The Property Management Show returns with Part 3 of Marie Tepman’s discussion with Todd Ortscheid, which builds off the earlier discussions of fee-maxing and choosing the right revenue model. In the conclusion of this series, we focus on the importance of education when it comes to property management marketing, and how to use AI to boost productivity without losing the human touch.
Property Management Marketing Starts with Content Marketing
To someone who does not know the property management industry, the idea that a company like Fourandhalf would market exclusively to property management companies seems incredibly niche. But, the industry is big.
And, the majority of rentals in America are not even managed professionally. Marie was shocked to learn that 10 years ago when she first got started in property management marketing, and perhaps even more shocking is that this is still true today. Ten years later, many rentals are still not professionally managed.
This tells us that education continues to be necessary. It has to come first.
Property managers can educate landlords that there’s value in hiring a professional management team for their rentals. Not only does it save time and prevent errors, they can make more money.
A lot of self-managing landlords, as you know, don’t want to pay someone a percentage of their rent. But, that’s because they often don’t realize that a professional will help them earn more money, not only when it comes to rental pricing, but also with expertise and even the ancillary fees we’ve been discussing.
Education is an under-rated part of marketing. It’s not just having a well-trafficked website and running digital ads. Those strategies help to capture the bottom of the sales funnel by reaching the people who already know what a property manager does. They’re making decisions based on prices, services, and other specifics. They know what they’re looking for.
But what about the landlords and the property owners who don’t know? There’s an opportunity to capture the people who are looking for solutions. They might be having a tough time managing their own property. They’re looking for help, for answers, and for other options.
Those are the customers who will make decisions based on the criteria your educational marketing has taught them to use.
Investing in the Marketing that Matters
Todd understands the need for educational marketing and has become so successful at it that he went on to bigger and better automation programs. He outgrew the basic marketing principles that he learned when Fourandhalf was helping him make marketing videos 10 years ago.
He has some advice to the property managers who are small and strapped for cash and maybe afraid to spend money on marketing.
Todd also works with a lot of clients who don’t have $10,000 a month to spend on marketing.
He tells those clients that the educational component works. It was true 10 years ago when everyone was talking about content marketing and the benefit of education. And, it’s true today.
Look at Marc Cunningham and his company, Grace Property Management. There is video after video after video on that website, and they spend 1 percent of their budget on marketing. That’s it.
Anyone can do that.
Once you start getting all that educational material out there, you’ve become the trusted source. When someone in your market looks for an answer to a question, you’re there providing it.
Todd says a blog he wrote 10 years ago on screening pets is still one of the most-viewed pieces of content on the website. This blog gets tons of traffic. Why?

* Because there’s always going to be a landlord in Atlanta who had a bad experience with a tenant’s pet, so they will go looking for information on how to screen pets. And, Todd’s website pops up.
* The site provides educational information to the person who needs help,

Most property-management owners focus on adding new doors, or, they’re just concerned with reputation management and they don’t feel like they need to grow their business. But, they ignore the cause of lost revenue and lower customer lifetime values: annual churn that quietly erodes 20–25 % of portfolios.
You probably don’t realize just how big your churn rate is.
Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation with Todd Ortscheid, CEO of Revolution Rental Management. In this part of our series, we are talking about real world churn rates for property managers, how boosting your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can elevate your property management company and give you the budget necessary to effectively market your services, and some of the most threatening legislation and regulation around fee-maxing.
How Much Are You Really Losing? Getting Honest About Churn
Any industry report you read will show you that property managers can expect to lose doors every month and every year. Even if you’re doing a perfect job, your owners are going to sell their properties. They’re going to die. They might change their minds.
Todd says that when asked to estimate churn, many managers guess that their churn rate is around five percent. But really, most property managers are losing 20–25 % of their doors every year.
The latest NARPM® benchmarking guide says the average churn is at 20%, and Todd says that property management companies that can bring that loss down to around 10% can feel really good about what they’re achieving.
Some property managers might think that they’re not losing money on churn because they’ve helped one of their owners sell a property. That’s great. There are commission earnings to be made. But, they’ve lost the recurring revenue.
Never underestimate what you’re losing to churn, and even though it’s surprisingly difficult, try to bring that churn rate a bit lower. When sales are intense, churn rates will jump. Be prepared.
Increasing Customer Lifetime Value
When you have responsible ancillary fees in place, you’re earning extra cash to invest into better services.
Better services reduce your churn and increase your customer lifetime value.
Where should those extra earnings be spent? We discussed this a bit in part one of our conversation:

* Marketing. Each new door now yields twice the ROI, making pay-per-click (PPC) or content marketing an easy investment.
* Better services. Upgrade what you can provide. This might be a 24/7 maintenance line, leasing automation, and a resident-benefit package (RBP). These things are increasingly expected by tenants.

Fee-Maxing Myths and The Triple-Win Model
Fee-maxing means charging more money from tenants. Won’t that lead to tenant churn? If you’re taking more money from residents, the property manager and the owner have better returns, but won’t residents leave, thus increasing an owner’s vacancy rate?
That’s a fear not a fact.

* Properly structured fees don’t drive tenants away. Most ancillary charges are behavior-based or have opt-in requirements. Late fees and bounced check fees and credit-contingency fees are behavior-based. Only the tenant can prevent those fees.
* Pet fees are completely optional. No one will charge a tenant a pet fee if they’re not moving in with a pet.

Todd has a client in Washington State who is the only property manager in his market to allow pets everywhere. He rents every listing faster while collecting a pet fee for the owner. The result is a much lower vacancy rate, happier owners, and grateful residents who couldn’t find pet-friendly homes elsewhere.
Tenants who have lower credit might not like that they have to pay a bit more in rent every month, but they’ll be grateful that they can rent a place, even with that low credit score. Those residents are grateful that someone is willing to work with them.

Welcome back to The Property Management Show!
Today kicks off a special three-part discussion on fee-maxing with Todd Ortscheid. In Part One of this important conversation, we will take a look at what responsible fee-maxing looks like, how it can double your revenue, improve your services, and ultimately increase customer lifetime value. When done right, it can also keep residents on your side.
Expect to unpack some juicy math.
Todd Ortscheid: Automation Addict and Fee-Maxing Evangelist
It’s great to welcome Todd back to our podcast. He has worn nearly every hat in the property management industry. He’s a business owner and advocate, an industry consultant, and currently the chapter president of NARPM Atlanta. He’s also the CEO of Revolution Rental Management and co-founder of PM Assist.
A bit of time has passed since Todd was last here, so let’s review who he is and where he comes from:

* Todd has been in property management for about 13 years.
* He started in the industry in 2012 and before that, he was an airline pilot for 14 years.
* Todd’s father was in the property management business, so as he got involved in that business and grew the company, Todd also became more involved in consulting for other property managers.
* He started and later sold a maintenance company.
* He did government affairs work for NARPM.

