It took me three months of retirement to decide that I was too young to be retired, so I contacted the broker we purchased our home through to see if they were willing to open a property management department.  If so, I would be willing to build it.  I had at least 20 years of administrative work behind me for small and large corporations, had been president of my homeowners association for five years, and found that I enjoyed that type of work.  The only need I had to fulfill was obtaining my real estate license, which I had by November.

I began managing just before the real estate boom, so I was very blessed to contract approximately one new unit a week for the first year.  The second year was when the market began to die, and years three and four are what we are in now. However, even with the slowdown in sales, the business increased and remained steady at 100 single-family homes.

So why become a property manager, and why do so in the Merced area?   Well, let's start with property management.  This is a field that requires a lot of will power, tenacity, patience, and people skills - everything that is required of a real estate agent.  The difference is that you are working with the same people for a much longer period of time, so the relationships become more personal with tenants and owners, and having a bad day can't be written off very easily.  There is always the call to remain professional, but as a manager, I have found that it's really important to listen to the heart of the tenant and he heart of the owner.  I sometimes call myself "The Matchmaker" - I temporarily wed an owner with a tenant.  This is a business where it is important to keep people happy.  The tenant, if treated badly, disrespects the home they are living in.  (Sometimes they do that anyway).  The owner who doesn't feel his property is being taken care of properly, feels resentful.

The biggest lesson I've learned is - there are only about 30 stories out there in "Tenant Land."  They take on different characteristics, but they are basically the same.  I've learned tenants want to know someone cares about what happens to them, and that living in a home is a win-win situation for the owners and for themselves.

There are about five kinds of owners.  The owners I enjoy working with the most are those who have made a long term investment into the community, and care what happens in Merced in the long run.  These are the people I call angels.  Through their investment, they are helping a smaller community with people who have not-so-great wages to afford renting a home.  I know each of these owners will receive their wings on judgment day.  Some have been ever so patient.

Some investors have only come to rape and pillage our small town.  They are only concerned for their capital gain with no thought to the problems left behind when they've driven up the prices through flipping properties too rapidly, and then abandon the town when it didn't make money for them. The impact?  The City hired more police and firefighters to handle the increased growth, but then in the downturn, with the loss of properties and tax income, we've lost the income to sustain our police force and fire departments.  A la increased gang activities.  Many of our social services have disappeared.  The City also had to revise the infrastructure of the water and sewage plants to accommodate all the new building.  Our water utilities rates have almost doubled in four years.  They won't go down again just because we have a glut of foreclosures.

Well, I guess I wandered off the main topic, but the reason I'm a property manager is because I have come to care about this little town in the middle of California.  And I want to see the people who own the homes that are being rented have a successful venture as well as seeing good people who live here have a nice home to rent.

I never have a boring day  . . .