happen for a lot of small businesses. Meanwhile, you could also see businesses taking in more doors than they can handle.
Ultimately, this leads to expenses eating up supposed revenue. At this point, you’re not only wasting money but also precious time and manpower.
Now, let’s place outsourcing into the mix. The great thing about that is once you partner with an outsourcing company – you gain access to highly skilled and professionally trained individuals.
And, with a variety of skills at your disposal, there could be a broad range of solutions that could be applicable to your specific business needs. For Property Management, a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company such as Global Strategic can provide:
- Phone & Email Support
- Creating and Processing Work Orders
- Creating Bills / Invoices
- Reconciling Bank Accounts
- Screening Property Applicants
- Status Reports
- Listings & Online Management
Small Property Managers Can Extend Their Workforce for a Fraction of the Cost
According to the U.S Small Business Administration, more than a third of small businesses currently outsource. More importantly, outsourcing gives small businesses the opportunity to get more done without investing too much capital.
For the longest time, there’s always been a debate on which is better: in-house or outsourcing? But, in most cases, the answer would always depend on a business’s needs.
However, if businesses want to effectively scale, then staffing should be one of their top priorities. Manpower directly impacts everything in a business. Like a simple physics formula, we can say that manpower is proportional to productivity.
The more people you can get working, the more tasks can be completed at a faster rate. But, as you hire more in-house staff, this can translate into a massive reduction in revenue and profit.
Hiring new staff equates to paying more for health care, insurance, and other benefits. Additionally, you’d also have to pay employees for the training if they lack the skills to do the job.
According to Salary Expert, rent collectors in the US have an hourly rate of $14-$25. Meanwhile, hiring in the Philippines would be significantly cheaper, not to mention the other costs of employing someone locally besides just the simple salary.
Conclusion
Outsourcing is an effective way for property managers to increase productivity and efficiency in a cost-effective manner. And, for small businesses that want to streamline their operations, outsourcing provides a way to strengthen your workforce for a fraction of the cost.
That said, there’s more to outsourcing than just saving on costs. So, if you want to learn more about how your property management business can effectively use outsourcing talk to us today!
Global Strategic can help with your business needs and give you the Strategic Advantage needed to edge out the competition. Learn more about how offshore outsourcing to the Philippines can help your business and future business growth.