Todd is still consulting, and he’s also a self-proclaimed automation addict and fee-maxing evangelist.
That’s what we’re interested in talking about today.
The A-Ha Moment for Fee-Maxing 
Todd began thinking about involving ancillary fees in his own property management business at a NARPM Owner/Broker conference in 2014 or 2015, where he heard Marc Cunningham talk about the ancillary fees that were available for property management businesses.
It made sense because that’s exactly how airlines work. They make most of their money not on the plane tickets but on the extras.
Later, he heard Alex Osenenko and Darren Hunter talk about this topic right here on The Property Management Show several years ago.
By 2020, everyone was worried about revenue, so he put together an entire course on fee-maxing and leveraging ancillary services and fees.
It’s been a passion of his for years, and when Lead Simple introduced what was possible with automation, he became really involved in that as well.
Fee-Maxing Can Be Polarizing (But It Shouldn’t Be)
When the topic of fee-maxing comes up, it can be polarizing.
Like just about everything these days, there’s a camp that’s very much for it, and a camp that’s very much against it.
Some property managers hear fee-maxing and they imagine that a property manager or an owner is nickel-and-diming a resident to death. We’ve heard the term junk fees thrown around.
So, what does responsible fee-maxing look like?
The first thing Todd wants to point out is this is not hoarding money or being greedy. Some people get that idea, but all you have to do is gather the math and run the numbers to realize these fees are necessary in order to provide good service.
When Todd and his team first started running numbers for property managers, they found the average property management company had a single digit profit margin. It was 5 or 6 percent. That’s barely skating by, and it caused a lot of companies to struggle financially.
Fee-maxing is not about trying to be greedy. It’s about making your business sustainable.
You shouldn’t be struggling to provide the bare minimum. As a property manager, you’re trying to provide good service to owners and residents. You’re trying to hire and train better staff. You want to invest in better technology and increase your marketing efforts. To do that, you need the revenue that’s created by ancillary fees.
The primary goal of fee-maxing is to improve the service you’re offering.

Ray Hespen, who is a frequent flier on The Property Management Show, joined us again to discuss maintenance metrics and how measurement improves resident satisfaction and owner NOI.
The last time he was on the podcast, in late 2023, his team was just beginning to establish this concept of maintenance analytics. He was investigating what it would look like if property managers looked at maintenance from a data-driven standpoint. He was beginning to collect all the necessary data.
It’s been more than a year now, and we brought him back to talk about what he’s seen since then.
The Evolution of Data-Driven Maintenance
If you get good measurements, you never lose.
Property management has been in this black hole of information and according to Ray, that’s because we relied so much on having exceptional people run our business. It’s a super-high trust game. But, you can’t move what you can’t measure. So in order to scale, Ray and his team at Property Meld released a product that’s the best industry representation of the real world.
Insights and Insights Pro are basically ways to understand your own property management business against a ladder of maintenance excellence. It’s a deep diving into:

* Vendor efficiency
* Technician efficiency
* Coordinator efficiency
* Benchmarking
* Finances

You know what the performance actually is instead of trusting someone’s gut.
Ray says it’s been surprising to see how the market has wrestled with some of this. There are some components of the data that people don’t like. They’d rather not look. Then, there are some customers where the metrics are so good, but they still want to get better.
Essentially, providing access to all of this data and insights has opened Pandora’s Box. There’s no going back. It’s possible to measure leading and lagging indicators. And now, it’s possible to consider how to move those numbers. Knowing they exist is one thing. Using them to improve performance is what comes next.
Geographical Insights in Maintenance Performance
The most interesting data gathered from maintenance requests and responses is geographical.
Ray says what’s most important in the information that’s been gathered is that property managers can see their performance against geographical regions and areas. It’s clear to see that property management companies in the southern states, which have warmer summers, have a high speed of repairs and increasing maintenance costs in May. So, it would be unfair to compare yourself to a property management company in Minnesota that does not have air conditioning repair costs until July or August.
The geographical impact to maintenance in weather regions is important. Property managers don’t want to think they’re killing it or falling behind when the data is geographical.
That’s what Ray calls a “big a-ha.”
Customer Satisfaction and Its Impact on Retention
Customer satisfaction has become a much-discussed part of property management, and that covers the satisfaction of residents and owners. It’s important to remember that resident satisfaction also affects owner satisfaction.
Technically, property managers have multiple customers, but there’s also a hierarchy.
Would you rather lose 50 percent of your owners or 50 percent of your tenants?
Exactly.
So, the hierarchy starts at the investor. Property managers do not have a business if they don’t have an investor customer. But, if property managers can make the resident happy, it’s much easier to hang onto those investor clients. So, one of the indicators of investor satisfaction is resident retention.
One of the reasons that tenants leave is that they hate the maintenance.
In the macro environment today, no one wants a rental on the market. Avoiding that as much as possible is important. Also, maintenance costs are growing 8 percent year o...

Fourandhalf’s Marie Tepman, Interviewed by Marc Cunningham on the PM Build Property Management Business Podcast
Marc Cunningham, from Grace Property Management and PM Build, invited Marie onto his podcast to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in property management marketing. Specifically, the discussion revolved around getting more owner leads for property managers.
In an environment where budgets are shrinking and a lot of property managers are still unsure about AI, this discussion provides some clarity. Here’s what was discussed.
Property Management Marketing and Gaining Owner Leads

One of the biggest challenges all property management companies deal with is bringing new owner client leads into the company. How do you drive more leads into your company? The big catchphrase now is AI. Should property management companies use AI? How can these tools be used? It’s a big umbrella in property management marketing, but first, let’s talk about the simple fact of how to get more owner leads. What’s the big picture?
Leads are online. So, property management companies need a good presence online. This starts with a website. And while some companies build business through referrals, online marketing is the next step. To really get started attracting owner leads to your property management company, you need a website and you need content.
Marc remembers saying “no thanks” to a company that tried to sell them on a website in the early 1990s. He though as long as he had his Yellow Pages ad, he’d be fine.
Things have changed.
A property management company’s website and content serve reputation.
Reputation is important because you want people to vouch for you. Before buying a product or service, consumers are going to look at reviews. They’re going to want to see how many stars are on your Google rating. If you don’t have any testimonials or reviews, people might think that’s suss (suspicious, for the over-45 crowd). If a prospective owner finds your website but no one online is talking about you, there may be hesitation. You have to show that you’re trustworthy.
After you have established your website and your reputation, you need content.
Content and Property Management Marketing for Owner Leads

The literal meaning of content is anything with words on your website.
At Fourandhalf, we’re more interested in quality content.
When someone who has just inherited a home needs help renting that home out, they’re not going to go online and search for a property management company. A lot of them might not even know that property management is a service that’s provided professionally. Instead, they’re going to go online and search how to find a tenant or how much rent to charge.
Property management content is not selling your business. It’s not telling anyone how long you’ve been in business, and it’s not bragging about how great you are. It’s showing prospective owners that you can be trusted. It’s showing value.
Any company can say they’re great. It doesn’t mean anything to your prospect. They have a problem and they want to solve it. When you’re a problem solver, you’re providing quality content.
The hero of the story is the always the customer. When you show up to offer solutions, you want to make it obvious to the owner that this is why your service can help. That allows the owner to remain the hero. As the property management expert, you’re the helper getting them what they need.
Don’t be the hero. Be the helper.
That’s a big concept that needs to be adopted when it comes to content. Serve, don’t show off.
When an owner clicks on the how-to content, they’ll find it helpful. It’s educational. So, when they get to the end of what they’ve read or watched, they’ll see who provided the content.
Trust is established.
Should You Just Use AI to Create Content?

