Customer Feature: Power Properties

Community
It’s hard to think of the areas of our lives that have not been affected by the recent impacts of COVID-19.  Whether it’s our morning routines, time spent with loved ones, our ability to exercise as often as we like and need to – nothing is quite the same these days.  It is in these new daily challenges we find ourselves at the forefront of personal growth and reflection.  We’ve all got a lot more time to think about ourselves, and not just as individuals, but as members of a family going through hardship.  We are  opening up to a more encouraging type of conversation with our friends, family, those we work with, and those we wish we could see again.  We had an opportunity to speak with Jamie Palmer, President of Power Properties, on his thoughts on the impact COVID-19 has had on his business and his insights on how to leverage technology and how to be creative in the face of adversity.
 
What area of your business has been most impacted by COVID-19 thus far?
 
Jamie: “All of them! From a day-to-day functional point of view, we have had to change how we do so much of our work. Residential property management is very much a people business and our passion is building lifelong relationships with our tenants and clients, but now we have to conduct move-in and move-out inspections without the tenants there; it's harder to show properties to prospective tenants, and the team members are all working from home.
 
From an emotional point of view, about 10% of our tenants need some form of rental relief, either a payment plan or a rent reduction. It has been heartbreaking for our staff to hear the devastation COVID-19 has brought to so many of our tenants' lives, so creating the support for the team members need while being unable to see them in person is a big challenge.”
 
What are you trying to do to overcome this? New initiatives? Innovations in how you do things? Are you offering any new products or services as a result?
 
Jamie: “We show prospective tenants properties using 3D virtual tours and Facetime live walk-throughs, and they apply using online applications which is great that they can do so from the safety of their current homes, but we don't get to meet them in person so it is harder to start forging those lifelong relationships.  

We are making sure we have virtual tours with 3D floorplans of all our properties and are rebuilding our website to make it even easier for prospective tenants to pick their new home from the comfort of their couch. Our staff are all working from home using cloud-based software, we have weekly Google Meets video operations meetings, and we are starting weekly social meetings as well to help strengthen the connection between the team members.”
 
Lastly, how has TWT Group (or Fully Managed) helped/empowered you in this transition?
 
Jamie: “Fully Managed made it easy for us to work from home, our IT infrastructure just works, we didn't have to wonder ‘will this work?’, we had full confidence that everything would be the same just at home. That is why we decided to go with Fully Managed in the first place, we didn't want our IT infrastructure to be visible, we wanted it to just run in the background and allow us to focus on building relationships with people”

Fully Managed understands the importance of building, maintaining, and fostering healthy and trusting relationships.  We all find ourselves in the midst of a difficult time, and staying connected with those who are important to us is what keeps us all moving forward through these times.  Thank you so much Jamie for your insights today on how to stay connected, and how to get creative with that connectivity.  It’s something we are all doing together and more importantly, it’s something we will take with us into the next stages of our relationships.

By David Collins