It may not always seem like it, but being a small business landlord does have its advantages. Some of these advantages are especially evident in extraordinary times such as the current coronavirus crisis. Our advantage is that we know our properties, we know our businesses, we know our employees and contractors and we know our tenants.
What is a small business landlord? It is someone who perhaps owns only a couple of dwelling units for investment purposes to someone who owns a few dozen units and makes their living being a landlord. It is not a large corporate entity that owns or manages hundreds, perhaps thousands of units. And while companies of all shapes and sizes are facing difficulties right now, I think being small does give us some advantages.
The Advantage of Knowledge
The biggest advantage that we small business landlords have is knowledge. We are close to the ground and often very involved in day to day operations. We have an intimate knowledge of our properties and understand what has to be fixed immediately and what can wait. We know our employees and contractors. We are only a first name basis with them and may in fact even consider them friends. They know and trust us and they know our properties and tenants. Finally, many of us also know our tenants. We showed them the property, screened and approved them and got the moved in.
The situation may not be the same with larger companies. To a large company, the properties, the employees and contractors, the tenants, may all just numbers on a spreadsheet. Any contact with them is likely to be corporate and cold, if not downright ignorant considering the current situation.
Flexibility
There is another advantage that comes with our smaller size. The larger companies are dominated by corporate policies and procedures. Quickly veering away from them can be difficult if not impossible. Managers may not have the authority or be fearful of going outside of the playbook to respond to rapidly changing conditions.
Now, I’m all for policies and procedures. These types of things help any business run much more efficiently. But, being small business landlords offers us a lot of flexibility, and this flexibility is perhaps our main advantage. We can make decisions on the spot. We can turn on a dime so to speak. Larger companies simply may not be able to do that.
Thus, we can work with tenants as we need to. We can talk things through because we already have a decent landlord/tenant relationship. We can ask for and grant patience. We can directly communicate, and thus put a human face to a situation that can feel very frightful and uncaring.
So while we may not have the huge financial resources of some of the larger management companies, we have relationships and flexibility. Relationships often mean something. Flexibility can be powerful. We can use these relationships and flexibility to help everyone get through this crisis and come out better for it on the other side.
How is your small landlord business dealing with these extraordinary times? Please share what you are doing with other landlords by leaving a comment below.
Kevin Perk is the founder and publisher of Smarterlandlording.com. He is the author of Advice From Experience To New Real Estate Investors. Subscribe to Smarterlandlording here. Contact Kevin here.