Can vendor bidding solutions like RoDevia Brigham’s Proposabid create more transparency and detect fraud?
That’s where we left off during Part 1 of this discussion on The Property Management Show. Let’s pick up the conversation about how the bidding process is broken, and how property managers can avoid wasting time and money. Here’s Part 2.
How has Proposabid Contributed to Fraud Detection?
When RoDevia was talking with her partner, they discussed how a lot of vendors would inflate pricing or maybe there would be work that was needed but didn’t really have to be done in the particular way that a vendor believed, or at a higher price point.
There are a couple of specific cases that she was able to detect, and she cautions owners and property managers that things like this could be happening without them knowing about it:

* On-site staff may claim that work is necessary, or they’ll be billing you for work that may not be completed or required. If you’re an owner in Arizona with properties in Tennessee, you may not know that what you’re being told isn’t true. If your manager is overstretched and has 76 different properties to manage, she may not know that 34 doors need to be replaced in a specific way at one property.
* There could also be a conflict of interest or some self-dealing going on. Staff or property managers may use companies they own. In San Francisco, we had a cleaning company that got a $15,000 per month contract at one property for 150 doors. It was on-site staff that was registered and had an EIN. Family members worked at this company, and they managed to claim contracts across other properties for almost $500,000 over three years without the owner knowing. There was no bidding process at all.

If you have a third party that doesn’t have a dog in the fight and can source bids for you in timely fashion and has comparables for you, the process is fully transparent. Proposabid also posts their bids online so other vendors can compare.
Any number of issues can crop up when a company is just assigning someone to source bids who isn’t qualified to do it or is too busy to give it the necessary attention.
Challenges for Property Managers in Analyzing and Comparing Bids
Let’s say a property manager does manage to get some bids. Now it’s time to analyze and compare them. What are some of the challenges and issues would a company face at that point in time?
First, RoDevia would be wondering if you have enough bids.
When you do, you have to ask if the bids have expired to the point where they’re no longer viable.
One of the main things she has noticed is that property managers won’t necessarily know what the vendor does not offer.
For example, there was a hazmat fentanyl situation at a property, and the building had to be closed down. Police were involved. To get bids for the cleaning, you also have to think about what the vendors are not offering in those bids. Proposabid needed to analyze that particular piece. What all five vendors didn’t offer was to post drug testing. Can you post it once it’s clean?
Also, what about repairs and renovations after the cleaning. It might be necessary to tear into a wall. Asbestos and lead testing might be necessary depending on what’s found when you do open up the wall.
Always consider whether you know what you need beyond the bids themselves. This is the most challenging part.
Another challenge can be the number of hands in the pot.
If you have a board or an HOA, there could be some extra time needed. One HOA client had three good bids, but they wanted more. That’s fine, but the three best bids are still going to be the three best bids. So, who is making the decision? Can you get in touch with the right people at the right time? The person receiving the bid probably cannot sign off on the awarding of that bid.
Often,

It’s been a long time since we put out an episode of The Property Management Show and today we’re excited to talk with RoDevia Brigham, the founder and CEO of Proposabid.
The vendor bidding process is an entire industry on its own, and this is a topic we have not covered before on the podcast.
Introducing RoDevia and Proposabid

Proposabid does bids and estimations for properties and repairs across US. Their niche client base is property management companies, real estate investors, and mom-and-pop investors. They work with people who do not know how to go about sourcing bids for work.
The idea for this company came from a shower moment. RoDevia’s background is in computer science and IT, specifically cyber security. She has an approach to her work that follows an “if this, then that” process. She’s always thinking about how to automate things. While in the shower, she asked her partner an important question: What could she automate if she could automate anything in her day as a property manager?
The answer was: bidding. She said if she could just get good bids that reflected apples for apples, and those bids came in on time, and vendors would pick up the phone and submit things relevant to the work that needs to be done, then she could submit those to her property owners who could make financially responsible decisions. That, she said, would be great.
RoDevia took all of that seriously, knowing it was an everyday problem for her partner’s clients. Four years later, Proposabid is doing the work that needs to be done.
Property Management’s Vendor Bidding Problem

The vendor bidding process in property management is essentially broken RoDevia believes. While it seems like most property managers know their vendors and have good relationships in place, why would bidding be necessary at all?
RoDevia and her company focus on projects that need three bids, minimum. The process at a high level looks like this:

* A property manager has to contact the three companies
* Three different prices are submitted
* Proposals have to be gathered
* The lowest bidder is selected

But in that process, there are some key items that a property management company’s staff might not be familiar with or cannot do.
The phone calls and the emails go back and forth. Then, there’s the hurry up and wait while those bids come in. This can be immediate, but usually it takes a couple of weeks. Sometimes, you won’t get the bids in at all.
When those do bids come in, you have to compare them:

* Are they apples for apples?
* Do they come with the right warranty?
* Are they offering considerations or concessions?
* Is scope of work correct for the price?
* Are the vendors even qualified?
* Are they in a database for licensing and insurance?

Then, you may need to make corrections to the bid, and that could include going back to the phone calls and the emails. Bids are re-submitted and reconsidered.
Once you have something everyone agrees on, a property manager will go ahead and submit those bids to your property owner or the landlord, and together you might decide on the vendor. That process alone can take a couple of weeks or months or in some cases, it may not even get done.
Someone has to be responsible for this process. It could be a director or an asset manager or an office manager. Maybe you have in-house maintenance folks who are taking all of these bids and working on the information. This can add up to 10 hours a week, which might cost 400 to 520 hours per year. All of that labor comes with no guarantee that those bids are even getting done, and those are hours that can be utilized elsewhere in your business.
Financially, the costs of a broken bidding process can be $30,000 to $40,000 lost purely on bid management.

