Yes, on-site teams are struggling right now. But let's not forget to take...

Yes, on-site teams are struggling right now. But let's not forget to take time to celebrate the amazing aspects of property management.

One risk of sharing the challenges that on-site teams face is that we create a community culture of focusing on the rough parts of property management, without highlighting the positive parts.

There needs to be a balance, because our industry is legitimately amazing.

Any time I talk to someone just starting in multifamily, or maybe not in our space at all, I am ALWAYS bragging about how great it is.

Even though managing apartments is no easy task, our industry is filled with amazing people who are generous, kind, and a joy to work with.

Not only that, but we should be celebrating passionate people who are making things happen on the front lines.

So today I bring you Kentrell McGrier. Read his story and you will love it just as much I did!

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Kentrell McGrier.

Today reminded me that timing matters just as much as talent. In 2020, I moved to Atlanta during the pandemic. I was furloughed from work and had to start over. The only opportunity I could find was a part-time concierge position at a high-rise apartment community, working weekends only. Most people saw part-time. I saw a foot in the door. About a year later, I earned a full-time concierge position. From there, I became Head Concierge Manager. Three years later, I applied for a Leasing Agent position in the same building. I had no leasing experience—hospitality was all I knew but I prepared, believed in myself, aced the interview, and got the job. A year later, I was promoted to Leasing Manager. Today, as I begin my sixth year in the same building, I interviewed for an Assistant Property Manager position... and I was offered the job. I started Monday. I never took my eyes off the plan. I stayed focused, kept learning , showed up every day, and kept my faith strong even when I couldn't see how everything would work out. So if you're waiting on your opportunity, don't mistake the wait for a denial. Timing is everything. Keep putting in the work. Keep preparing. Keep believing. What God has for you will always be for you, and no one can take away what He has already ordained. Trust the process. Stay faithful. Your season is coming. 🙏🏾 special thank you to Dee Dallas,CAM for truly being an amazing mentor & Kristina Wright for guidance along the way.

Yes, on-site teams are struggling right now. But let's not forget to take time to celebrate the amazing aspects of property management.

One risk of sharing the challenges that on-site teams face is that we create a community culture of focusing on the rough parts of property management, without highlighting the positive parts.

There needs to be a balance, because our industry is legitimately amazing.

Any time I talk to someone just starting in... Show more

Guest Insider I love a good testimonial!! Congrats ! 👏

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For eight months this year, AI wrote a good chunk of our agency's blog and social content. It never ever touched our client work or a single line of brand messaging. It only wrote our internal posts, built around keywords we knew our audience was searching for.Just looking at the numbers, it worked. In 2025, about 1/4 of our new posts picked up real traffic in the first few months. This year, 4/5 did, and average time on page more than doubled. I ...

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The Asset Managers sit behind a computer, at a desk, and most of the time really don’t understand (or appreciate) what really goes on at the property on a daily basis.

The disconnect between asset management and property management grows bigger and bigger every year and the blame usually gets...

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Anonymous member In my experience the asset managers are just trying to hold the underwriters proforma to the expectations of the partners. The issues are that these deals are underwritten with high profit as an expectation and so little for expenses, especially payroll. Then, insurance and property taxes kill whatever cushion there was and make it impossible for management to run a property. It's the developers that are the problem. They cut every corner to build the property, underwrite the asset with unrealistic standards and dont meet construction deadlines to put the asset behind even before management takes over, then it takes years to turn a profit because the construction budget went over and they cant afford basics for running a property, and "its not in the budget". Basics, like full paints because they used the cheapest flat paint during construction... even in breezeways or basic office supplies and marketing collateral that should have been purchased during pre- construction. Or... I... Show more

In my experience the asset managers are just trying to hold the underwriters proforma to the expectations of the partners. The issues are that these deals are underwritten with high profit as an expectation and so little for expenses, especially payroll. Then, insurance and property taxes kill whatever cushion there was and make it impossible for management to run a property. It's the developers that are the problem. They cut every corner to build the property, underwrite the asset with unrealistic standards and dont meet construction deadlines to put the asset behind even before management takes over, then it takes years to turn a profit because the construction budget went over and they cant afford basics for running a property, and "its not in the budget". Basics, like full paints because they used the cheapest flat paint during construction... even in breezeways or basic office supplies and marketing collateral that should have been purchased during pre- construction. Or... I dont know: Overtime during the summer.
The asset managers I have known are wise and do understand the PM side, but their feet are in the fire to make the properties cash flow.
Its a mess. But its a developers and owners mess. They are greedy.

