Using Data to Guide Property Owners Through Delinquency & Economic Uncertainty

As a property manager, you are likely communicating with owners and real estate investors more than usual, and your clients are probably more than a little nervous during this time of economic uncertainty. How should you guide owners through rent delinquency?

To answer this question, we’ve asked Anna Myers, the Vice President and Asset Manager at Grocapitus Investment to talk to us today about how you can work with your property owners and your residents during a crisis like COVID.

While this isn’t a housing crisis, it is a public health crisis, and it’s affecting almost everyone nationwide. Anna is in a unique position to tell us how she’s using data to plan for economic shifts and new housing trends.

Introducing Anna Myers and Grocapitus

Grocapitus is a syndication company based in the San Francisco area. The company has acquired 13 properties across the United States in the last 18 months, which includes 1,800 units. These are mostly multifamily residential units, and they are now getting into self-storage properties.

Anna and the company invests alongside their investors. Her team finds the deals, sources the deals, and lines them up for purchase. Then, the properties are co-purchased through a syndication, and Grocapitus manages the project. This makes Anna the asset manager who works closely with property managers at each building to execute the business plan associated with that deal.

These investment properties are spread throughout the United States, which means they’re working with property managers in different states and cities. Anna isn’t a property manager herself, but as the asset manager of these buildings, she’s been able to experience a lot of different property management styles. It’s given her a unique insight into how the industry works and what’s required to succeed, and it’s why we turned to her for advice on guiding rental property owners and investors through delinquency and economic uncertainty.

Asset Management vs. Property Management

As an asset manager, Anna is concerned with her investors and the residents living inside her units. The property managers she works with are her boots on the ground. They facilitate all engagement and communication with residents, and they make sure local laws and regulations are followed. Those property managers are showing the apartments and executing the business plan that’s in place.

The business plan is what dictates the action of each property manager. Maybe there’s a plan in place for a building constructed in 1985. It may need some renovations and updates and the business plan will reflect those intentions and project the money that’s spent and the returns that are earned. These things can’t happen from Anna’s office in California; she counts on her property managers to execute the plan.

Using Data for Property Management Decisions

Grocapitus is very data-oriented. Their background is in technology and they apply data science to real estate. You can’t manage what you can’t measure, and the company uses specific spreadsheets called Trackers. The property managers working with them fill those Trackers out every week so that asset managers can stay on top of the data.

The Trackers expose trends and inform decisions. It’s an easy and all-inclusive way of looking across the portfolio to recognize trends and see where things are going right and wrong.

Two Trackers in particular are essential to how property managers and asset managers work together:

* Monday Morning Report. This is a specific sheet that’s related to occupancy and rental collections. It tracks economic data and leads that are coming in that influence occupancy. They track notices to vacate and tenants who are moving. They project their exposure four weeks down the line. The report reflects collections and delinquencie...