Welcome back to The Property Management Show.
On today’s episode, we’re talking to an expert on mergers and acquisitions, who has specific experience in property management. We’re talking to Scott Duke, of OpnRoad. He’s talking about the things that make a difference in the sale of a property management company. Your buyer and your profit will depend a lot on your contracts, your efficiency, and your team.
Introducing Scott Duke
Scott and his wife bought and ran a property management company in Revenstoke, Canada. They grew their company for seven years and then sold it for 10 times the amount of what they bought it for. The company was sold to Western Trust, a private equity company out of Utah. Before that, he worked at a property management company in Ontario. He has experience working with three-person companies and those that have a staff of 25.
His story of buying and selling that Canadian property management company is a bit of a cautionary tale.
When they bought the company, there were 30 properties under management. Out of those 30 properties, only six had proper contracts with the owners. It wasn’t a sellable asset when they took it over. But, what they really wanted to buy were the brand and the website, and otherwise it felt like they were starting from scratch. It was not a massive acquisition.
Scott realized that he thought property management meant taking care of people’s properties, but really, he was managing finances. It’s a cash in – cash out business model, and he had to make sure his owners had the money they needed for their mortgage payments.
One specific event triggered his desire to sell that company.
It was Christmas Day in 2016 or 2017, and he was under a trailer, defrosting pipes so the family living there could have water on Christmas. That’s when he realized he didn’t want to own the company anymore.
When the owner is under a trailer with frozen pipes, you know that the company relies too heavily on that owner.
So, he spent three years making it an acquirable asset. Scott wanted the company to be something that someone would want to buy.
The starting point? Making the business less dependent on Scott.
Making a Property Management Company Less Owner-Dependent
Scott says it’s all mindset.
At OpnRoad, Scott and his team sell businesses. They work within all industries, but a lot of businesses they sell are property management companies. They all have to get to a certain size before they can be sold. So, he’s talking about owner dependency all the time.
How do you remove yourself from that dependency?
Scott says you will be trapped in your business until the business cracks through the million or two million revenue mark. Until that point, there’s just not enough cash in the business to pay to replace yourself. You are buying your time and you’re buying your freedom.
You want to focus on yourself as a business owner, not a business operator.
A lot of owners get hung up on the idea that no one can do what they do as well as they do it.
Scott tells entrepreneurs to embrace that. It’s true. But, it won’t be that way forever. The person you hire isn’t going to be as good as you on Day One. The training and the investment into that person makes them as good as you.
His slogan is this: Every Day a Step Away.
You’re getting a further step away from operating your business every single day.
How to Avoid Hiring Bad Apples
A lot of business owners worry about investing time and training into someone who may not work out. Having hired across 11 companies with a total of more than 200 staff, Scott understands that bad apples do get into the bunch once in a while. He has a specific model:

* Be a good leader: Make yourself better. The people you attract to your company will be 70 percent as good as you are.

Amy Harrison is a sales and marketing copywriter from the U.K. and an expert in storytelling. After hearing her speak at a marketing conference and finding the information invaluable, we invited her onto The Property Management Show to talk about the evolution of marketing content and copywriting and how AI can help with persuasive copy, as long as you’re finessing the message with the information that only you have.
Amy Harrison’s Background
Amy thought she wanted to be a screenwriter for film and television, but quickly burned out at a young age and decided to pursue other things for a while. Then, she found her way back to writing and began working for a private investment firm that bought and sold online businesses. She describes it as flipping businesses, and that’s what brought her back into content writing and copywriting.
When she discovered the psychology around sales copywriting, she knew she wanted to help businesses tell stories and build credibility.
Amy says that her training as a screenwriter helped with her sales copywriting because it’s always important to write for the reader. If someone does not want to keep reading, you’ve lost them. You need to make sure they’ll read beyond the headline.
Tracking the Evolution of Sales and Marketing Copywriting
Amy remembers the early days of copywriting, when everything was very SEO-driven and it seemed like her job was to cram every page full of keywords. The idea was to reach people and to provide as much information as possible. It was more of a transactional exchange.
People found there were better ways to have a sales conversation, and the content improved.
Businesses have realized that not all content needs to sound like sales and marketing content.
There’s a lot more awareness of what marketing and copywriting can do. The struggle, though, has not evolved much. Amy says that large companies with million dollar marketing budgets have the same desire as the freelance photographer with no marketing budget: to sell themselves and to stand out.
The process has evolved, but the problem sales copywriters are trying to solve is the same.
Umbrella Terms versus Storytelling with Copy and Content
How is it done well?
While trying to talk about what makes them different, a lot of companies will end up sounding like every other business. They’ll use generic words, and they’ll try to talk about everything they do all at once.
Amy calls those umbrella terms, and she advises companies to be bold and to expand their comfort zones outside of those same words and phrases that are always used. The fear factor will sometime set in. You want to stand apart from your competition, but do you really want to be different?
Storytelling can be powerful, but it’s harder to write a story than it is to create a list of benefits.
You have to earn the right to get someone’s attention.
How do you do that? Amy asks us to think about it from the first piece of content – whether it’s a headline or the first few seconds of your video or the introduction in your email.
Speak directly to the person you’re trying to reach.
Think of yourself in a crowded room at a party. You’ll hear lots of conversations, and you’re not tuned into any of them. But if you hear your name, that will immediately get your attention. You cannot call your customers by their name in your content, but you can work harder to make the content more relevant. You want them to feel like you’re talking directly to them.
Think about how to write the conversation that your customer is having in their mind right now. What are they thinking about in that moment as they approach your blog or your email?
Here are a couple of examples:

* If you’re trying to attract a client who is moving, your headline might be “Should You Sell Or Rent Your Home?” It’s not a dramatic title,

PJ Clay, the Director of Client and Partner Services at Rental Beast, joins us on The Property Management Show to discuss the company’s role as the rental MLS, and how they provide back-end technology to MLS associations across the United States and Canada.
We also discussed whether this type of technology can help or hurt property managers.
PJ says it helps.
Introducing Rental Beast
Rental Beast calls itself the rental MLS. It provides back-end technology to MLS associations in certain markets throughout the U.S. and Canada. The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is highly customizable, but also built for the For Sale side of the real estate industry. Rental Beast knows that rentals are different. The process of renting is different from the process of buying and selling.
So, they built the technology that can integrate rental listings.
MLS members can add or search for rental listings.
The second piece of this technology is a productivity suite of tools making it easier for property managers and real estate agents to access lead generation, lead qualification, and rental applications. At the core of this technology is a very large database of rental listings. Members of Rental Beast have access to 12 million active listings in the U.S. and Canada at any given time.
Putting all the rental listings into one database is the central part of our technology. Members can get as close as possible to reaching 100 percent of their market.
Accessing Reliable Data and Listings for Rental Markets
Rental Beast is currently working with MLS associations in cities like Boston, where they’re based, Chicago, Raleigh, Miami, Colorado Springs, Toronto, and other markets. They’re actively growing, too, because the demand for this platform has increased. With home sales still out of reach and unaffordable for so much of the market, people are renting. Having the technology for real estate professionals to make the rental process easier has driven that growth.
So, where does the data come from? Where do they gather their listings?
The rental market is fragmented. On the general MLS, you have 80 or 90 percent of available homes for sale on that site. Not all rental listings go onto the MLS, however. Some cities will include rentals on the MLS, but even then you’re only getting about 40 percent of the rental market listed.
Rentals come onto the database from a lot of different sources. The Rental Beast database integrates with property management software. So, platforms like Appfolio, Yardi, RentTech, and Buildium can use Rental Beast as a syndication destination. Any listings on those software sites can be shared with Rental Beast.
The other piece is more difficult and labor intensive. These are rental listings that aren’t found on the MLS or on any property management software sites. Staff at Rental Beast must find the listings and then make actual phone calls to owners and property managers to verify them.
PJ says it took 10 years to build the process the right way. They’re calling any listing that doesn’t come from the MLS or property management software. It’s a huge undertaking, but it’s necessary to avoid scams.
There are also a lot of details that are confirmed for those listings; they ask if there’s an agent compensation fee, what the showing instructions are, and how a tenant can access an application. These listings have to be updated every week or two, depending on the location. If they cannot get a verbal confirmation that the listing is active, it gets dropped from the database.
Are These Listings Professionally Managed?
The majority of listings on Rental Beast are not managed by professional managers or real estate professionals.
They’re managed by the property owners themselves.
PJ believes this is hyper-local. He says that in Boston, property management firms aren’t as recognized or understood as they ar...

