How to Keep a Virtual Property Management Team Accountable and Productive

Bob Abbott from Alarca Realty in North Carolina used to be a work-from-home skeptic. Now, he’s an advocate, and we asked him to join The Property Management Show to talk about how to establish a virtual property management team and what you can do to keep your team members productive and accountable. We asked him to talk about the tools he uses to make this work for him and his company.

Introducing Bob Abbott and Alarca Realty

Alarca Realty handles properties in the Charlotte, North Carolina market. They’ve been in business since 2005, and Bob got started in real estate because he wanted to flip houses. Then, he moved into property management and was comfortably building that business when the last economic storm arrived. He and his company have been focused on property management since 2010.

Transition from Brick and Mortar Office to Virtual Property Management Team

Turning your property management company into a remote business doesn’t happen overnight. Baby steps are best. Bob started by talking to people at conferences. He planned and mapped this out three years before taking any concrete steps.

Then, he turned some of his invoicing over to a company that provided virtual assistants. It was working well, so he hired another company called Virtually Incredible to help with processing applications.

As this continued to work, he began to hire virtual assistants on his own, without the help of a third-party company. Remote assistants and virtual team members began doing marketing and now they also talk to clients and tenants.

Cost was a factor in this decision; remote labor is cheaper. But for Bob, even more important was keeping his core team happy. His local employees were feeling overwhelmed, and as he slowly began to take things off their plates and advertise for the jobs they didn’t want to do, everybody began doing better work. It was a win for the company, the current team members, and the new remote workers.

This began in 2014, when Alarca Realty had three full-time employees and about 140 doors under management.

So: how remote can you take your property management business? For Bob, anyone who needs to set foot on the property obviously has to be a local employee. Everything else is done remotely. Bob has a separate maintenance company and the maintenance crews handling repairs and turnovers need to be in the local area.

Keeping the Company at a Comfortable Size

With his virtual property management team making growth easy, the company grew to managing 250 properties. Then, there was an epiphany about work/life balance, and Alarca Realty slowly began to shed the clients who weren’t fun to work with. Bob focused on keeping the happy clients and culling those who were never happy or who were difficult for the team to manage.

If you’re like most property managers, you probably remember the early days of signing every owner who wanted to hire you.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Alarca Realty is in a place where it’s okay to be selective, and they’re managing about 150 doors. The upside for Bob, he says, is that he can spend his summers with his family while working two to four hours a day.

Working with clients who align with the company’s vision has made a big difference, just as remote workers have. Any owner who didn’t want to perform necessary maintenance on their property was cut. Any owner who was abrasive and rude to Alarca’s team members was also cut. There was a bit of a financial hit initially, but the company is more productive now, and happier.

Checklists and Workflows and Process: More Important than Ever

It’s easy to think you’ve thought out an entire process before you implement it.