What We Stand For
I’m reminded of the song by Aaron Tippin, “You’ve Got to Stand for Something”. In the song he says, “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything”. Nobody can be everything to everyone. Nobody agrees with someone 100% of the time. Even in the most important relationship in my life we don’t always agree (spoiler, she is always right….). It’s inevitable that we are always going to be different, have different values, and see the world differently. This is because we are inherently different as people.
The problem is that property management companies provide a valuable service but every client has a different expectation of what that means to them. I’ve literally had many prior owners who told me they don’t care about the tenant and wanted me to steal the deposit from them (keyword is “prior”). This kind of thinking is very prevalent among Property Managers and Property Owners. So it’s time to make it very clear where Eclipse Property Management stands with regards to how we treat people and what we believe.
We have 3 principles:
- Investor Focused Property Management
- Creating a home for tenants to love
- A People First Approach to Professional Property Management
Everything we do can be measured against these principles. But… Like all principles, these are vague and can be made to mean a vast array of things. So, let’s further break down the principals with some bullet points about what each one means to us:
- Investor Focused Property Management
- Using the industry leading standards to create the framework for daily operations.
- Knowing industry and market trends, to capture the highest ROI (Return on Investment) in the market.
- Providing metrics and data to help plan for portfolio growth and informed financial decisions.
- Working with investors to accomplish their goals, whether that is high ROI or building a stronger community.
- Specialized team members to handle the unique needs of the investment.
- Focusing on continuous education and changing legislation to protect the investment.
- Strong work ethic and dedication.
- Creating a home for tenants to love.
- Protecting the property with short and long-term maintenance strategies.
- Reduce vacancy, delinquency, and damages.
- Managing properties that we would live in, which are cared for, well maintained, and safe.
- Loving our tenants and treating them with respect and consideration.
- A People First Approach to Professional Property Management
- Understanding the individual needs of our clients and tenants.
- Treating all parties with respect, even in the most difficult situations.
- An environment of self care and personal growth.
- Reduced office hours, and as a result, increased employee and client satisfaction.
- Flexible work environments.
- Taking personal responsibility for our decisions and actions. (Owning our mistakes)
Ok, great! We have principals and we’ve even defined them further to explain what they mean to us, but why does it matter? Well… “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything”. The core principle that drives all others is that we treat people with professional kindness and respect. It’s simple, and yet has become bizarrely controversial. Treating people fairly and with kindness helps build trust. Trust creates a meaningful relationship, causing tenants to love renting from us and living in their home. This leads to less vacancy, less damage, and higher returns for the owner.
Over the last few years I’ve had more owners upset and downright angry because we are kinder to our tenants than other PM companies. That does not mean that we advocate for them over the interest of our owners, but that we strive to communicate and resolve issues in a kind and respectful way. I’ve had owners literally spit in my face and tell me that they don’t care about a tenant and that we should do whatever it takes to keep every dollar of the tenants deposit. I want to keep this PG so I won’t say some of the things owners have told me, but let’s just say that it would shock you. I’ve seen this attitude increase over the last few years. Why?
At first I thought maybe it was because the market was performing so poorly over the last few years and the owners were just feeling the pressure of less return on their investment or they were having to float the mortgage on their own or something. But… When I reviewed the data, it was almost always the exact opposite. The most angry owners usually received a higher year over year return than they ever had. In short, we made them more money than ever. So it’s not about the money. In truth, I have no idea why some owners feel this way.
What I do know is that if an owner tells us that the tenant living in their rental is “just a tenant”, or that they are “a dime a dozen”, or says, “just figure out a way to take their deposit”, we will not manage their rentals anymore! We are publicly stating what we believe in and what our values are, and if that makes you uncomfortable, then please hire a different property manager who doesn’t have the same principles we do. I will not compromise our values for you.