Two guests are joining The Property Management Show today, and they are Scott Brady and Garrett Brady from Progressive Property Management in southern California.
Scott has been on the show before, and tends to talk about forward-looking topics that involve challenging the status quo. Garrett is his son, and a big part of the company’s future.
The topic today is legacy planning, which can be rather difficult for property management companies. Scott and Garrett are sharing their journey and where they are.

Progressive Property Management Then and Now
Scott has a story that’s similar to many property management company owners. He began as a real estate agent and had a brokerage business. The recession arrived in 2010, and he wanted to be prepared for the next recession. So, he started Progressive Property Management in 2012. It became incorporated in 2015.
The company grew organically through marketing and relationships. Over the last 12 years, they’ve grown to about 1,000 doors under management. Garrett joined the residential side in 2018.
The business model is unique. It’s a virtual company that hires real estate agents to be property managers. Three years ago, they began an association management department, and now manage around 130 associations with about 7,000 owners, total. They use the same business model; people are hired to be off-site property managers for these communities. The team at Progressive takes care of all back office operations.
About three years ago, Scott was diagnosed with cancer, and he realized the company was not prepared to be sold or handed off. Decisions were made, and a choice had to be made: did Scott want to prepare the company to be sold, did he want to hire someone to run it while he lived off the cash flow, or did he want someone in the family to take it over?
He’s made a decision, and he and Garrett have been busy structuring their legacy plan over the last three years.
Garrett says the company – and the entire industry – was old school in 2018. There wasn’t a lot of technology, and everything was very regional. He’s been able to see the industry move from the stone ages to embracing modern technology. It’s a more appealing industry to join. So while it was a family business that he was happy to join, he now sees the value of real estate and how it interacts with so many other business sectors.
Legacy Planning: Starting the Discussion
The diagnosis spurred the discussion around legacy planning.
Scott hired a consultant outside of the property management industry and the first thing he recommended was to have Garrett go to graduate school. This did not make sense at first, but it was pretty transformative. He earned his position with his education and his experience, not because of nepotism.
The next step was to invite Garrett to earn some controlling interest in the company. Every year that he’s worked for the company, he’s earned 2.5 percent ownership in that company. By now, he’s up to 15 percent. The idea was to have Scott maintain the controlling interest, but to give Garrett a path towards more ownership.
Garrett has skills that Scott doesn’t have, and they both recognize that.
Scott excels at sales and marketing while Garrett is all operations. Scott said he knew the future was in the company’s operations. With 130 associations under management, they need good systems.
Garrett does all the hiring of remote team members and he trains them, too. The company now has 13 remote team members and 13 full-time employees. The future isn’t expanding full-time payroll, but in hiring remote contractors.
Understanding his own skill set allowed Scott to bring Garrett in, and together they sit down and look for the next opportunities while ensuring everything is running properly.
Marc Cunningham mentioned to Garrett that he had to do a buy...

Marc Cunningham is a property management consultant and he’s also the President of Grace Property Management in Colorado.
He’s joining The Property Management Show today not only because he’s a prominent figure in property management, but also because he’s one of the first property management professionals who embraced video marketing.
Marc is still promoting video marketing, and he believes it’s the most effective way to bring new business into your company.
A Bit of Background: Marc Cunningham
When Marc started his property management career as a child going to the office with his dad, things were incredibly different. It was the 1970s and buying their first copy machine was the most technology they had. The phone with an answering machine was fancy. Ledger cards were used to manually record when rent was collected, and checks were written to owners once a month.
His father recognized that technology was a great tool, and they not only got a computer before anyone else, but they also even hired a programmer out of California to write a custom property management program for them.
In the property management industry, there’s a big scare every couple of years.
The narrative goes, if you don’t do X, you’ll be left behind. Right now, it’s AI. If you’re not using AI, you’ll be left behind.
Marc says this is not always true. Provide good customer service to owners and tenants, and you’ll be okay even without the latest tool. You won’t wake up one day and be left behind.
It’s the shiny thing syndrome. If there’s something that everyone seems to be doing, you feel like you should be doing it, too.
It’s easy to chase the next big thing because everybody is talking about how cool it is.
Marc doesn’t chase the newest thing. Technology is something to leverage in order to improve your property management business.
After graduating from college with a degree in finance and real estate, Marc worked in the industry but not for his father. This helped him when it was time to go to work for his father. He brought a different perspective and a different set of skills to the family business. He always tells people in a family business to send the young people out to work outside of the business for a few years. It generates better ideas and higher level thinking.
Marc arrived at his father’s company with more of a business mindset. His father was very good at property management, and Marc found he was very good at business management.
Pioneering Video and Property Management Marketing
Marc is one of the first property management professionals to begin marketing his company with video. He still believes this is the best marketing tool for property managers.
Here’s how it happened.
He was at a conference, and on the way home from that conference, he began thinking about how much time he spent talking to potential owner clients. They all ask the same questions and he found himself having the same conversation over and over again. Wouldn’t it be great, he thought, if, instead of answering those common questions over and over again, he could put those answers in a video and have it on his website. Then, potential owner clients could watch the video and decide if they wanted to know more. Marc thought that if a video could save him multiple five-minute conversations, it would really add up to getting some serious time back.
He’s action-oriented and he doesn’t over-think.
So, when he got home, he had his then-11-year-old son stand on his desk with an iPhone and take a video of Marc talking about common property management expenses.
It was a three-minute video that included no script, no special lighting, and no microphone. The point was not quality. The point was to get it done.
This has worked better than any other marketing, Marc says, because prospective owner clients will call,

