Presentation Tips for Property Managers: Owners and Tenants
By Daniel Harper · Career & Business
How should a property manager present to owners and tenants? To owners, lead with income, vacancies and costs against budget, then the issues and what you recommend. To tenants, explain unwelcome news such as a rent rise or major works by showing how the decision was made, what it means for them and what support exists: people accept bad outcomes better when the process is fair and visible.
Property managers present in two directions, and the two audiences want different things. Owners want to know whether their investment is performing and what you recommend. Tenants want to know what is happening to their home or their workplace, and whether they are being treated fairly. Most of the difficult presentations in the job are about money, in one direction or the other.
The owner report
Owners read reports carefully and remember what you told them last time. A structure that works, whether written or presented:
- Income against budget: rent collected, arrears, vacancies and how long they have been empty.
- Costs against budget: maintenance, major works, fees, with any variance explained in one line.
- Issues: tenant disputes, compliance items, repairs that need a decision.
- Recommendations: rent reviews, works to approve, a tenant to renew or not.
Lead with the summary, not the detail. An owner who has to read four pages to find out whether the property made money this quarter will stop reading.
Bad news for owners
When a unit has been empty for months, a major repair is needed, or arrears are rising, say so early and with a plan. Owners can accept a bad quarter; they do not forgive surprises. A short sentence pattern helps: what happened, what it costs, what you recommend, and what you need from them.
Announcing a rent increase or major works
The hardest presentations property managers give are to tenants: a rent increase, a service charge rise, major works that will disrupt their homes for months. The outcome is unwelcome however it is delivered. How it is delivered still matters a great deal.
Joel Brockner and Batia Wiesenfeld reviewed 45 independent samples on how people react to decisions that affect them, and found that the fairness of the process mattered more precisely when the outcome was unfavourable.1 When people get bad news, the way the decision was reached is most of what they have to judge it by.
So when you present an increase or a disruption:
- Explain how the decision was made: what the costs are, how the figure was calculated, what the lease or the law allows.
- Give notice early, well before you have to.
- Say exactly what it means for them: the new amount, the dates, the noise and access restrictions.
- Say what support exists: payment plans, alternative arrangements during works, who to contact.
- Take questions, in a meeting if the building is large enough to need one.
Tenant meetings
In larger buildings, a tenants' meeting is sometimes the right format, especially before major works. Prepare for it like any hard presentation: a short explanation, a clear timeline, and then most of the time for questions. Bring the contractor's site manager if you can; tenants trust the person who will actually be doing the work. Write up what was agreed and send it to everyone afterwards.
Presenting a vacancy strategy
When a unit is struggling to let, present the owner with options rather than a single answer: lower the rent, improve the unit, change the marketing, or wait. Show the cost of each and the likely time to let, including the cost of the empty months. Owners make better decisions, and blame you less, when they have chosen between real options.
Speaking to contractors
Property managers also brief contractors: the scope, the access rules, the tenants' needs, the standard expected. A clear five-minute briefing before work starts prevents most of the tenant complaints that follow.
For the interview version of these situations, see behavioral interview questions for property managers. For delivering bad news more generally, the sentence structure in presentation tips for project managers works just as well here.
References
- Brockner, J., & Wiesenfeld, B. M. (1996). An integrative framework for explaining reactions to decisions: interactive effects of outcomes and procedures. Psychological Bulletin, 120(2), 189–208. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.120.2.189