Anonymous member It also doesn’t help when they only talk to the corporate team and not the onsite team. I’ve had regionals who don’t like to look bad and will only tell the asset manager the good things. We would never get help or money to repair the bigger issues or the issues that prospects see that deter them from applying in the first place.

Guest Insider Anonymous member 460 this, I watched my regional change so many reports before sending to asset, hiding the daily challenges which only made us look worse in my opinion because it removed the explanation for the struggles.

Anonymous member Not to mention that I’ve never had an asset manager who has ever worked onsite. I get that it’s different career path or whatever. But when asset management gets to decide what’s best for my property without ever setting foot on it, it ends up being my fault when it doesn’t work out. Never mind that I’m also at minimum 10 years older than every asset manager I’ve ever had.

Guest Insider Thats not a surprise. Its very common that even upper management seems to forget what goes on onsite and that is mind-blowing since most of them started onsite

Vitaliy Merkulov We see this also from vendor perspective, we show them that there is a huge issue with current rental history verifications process and how many gaps are there, and asset manager dont see the issue but when we talk to property managers onsite they see an issue but cant do anything about it because there is no budget for it.

Jason Hall I’m on the multifamily team at Zillow and unfortunately this disconnect is very common.

Guest Insider And this is why I retired from property management after 35 years. The entire industry has turned upside down

Anonymous member

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Love how Leinbach celebrated National Property Manager's Day!

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Here's something to think about: your next client might never Google you.Instead, they'll open ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity and type something like, "Who's a good industrial broker in Los Angeles?" A few seconds later, they've got three or four names. If yours isn't on that list, you didn't lose the deal. You just never knew the opportunity existed.AI is the new referral source a lot of brokers are missing. It isn't based on who knows you or wh ...

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I know of two companies still using the DOS version of AMSI. Yes. It works. Once installed you own the software. The annual maintenance fee meant you had access to software updates, technical support, and training. If you had an in-house expert

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Has anyone utilized Rilla? Looking for feedback, good and bad!

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Guest Insider Our teams are using it and have loved it thus far… And so have the managers.

Jessica Siderius They constantly stalk me and don’t take a polite no thank you for an answer. Hard pass!

Brent Williams Jessica, it's amazing how many times I have heard this.

Steve Wunch I was interested...but at $1800/leasing consultant there was NO WAY.

Guest Insider I love the product demo but I can’t get the cost approved per agent. I am thinking of using as an underperforming tool when properties are below target.

Guest Insider I can agree that the salesman is definitely insanely pushy, but I am still intrigued by the product lol.

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Anyone using Hubspot or Zoho? Can I get your thoughts?

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Stacie Tennyson I’ve used both. HubSpot is a bit more advanced than Zoho but I only used the free version of Zoho. What are you using it for?

Guest Insider Stacie Tennyson I agree. ZoHo will help if you are a start up. Because it reduce your GTM costs and track what needs to be tracked. However, Hubspot is far more sophisticated with its tools for sales and marketing.

Guest Insider I have used both. As others have mentioned, it depends on what you want to use it for. Hubspot is very user friendly, and well loved. Zoho is like a start up still finding its way. Hubspot feels like everything in one place where Zoho feels like separate softwares all under one name.

Guest Insider I have used both. I think it depends on what you're hoping to accomplish. I love HubSpot. It is super user-friendly and has so much capability.

taylor wells Just started using Zoho. Following

Andrea Cosenza I used zoho for IT tickets. Love their support and how quickly they answer questions! We use hubspot in a different business as well but it’s a pain, they are always updating permissions and tables

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Happy Friday, Insiders!😎 What's your biggest renewal headache heading into 2027? Don’t see your answer on the list? Drop it in the comments! We’d like to hear that too.🤔

Staci Merillo Lots of Residents buying houses, but not enough prospects to replace them.

Guest Insider Getting both residents to sign the renewal lease. They think that only one lease holder needs to sign and it hold the process up, along with getting an updated renters insurance declaration page.