Welcome back to The Property Management Show. In our previous episode, we spoke with SEO and marketing guru Rand Fishkin about the shifting tides in digital marketing and the sources of influence that are important today. On the second part of our podcast with this guest, we’re talking about money keywords, vanity metrics, and generative AI. We’re also talking about how to make those immeasurable marketing channels a little bit more measurable.
Here’s Part Two of our interview.
Money Keywords: Where Everyone Wants to Rank
Every business or industry has a set of money keywords that represents where and for what everyone in that industry wants to rank. That’s the bottom of the funnel. If you’re ranking high for property management and your city, you know that people searching for you are very close to choosing a property management company. That’s a good lead.
But, why go to the battlefield and fight with every other management company that wants the same keywords? There are other marketing strategies that can be leveraged.
Remember the blue ocean strategy. Go for those keywords that others aren’t paying attention to. Then, you won’t have to fight as hard and you’ll still draw in traffic from relevant searches.
It makes sense. However, people are so drawn to that battlefield.
Rand says this is how entrepreneurs are socialized and trained. It’s a cultural battle that’s hard to overcome.
To really improve website traffic and gain more leads, results, and profitability, you can rank for more than property management plus geography. When everyone else is chasing one thing, you can beat them all by doing something that none of them are doing.
Vanity Metrics: Measuring Lift vs. Attribution
Are you getting more subscribers and followers or engagement and not necessarily conversion?
In 2017, there was an article in the Harvard Business Review that talked about the actual value of a Facebook like for a business. Marketing researchers did a study to figure out whether it really contributes to a business in any meaningful way. They found that a Facebook like doesn’t necessarily reflect a change in consumer behavior or an increase in spending. Consumers who like a brand on social media, specifically Facebook, are simply expressing a pre-existing preference. If they see the brand, they like it. They were going to buy from you anyway, so of course they’ll like you on Facebook.
It’s much harder to convince someone who has never heard of you to like your page and then buy from you.
Rand points out that hidden in that study is that the measurement can be used to find out how many people are predisposed to buying from you, and who they are.
The Facebook like did not influence 300 new people to buy from you if they weren’t already planning to buy from you. So, it’s a vanity metric. It does not change behavior. But, it helps you measure.
By knowing that 300 new people liked your Facebook page in a month, you can measure the size of the pool of people who may buy from you. This can be useful in a campaign. You can measure what you’re doing that’s having a positive or negative impact. Measure those likes if you want a campaign that grows your brand’s likeability, awareness, and trust. Getting a Facebook like won’t get you more buyers. But, doing things that will encourage more buyers will result in a lift on social media. That’s notable.
This makes an otherwise unmeasurable marketing investment more measurable.
You can measure lift. If you see that traffic went up and conversion went up and the Facebook likes went up, that campaign worked, and you know that similar investments on other networks might be worth the effort. Or, when what you did last month did not work well, you’ll know to try something else. That’s where the value comes from. Instead of disproving the value of the metric, that study suggests there’s a lot of value.

Marie Tepman and Brittany Jones are on The Property Management Show, interviewing Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz and founder of SparkToro, about the changing landscape of digital marketing.
This is only Part 1 of our discussion, which includes a look at the shift from SEO-centric strategies to a more diverse approach, the distinction between platforms of influence and entertainment, and the challenges of marketing attribution.
Introducing Rand Fishkin
Rand Fishkin is a name that’s synonymous with the world of SEO and digital marketing. He founded Moz, which revolutionized SEO tools and education for marketers. He wrote a book called Lost and Founder, an honest take on what it’s like to be part of the start-up world and follows the journey of a founder.
Recently, he’s been making waves with his new venture, SparkToro, which is changing the way marketers like us understand and target different kinds of audiences.

A Changing SEO Landscape
For the longest time, Rand was a prominent voice in SEO and content marketing. He was known to say that everything starts with keywords and data. Recently, there’s been a pivot to the opposite sort of thinking. We asked him to explain his pivot and his new view on digital marketing.
When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. In the world of digital marketing, there are hundreds of channels and opportunities to reach an audience and build a brand and show off. Because he was addicted to and grew up in the SEO world, his focus was on:

* Target keywords
* Building links
* Making website accessible to search engines
* Optimizing everything

It was all viewed through the SEO lens when it came to marketing.
Two things happened to cause a pivot in the way he approaches digital marketing:

* Over the last six seven years, and especially since the pandemic, almost everyone is doing decent SEO. There was a big opportunity from 2000 to 2015. It was remarkable what you could do if you had any kind of savvy around SEO. You could be in the bottom 40 percent of SEO skills and still get a lot of traffic. Google was growing. There was more competition. Now, every smart business owner in every region and ever industry knows what they’re doing with basic SEO. It’s not the competitive advantage it once was.
* Demand is not growing. Google has acquired every human with an internet connection. There’s not a lot of growth left for them. They have 91 percent of the market share in the U.S. and about 95 percent of the market share globally. With no room for growth, Google has had to change the game. Now, we’re seeing Zero-click searches where people get information without even having to click on a link. Google provides it right there in the search results. That’s great for consumers, but frustrating if you’re a business owner looking for traffic. Google is using your own content and taking clicks and traffic away from you.

These forces combined to mean that SEO is not the golden opportunity it once was. If you’re creative and entrepreneurial, you look for other opportunities. That’s what Rand has done.
Distinguishing Online Platforms: Influence vs. Entertainment
Let’s talk about TikTok.
This has been a rising trend, and there are also reels on Instagram and shorts on YouTube that are popular. These are not sources of influence for businesses; they’re very particularly focused on entertainment.
The content there is not similar to the content that you might see if you are doing SEO things or business to business marketing or even participating in other platforms like Reddit or LinkedIn or YouTube or Threads, which is more like the old version of Twitter.
Unlike entertainment platforms like TikTok, those other platforms are serving niche functions. You might find botanists in U.K. clustering around a few account on Threads and some YouTube ...

