According to my friends out there who manage single-family rentals, vacancies are high, rents are dropping and it’s tough to find qualified applicants. Gaining an advantage in this atmosphere is more important than ever and going green may be just what the doctor ordered.
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“Going Green Helps You Target the Tenants You Want”
Posted on 19. Aug, 2010 by Jennifer Marcus Newton.
I recently had an uncomfortable, albeit necessary conversation with a landlord who owns a property on my block. This face-to-face meeting followed a rocky year with one of her tenants—the kind of neighbor no one wants to live near: Yelling in the street at all hours of the night, an unkempt yard complete with garbage bags that languished in the front yard for weeks on end, and serving as headquarters for increasingly badly behaved teenagers with hobbies that included drug dealing. Needless to say, neighbors were not happy.
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You have probably heard that being “green” is a valuable marketing tool for property managers to use in order to attract new business and retain residents. However, maybe you don’t know where to begin? Below are some specific things you can do to green your office and your properties that will help the environment while saving you money long term.
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Sure a new landscaping project has some associated up front costs, however making strategic environmentally friendly changes to your yard can help you save money long term. Different aspects of going green include energy conservation, using less water, and reducing environmental pollution.
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One of the most toxic aspects of home and property maintenance involves pest control. This isn’t just about roaches, silverfish and ants either. In many areas of the country property managers and homeowners have to deal with rodents like rats and mice.
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Survey Results: Going Green in the Property Management Industry
Posted on 21. Jul, 2010 by Aimee Miller.
In partnership with the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) we recently surveyed a group of residential property managers to better understand if and how they are using the green movement to grow their business. Here are the results.
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Taking Stock of Impact: Is It Good for Business?
Posted on 13. Jul, 2010 by Jennifer Marcus Newton.
If there’s anything good to come out of the devastating BP oil spill, it’s a renewed awareness and interest in the corporate decisions that directly impact our shared environment. Certainly more than a few BP execs are kicking themselves right now for grossly underestimating how an environmental catastrophe of this magnitude would impact their bottom line.
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“Reel” Conversations For Property Managers That Strike a Balance
Posted on 09. Jul, 2010 by Jennifer Marcus Newton.
Steven, a teenager on my block, has only ever had two choices in my yard: The garage-sale score or the German-engineered model. Both are reel mowers and both are used every week in my yard—sometimes concurrently.
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One of the many benefits that can come from volunteering to be in neighborhood events is free publicity. Community programs can be one of the most beneficial and cost-effective ways to advertise, mainly because they are usually publicized in some manner—television, newspaper, etc.
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A recurring problem for many property managers today is that the resident moves out but leaves behind this or her household items. This is such a problem in school dormitories that colleges now have year-end auctions just to try to unload the stuff. Amazingly, much of it is perfectly usable electronics equipment, furniture, kitchenware, small appliances and rugs.
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A few weeks before my husband and I closed on our property, the home inspector we’d hired noted a strange noise coming from inside the hot water heater. We passed this information along to the then-owners, who insisted it was all a bunch of hullabaloo. A few days later, the heater gave out and they had to replace it.
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Energy Star Appliances: Your Key to Higher Occupancy
Posted on 18. Jun, 2010 by Kimberly Madrigal.
Housing and demographic trends indicate that families are getting smaller, more single people are seeking housing and people are doubling up out of necessity. Given the current glut of housing across the country and the continuing economic difficulties, what more can rental home managers do to fill vacancies?
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High-Performance, Affordable LED Light Bulbs Have Arrived
Posted on 11. Jun, 2010 by Marc Courtenay.
As I’ve written in past articles, the LED light bulb is a super efficient source of light. It is the future of lighting, but so far, for most consumers the available LED bulbs have been too expensive and dimmer than the incandescent bulbs many still utilize. But that seems to be changing.
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A Drop Saved Is A Drop Earned: Helping Residents Conserve Water Helps You
Posted on 06. Jun, 2010 by Kimberly Madrigal.
Many people have heard of the term ‘peak oil’, but most are unfamiliar with a new concept called ‘peak water’. This refers to the practice of using more fresh water than the natural water cycle can provide. Peak water is currently resulting in fresh water shortages across the United States.
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Going Green in Property Management: Interview with Bob Machado, Owner of HomePointe Property Management
Posted on 03. Jun, 2010 by Aimee Miller.
In this interview, Bob Machado, owner of HomePointe Property Management, discusses the processes and benefits of running a ‘green’ property management office.
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Reduce, Reuse & Recycle: How Reusing Will Reduce Your Recycling
Posted on 21. May, 2010 by Jennifer Marcus Newton.
What’s greener: Reusing something that already exists or creating something new? It’s not a trick question. And the right answer depends entirely on the item in question. Let’s say your rental property sports kitchen cabinets from the harvest-gold heyday, and which you suspect might be scaring off potential tenants.
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Getting residents to buy in on efforts to green your property is actually pretty darn important to your overall strategy. Look at it this way: You can invest in an energy-efficient furnace, but if residents crank the thermostat to 77° F when they aren’t even home, you’re just burning up your savings. Literally.
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Water management districts across the United States are enacting mandates to encourage water conservation. Landscaping often accounts for up to 30% of a property’s water consumption, but with proper maintenance and planning a green property manager may be able to bring that percentage closer to zero.
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2010 is rapidly becoming known as the ‘green year.’ While it’s relatively easy for property management companies to implement green changes throughout their properties, companies may want to consider more effective changes that begin right in the office.
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The smartest tip I can give to a green property manager is to let all your clients and everyone else know that you’re serious about being a green property manager. This sends the message that you care about the properties you manage and the residents that live there. It also tells the community that you run a first-rate property management business, and that’s an important message.
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In most markets it may be difficult to justify the return on investment for green home certification for existing houses, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something to be learned from these programs.
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By undertaking a green property management plan that seeks to balance human needs with ecological concerns, managers can substantially affect the environment and the quality of life for residents. Our buildings use 40% of the world’s energy and produce 35% of CO2 emissions according to the Worldwatch Institute.
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The $100 billion global lighting industry is going through a radical change. New residential, office and retail buildings are abandoning fluorescent lighting in favor of LEDs, or light-emitting diodes. These tiny, energy-efficient, long-lasting and amazingly bright points of light are being inspiring companies like GE and Philips to shift production from incandescent bulbs to LED.
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For lots of reasons, more and more people are becoming interested in the environment – some from an altruistic motivation, others from a purely economical or utilitarian perspective. However, the reality is that we, the people the-world-over, have wholly abused our local ecologies…
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It seems that lately every industry in the free world is claiming some stake in the surging green movement. The Baby Boomer generation has been forever passionate about its health and the state of the environment, and both generations “X” and the latest generation “Y” appear to be no less interested.
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“Green” Property Managers Prepare to See the LED Light
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Creating a Green User’s Guide for Residents
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5 Ways To Attract more Residents with Green Marketing
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Reduce, Reuse & Recycle: How Reusing Will Reduce Your Recycling
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Survey Results: Going Green in the Property Management Industry
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Jennifer Marcus Newton: Thanks, John! Hopefully some green-minded tenants ...
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Rob Thomasian: Great survey! Glad to see this sector becoming mor...
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John Welch: Great Article....The trick is how do you get tenan...
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Troy Kempton: Among the many great alternatives in going green S...
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Aimee Miller: Thanks to all of the property managers who provide...