Brent Williams I voted on the one I hear the most. Budgets are TIGHT! I have had two conversations recently about communities being able to pay a <$50 bill right now, which is absolutely wild, so renewal programs can get squeezed.

Tracy Cherry Everyone wants the move in special at renewal!

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As a vendor, building new relationships in business is difficult. Especially when we have preconceived ideas about what value a vendor might bring before even meeting them.

I'm curious how Investors and Property Managers have built some of their most valuable and trustworthy vendor relationships.

Brent Williams Multifamily Demo Day, of course! 😀

Guest Insider I typically conduct an initial search of the area and then seek recommendations from vendors with whom I have established strong professional relationships.

Rickey Green Netowrking events but also, back in 2005 when I would call on actual properties, just dropping in and getting to know the manager helped move me up the regional ladder!

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Totally agree Brent! All of the information is there, it should be up to the system and onsite team to decipher, not another step for prospect.

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"Leasing agents shouldn't spend time duplicating automated work."This is maybe my biggest complaint with any call-in scenario. I took the time to provide all my information, but wait, now I have to say it all again to the live agent. It's playing c

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I LOVE this: "An amenity is a setting. The story is what becomes possible there."

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Curious what you all think are some unique giveaway options that are not simply "free rent". What feels tangible but actually costs a lot less?

Thanks for sharing, Lisa!

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AI can respond instantly. Schedule the tour. Follow up. Nurture the lead.Great.But what happens when the prospect actually walks through the door?As more of the leasing process becomes automated, the skills of the leasing professional become more important, not less.Technology can make the front end of leasing faster and more efficient. It can help prevent leads from going unanswered and keep prospects engaged when the leasing office is closed.Bu ...

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For over the last 12 months, we have consistently had to spend a significant amount of time resolving issues with payments not being applied correctly. We’ve had to repeatedly provide proof of payment, payment confirmations, and documentation for credits that were misapplied on their end. In some...

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Anonymous member I’ve consistently experienced issues with HD for years while working for different companies. HD is a mess.

Anonymous member Anonymous member I’m not happy to hear that but glad we are not the only ones 🙁

Anonymous member Ever since their HD Supply Director of operations left last year to Chadwell Supply the notice is real.

Laura Jordan HD Supply is so much more expensive than any of the other places so I don't use it unless I absolutely have to. Chadwell supply is my go-to, although my appliances come from Lowe's

Anonymous member Yessss! And I keep getting invoices for “payment discrepancies” that contain no information.

Guest Insider Dealing with this now….. they turned us over to collections for invoices that we paid over a year ago

Guest Insider One of the biggest reasons I don’t use them any more

Guest Insider yea when their driver SA'd me multiple times but didn't do anything about it kinda hard to look past. but my regional says weve gotten several demand letters from them when weve paid so it seems like a flaw

Mike Powers In a prior life world....
We told a supplier purchase by PO only.
We would only pay based on PO.
Not one dime more.
Works for large scale major purchases.
Gets tedious painful for ad hoc type purchases.
Consider an AmEx expense card only good at HD and only functional 7am to 3pm Mon-Fri.

Miles Scruggs I’m curious why you’d allow this to consume any more than a nominal amount of time. An AI agent well directed would organize and chase this for you with very little effort. Feed it both ledgers and it will reconcile them. If each item needs to be opened to views the details on both sides it can crawl through and do each one of those for you as well.
The thought of asking a human to do this level of work in this day and age is like asking them to make a copy of a lease and giving them to he original along with quill and parchment.

Anonymous member Miles Scruggs we have done everything you can think of. We had a third party doing this and they STILL couldn’t sort it out with HD. HD’s A/R department doesn’t respond, they don’t even respond to the HD supply’s A/P department. We have to work with our company AP rep at HD directly to have the payments reconciled properly. We’ve had meetings with HD about it. Nothing is working to resolve the issues.

Miles Scruggs Anonymous member so you have an agent prepare the work and you hand it over well documented detailed and explained to your company AP rep at Home Depot.
What you’ve just described sounds like less than 30 minutes of one persons time each month.
I’m not suggesting that this is the solution to HD’s problems. I’m just trying to desperately grasp how you are allowing it to consume any more than a nominal amount of your team’s time. You can’t control them but it sounds like the real change needs to start at home.

Guest Insider Enroll in their online portal and pay online. It will solve all issues.

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