Welcome back to The Property Management Show podcast, your go-to source for all things property management, entrepreneurship, and marketing. This podcast is proudly brought to you by Fourandhalf, a leading digital marketing agency specializing in property management. Fourandhalf has been instrumental in helping residential property managers generate more leads and attract quality property owners since 2012.
Our hosts Marie Tepman and Brittany Jones recently welcomed Courtney Wolf, founder of RentWise Property Management in Idaho, to their show to discuss Courtney’s journey to successfully creating a hands-off business.
Courtney runs a thriving property management company in Boise that she has gotten to a point of running itself. When asked to expand on the steps she took to make this dream a reality, Courtney shared that it started with big dreams that were broken down into “biteable, doable, and reachable goals.”
She explains that her process involved getting an excellent business coach to hold her accountable and provide guidance, as well as buying in critical team members like her operations manager Carly. Together, they methodically worked backwards from their vision to establish micro-goals that they could tackle over the years to get RentWise to where it is today.
Starting Out Overwhelmed and Doing Everything
Running a property management company is an extremely demanding job. You have to coordinate maintenance, place lockboxes, do showings, answer all phone calls…the list goes on. It’s not uncommon for property managers to experience total overwhelm trying to juggle it all.
Courtney knows exactly what this feels like. When her Idaho-based company first launched, Courtney was a basically one-woman show doing absolutely everything needed to keep things running. Courtney knew something had to change for the business to be sustainable and for her to have any sort of work-life balance.
The Genesis: A Small Business Handling Every Task
Courtney started RentWise property management as the sole employee, handling all aspects completely on her own:

* Placing lockboxes
* Conducting showings
* Checking on maintenance issues

At the same time, her eventual Operations Manager, Carly, would work at the office answering all calls and managing day-to-day relations. The lean team worked hard but constantly felt overwhelmed and overburdened trying to self-manage everything.
The Catalyst: Facing Employee Burnout
Courtney shares the catalyst for taking her business virtual was Carly approaching her, feeling completely burnt out and ready to quit. Carly felt she had no freedom or work-life balance between her full-time job and demands at home.
Facing losing her right-hand employee, Courtney realized if she wanted to retain top talent long-term, she needed to rethink how she structured her business.
Working Backwards to Make the “Hands-Off” Vision a Reality
Courtney’s first step was engaging an experienced business coach. She needed someone who could hold her accountable to goals and break down her big-picture virtual vision into smaller, tactical steps.
Together they mapped out:
The Big Goals

* Create a 100% virtual property management company
* Design systems and processes for complete freedom from day-to-day operations

The Path to Make it Happen

* Determine company values to guide decisions
* Build the right in-house and outsourced team
* Map all processes in extreme detail
* Utilize technology for efficiency

Setting this strategic foundation with her coach gave Courtney clarity and confidence to systematically build her virtual model.
Assembling the Right Team
A key component enabling Courtney’s shift to virtual was curating the right staff across her organization, specifically:

Hello and welcome to The Property Management Show podcast, your go-to destination for exploring the dynamic world of property management, entrepreneurship, and marketing. Brought to you by Fourandhalf Marketing Agency, a leader in the industry since 2012.
Fourandhalf helps residential property managers get more owner leads and improve their online presence through website design and development, SEO, online reputation management, video and blog content, social media, and targeted advertising.
Recap of Part 1: Establishing the Foundation of Mid-Term Rentals
In Part 1 – Maximizing Profits with Mid-Term Rentals: Property Management Blue Ocean Strategy, our guest speakers Jessica Schirmeister and Jason Zimmerman from Trend Property Management in Texas discussed the growing trend of mid-term rentals. These types of rentals, also known as furnished rentals, have become increasingly popular in recent years.
That episode highlighted the unique niche that mid-term rentals occupy, situated between short-term and long-term rentals. Key focus areas included the demand for these types of properties, their profitability potential, and the evolving rental market trends influenced by remote work and lifestyle changes. The episode provided foundational insights into the benefits, challenges, and operational dynamics of managing mid-term rentals.
In this episode (Part 2), we’ll delve deeper into the operational challenges and strategies for managing mid-term rentals. We’ll discuss finances and the subtle art of balancing tenant rights with property management objectives.
Evaluating Investment in Mid-Term Rentals
Part 2 starts with a discussion about the financial feasibility of investing in mid-term rentals and ensuring a reasonable return on investment (ROI). Jessica shared an example of how a month-long tenant could provide up to four times the revenue compared to a traditional annual lease. However, she also emphasized the necessity of factoring in additional costs such as furnishing, utilities, and cleaning fees when evaluating the profitability of mid-term rentals.
Jason stressed that property managers should be strategic in their investment, considering the demand and market conditions. It’s important to understand potential risks and always have a backup plan in case the rental doesn’t succeed as expected.
Financial Considerations and Return on Investment
Investing in mid-term rentals is an intriguing proposition, blending the stability of long-term rentals with the higher earning potential typical of short-term stays. For property managers and investors, understanding the financial landscape is key. This involves assessing the initial investment costs against the potential returns. Mid-term rentals often demand a higher rental rate, reflecting their furnished status and flexibility. This can be an attractive proposition for tenants looking to avoid long-term commitments.
Cost-Benefit Analysis: Investing in Furnishings and Amenities
While discussing the financial aspects of investing in mid-term rentals, Jessica and Jason also shed light on the pros and cons of furnishing a property.
Furnishings can attract more tenants:

* Mid-term renters are often looking for fully furnished properties to make their stay comfortable and convenient.
* Furnishings can add value to the rental experience and justify higher rent prices.
* In a competitive market, furnished properties may stand out and attract more tenants.

Furnishings can also come with additional costs:

* Investing in quality furniture can be expensive upfront.
* Managing and maintaining furnishings requires time and effort.
* There is always the risk of damage or wear-and-tear from tenants,

Welcome to The Property Management Show podcast, where we delve into the ever-evolving landscape of property management, entrepreneurship, and marketing.
This show is presented by Fourandhalf Marketing Agency. Since 2012, Fourandhalf has been helping residential property managers get more owner leads by helping with their website, SEO, online reputation, video and blog content, social media, and paid ads.
For this podcast episode, we were fortunate to have Jessica Schirmeister and Jason Zimmerman from Trend Property Management in Texas join us for this discussion. With their extensive experience in the field, they brought a wealth of knowledge, particularly in managing and optimizing mid-term rental properties. Their insights are especially relevant for real estate investors and property managers looking to expand their portfolios and increase profitability.
As you can imagine, there was a lot of information to unpack which is why we divided the interview into two episodes. This is Part 1, where we explore the rising trend of mid-term rentals and their advantages over traditional rental models.
Understanding Mid-Term Rentals
With economic and regulatory factors pushing both short-term and long-term rental property owners and managers to panic, it makes sense to start looking for more lucrative and sustainable alternatives in the market. This is where mid-term rentals come into play, offering a sweet spot between short-term and long-term rental properties. But what exactly makes a rental, well, mid-term?
What is a Mid-Term Rental Property?
Traditionally, short-term rentals are fully furnished properties renting for less than 30 days, whereas long-term rental properties are typically unfurnished and covered by a 12-month lease. Mid-term rentals are those that fit somewhere in the middle — fully furnished properties that can be rented for 30 days up to a year.
If you’re a bit confused, you are not alone. I (Marie) was confused as well. You see, the label “mid-term” makes it seem like the term or the length of the lease defines what category the rental property belongs to. But if a mid-term rental can be rented for up to a year, then doesn’t it fall under the long-term rental category? According to our guests, that is a “no”.
As it turns out, even they don’t like using the label “mid-term rentals”. Instead, they prefer the label “furnished rentals”. This is because lease duration can easily be shifted, but renting a property as furnished vs. unfurnished offers a clearer way to categorize them.
Now you might be thinking, who would want to rent a furnished house anyway? Don’t people typically have their own stuff to fill a house with?
Let’s dive deeper into this.
Who Typically Rents Furnished Rental Properties?
In the world of furnished rental properties, the tenant pool is as diverse as their reasons for renting. From this podcast interview, we learned that furnished rentals are a hit among various groups — and despite what you may have heard before, it’s not just for travel nurses anymore!
Here’s a rundown of who these tenants are and why they choose furnished rentals:

