Page 175 - Trump University Commercial Real Estate 101

Take Onl y Intelligent Risks

Occupancy should at least equal the average current occupancy
for properties of your type in your market. If it ’ s lower, the manage-
ment company is not doing a good job. If it ’ s higher, then you picked a
good company.

When the first of the month comes and you don ’ t have a tenant
filling a unit, that income is lost forever. To avoid this bleak situation,

you must have a strong tenant retention program.

The first element of that program is to ensure maintenance is
quickly taken care of. Insist that the manager call the tenant and
acknowledge the request. Then, the service standard should be to fi x
the problem within 24 hours, and preferably the same day. If it ’ s an
emergency, then of course you need immediate response.
After the maintenance is complete, tenants should get another call

to ask if they are satisfied with the work. If they are not, the work must
be quickly attended to. If they are, then you ’ ve just turned a mainte-
nance request into a positive impression of your property.
I want to stress again that it ’ s not enough to be a quick reactor to
tenant issues. You should insist that your manager be proactive. They

should be continually watching for issues and fixing them whether
tenants complain or not. Now you ’ re really earning goodwill.

Attitude

This item will directly affect your profi t - and - loss statement. As corny
as it may sound, everyone on your team must have a can - do attitude. It
must be on display when leasing the property, dealing with tenants,
and interacting with contractors.
I was in the midst of a large repositioning project a while back.

The first management company was highly skilled. Unfortunately, the
skill was related to hiding its inefficiency. By the time I discovered this,

the company had cost me a lot of time and money.

Needless to say, I hired another firm. After a couple of months,
I made a visit to the site, in part to talk with the manager. I was not
happy with the occupancy rate or the way that the company was
accounting for costs. I met with the manager and the lead maintenance

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