management service

[willemijn]

Living in Umbria, I started managing some rental properties in the area where I was living. Unfortunately, after several years, I had to stop because I could not survive on the little money I earned for the huge amount of work.
I am now renting a few properties of Italians, but I am sad that all my management experiences are no longer used.

Does anybody have a working model of providing house management services that will earn a decent income?

Many house owners in Umbria are telling me time and again how much these services are needed. However, it seems nobody is willing to pay for the effort.

[helene]

Hello Willemijin - I do not have a magic formula but you may find the following food for thought. The basic criteria for a successful product/service is one that meets a recognised need - your described business meets that easily, and one that is profitable - that sounds like quite a stumbling block as although people recognise a need they are not necessarily willing to pay for it. So the issue may be about looking again at the process (for delivering the service) and asking not how to reduce costs (to make it affordable) but asking, is there another way of delivering what they require. The sort of thinking that helps here is the creative leaps of imagination - look what the internet has done to so many traditional business models.
regards
helene

[willemijn]

That is an interesting point of view. However, I find it a bit difficult to apply this to the case of property management services. The difficulty there is exactly that one, in order to deliver a high quality service, needs to drive to the houses, spend time on the garden, pool, the interior and the whole lot to make it a nice rental home.

Anyway, I will try to think through the wholt thing in a different way. Who knows ...

[helene]

Hi Willemijn - I too find it hard to think of something else/some other way of making it work - that is probably why no-one else has made it happen - or alternatively it cannot be done at a price enough people are willing to pay.

One further thought you might want to play with. Try thinking it through using a metaphor to replace the property management service - something that has smilar characteristics like fixed locations (shops for example) and then solve that problem instead preferably with a group of friends/colleagues - when you have done this force fit the potential soultions to the metaphor onto your original service.
Might be fun as you sit on a balcony/terrace in Umbria sipping a Campari soda.
I will be thiking of you
Helene

[willemijn]

Have never tried this approach before, but will give it a very serious thought.

In case something feasible comes out, I will post it to this forum.

Many thanks,

Willemijn

[paolo]

Willemijn,

One of the problems with running a management service is that there is only one of you, and on a Saturday afternoon you may be expected to be present to greet guests in several different locations at once.

If I were in your shoes and wanted to make this work I would:
- only aim at a wealthy clientele of absentee home-owners who want someone fluent in their language and on the same wavelength 'on the ground'.
- take on a local garden maintenance person.
- take on English/German/etc-speaking people for Saturdays, overseeing the cleaning and key-holding.

Linda Freese, who posts here, may be able to advise you - she does something similar but more on the marketing side I think.

[willemijn]

Hi Paolo,

good idea to aim mostly at wealthy home owners (although there is a saying here in Umbria that the reason people manage to get wealthy is because they never spend any money!). Problem for me was not much the change-over days, because I had that running well. Problem was the rest of the year, with nitty gritty home owners and driving 1 hour just to open the door for an electrician, alarm systems that would not work or would and make you have to run to a house to make sure all is fine ... small things that make it hardly possible to do any other job, yet how much can one charge for this?

I am very interested to hear somebody who has been doing this or who is currently doing this type of work. Here in Umbria nobody is, some people tried and had to give up (like me) after a year (I did 3 years).

Ciao,

Willemijn

[paolo]

If your clients were willing to pay the going rate for your time, it wouldn't be a problem having to drive an hour to meet a plumber - you would bill the owner.

Ideally you would not be covering such a large area. Then, as well as not spending hours driving around, you could have one trusted plumber, one electrician, etc. and work with them for all your properties. If they are familiar with the properties you wouldn't need to meet them there either. My plumber and electrician will go and do jobs in my houses and I am in a different country.

[willemijn]

Hi Paolo,

guess I had to deal with less flexible people here ... they did not agree to me not being there when works would be done. Anyway, what would be a reasonable fee for this type of work, according to you?

Ciao,

Willemijn

[UmbriaGal]

Willemijn,

I have a holiday home near Todi, and I pay a company 1500 euros a year to manage my property. This includes checking on the house monthly, collecting my mail, paying my bills, arranging for repairs, etc. They have a separate fee for meeting my renters and arranging cleaning.

Hope this helps,
Lyn

[willemijn]

Hello Lyn,

thanks a lot, that really helps!
I am North of Perugia myself by the way.

Thanks,
Willemijn

[paolo]

what would be a reasonable fee for this type of work, according to you?

I really couldn't say - the market rate, whatever that is. I would be wildly guessing if I produced a figure.

[willemijn]

Hi Paolo,

Lyn wrote she pays a management company 1500 euro per year, for checking the house monthly plus maintenance. That sounds very reasonable.

[Christine Kenyon]

I can't comment on how it works in Italy (or Umbria), but here in the UK (ie, Cumbria and the Lake District), you have to pay way, way above the going rate for a good cleaner on a Saturday. Some people recognise this, some don't. We have two cottages and we (that means I!) clean them ourselves. One is let on a Saturday to Saturday basis and one on a Friday to Friday basis - otherwise no-one would want to live with me on a Saturday night!!!! Just a thought: can you persuade some people to opt for Friday-Friday or even Sunday-Sunday. From our experience, the Friday-Friday option has worked very well (but we're dealing with mainly people from the UK).

Cheers

Christine (aka Mrs Mop on Fridays and Saturdays)
www.troutbeckcottage.co.uk
www.stybarrowcottage.co.uk

[willemijn]

Hello Christine,

owners do not seem to want Friday to Friday, but one of the rental properties has Friday to Friday and that works fine, especially because flights from UK are often cheaper when not from Sat to Sat.

It is such a nice idea to have flexible start days and much better for people going on holidays (arriving Saturday late at night with the shops closed on Sundays is not ideal). However, there seems to be incredible resistance to changing the arrival days. Interesting questions why this could be.

Ciao,
Willemijn