* Traveling Professionals: Often on temporary assignments, these individuals prefer furnished rentals for their convenience and home-like feel compared to hotels. Yes, travel nurses fall into this category. But so do film crew, actors, and even digital nomads.
* Individuals in Transition: People relocating or in transitional life stages choose furnished rentals for their flexibility and the ease of not having to move furniture.
* Patients and Medical Visitors: In areas like Rochester, MN near medical facilities such as the Mayo Clinic, patients and their families opt for furnished rentals for the duration of medical treatments and even as they are ...

Welcome back to ‘The Property Management Show,’ where we deep-dive into the world of property management, marketing, and entrepreneurship.
Your hosts are Marie Tepman and Brittany Jones from Fourandhalf Marketing Agency. Since 2012, Fourandhalf has helped hundreds of property managers get more owner leads through digital marketing. Whether you need help with your website, SEO, online reputation, content, video, social media, or even advertising campaigns – we can do it all.
Our guest today is Jordan Bennett, who is the Senior Director of Network Risk Management at Nacha, and a former Risk Analyst at the Federal Reserve. We are discussing ACH fees and payment fraud, and to put the entire discussion into better context, we asked Jordan to explain what his job entails.
Management Payment Risks
Nacha is the rule-making body and trade association for ACH payments. They are always promoting ACH, and Jordan’s job is thinking about how to prevent risk. He wants to keep people’s money in their accounts, and he wants to stop the schemes that can rob them of that money.
Not only does he want to make payments safe, but he also wants to educate consumers on the fact that ACH is one of the safest payment methods they can choose in the U.S. He works with banks and companies to decide how to utilize it and better manage any risks that may be present.
ACH Transaction Fees
For the longest time, ACH has been popular because it’s free. It’s always been the free option versus credit cards, where consumers have to pay transaction fee. Some companies, however, are beginning to charge transaction fees for ACH payments.
Why is this shift happening?
Jordan reminds us that there has always been a cost to run an ACH system. It’s a low cost because it’s a batch system, so it doesn’t cost as much as credit cards, which operate on an interchange system.
With ACH, there’s a lower cost to the financial institution and the property manager who is accepting the payment, but there is still a cost to running the network. So, it makes sense that a property manager and their financial institution may want to recoup these fees.
A lot of systems and anti-fraud tools and infrastructure needs to be maintained with ACH. It’s never been free (even though the customers see it as free).
Nacha cannot suggest or encourage or discourage fees. With antitrust laws what they are, Nacha cannot tell an industry whether they should or should not charge a fee. However, it’s important to remember that this process does not automatically happen. People get paid to do their jobs, and it takes jobs to keep these payments safe.
What we don’t want to do is set a precedent where it’s preferable to pay with a check to avoid the ACH fee.
Consumers who do not want their information available and want the convenience of an ACH transfer will continue to use this method and not return to the days of using checks. Even from a management company or HOA perspective, accepting checks means you physically have to open an envelope and process the payment every time it’s made. If you have hundreds of rent checks coming in, that’s going to take time and require personnel. There will be a transaction cost regardless of how the payments come in. Your check fees may be higher from the bank than the ACH transfer fee.
Property managers should not encourage checks. When a check is paid, the consumer knows they have money in their account, but they may forget. And, if that check takes a few days to get through the mail and be deposited, the consumer might have forgotten about the rent check that was written and they’ll spend the money that’s in the account. Everything could bounce.
That’s an unnecessary risk that landlords and property managers don’t have to take. ACH can be a regular recurring payment that comes out every month on the same day. It takes a few minutes to set up,

Welcome to the latest episode of the Property Management Show, presented by Fourandhalf Marketing Agency. Since 2012, Fourandhalf has been helping residential property managers get more owner leads by helping with their website, SEO, online reputation, video and blog content, social media, and paid ads.
In this episode, we’re excited to host Jennifer Merritt, the Chief Operating Officer at RentScale. RentScale is a pioneering sales coaching company that specifically caters to the property management industry, and Jennifer’s expertise is a treasure trove for anyone looking to improve their company’s sales function.
With the property management industry being highly competitive, staying ahead of the game when it comes to owner lead generation is critical. In this podcast, Jennifer shares her insights on all-bound lead generation and how businesses can adopt this comprehensive approach to sales and marketing in the property management sector.
All-Bound Owner Lead Generation for Property Managers
This week, we discuss the innovative concept of “all-bound owner lead generation,” a comprehensive strategy that transcends traditional lead generation methods. This approach is particularly crucial for business development managers and broker/owners striving to grow their residential property management business.
The all-bound strategy is a tri-fold model:
1 – Inbound Lead Generation:
These are owner leads generated through various digital marketing efforts, including a mixture of organic and paid marketing channels. Examples of organic channels include search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media engagement, and email marketing.
Paid channels, on the other hand, include tactics such as Google Ads, Social Media Ads, and Pay-per-Lead such as All Property Management (APM). Each of these avenues brings unique opportunities to attract and convert property management leads into clients.
Jennifer emphasized the importance of a strong online presence to attract owner leads naturally.
2 – Outbound Lead Generation:
Outbound lead generation involves proactive strategies such as direct calling to rent-by-owners and engaging with secondary homeowners. This type of lead generation allows property managers to reach out to potential owner clients directly and pitch their services.
Outbound lead generation requires a strong understanding of the target market, personalized messaging, and a consistent follow-up process.
Jennifer highlighted the significance of being proactive in reaching out to potential clients.
3 – Next Bound Lead Generation:
A novel term introduced by RentScale, the next-bound lead generation is focused on generating leads through referrals and building a robust network for future business prospects. This aspect underscores the importance of relationships in the property management industry.
Jennifer explained that successful owner lead generation in property management requires a blend of these three strategies. It’s not about relying on one magic solution but consistently working across different channels.
Redefining ‘Junk Leads’ in Property Management

A pivotal moment in our podcast discussion focused on the often misunderstood concept of ‘junk leads’ in the property management industry. Jennifer brought her team’s perspective to this topic, challenging the traditional notion that some leads are simply not worth pursuing. She argued that the term ‘junk leads’ is often a misnomer, and these leads should instead be viewed as untapped opportunities.
The conversation brought forth the idea that leads commonly considered ‘junk’ are those that don’t immediately align with the ideal client profile or seem less likely to convert at first glance. However,