PM Loves a Process — But Does Your Process Drive Growth?

One of my favourite sayings in property management is: “PM loves a process.”

And there’s a good reason for that.

Property management is full of processes. But the real question isn’t whether you have processes — it’s whether those processes are helping you grow your portfolio and deliver a better experience.

When you look at property management from the outside, there are really three things that need to happen:

1. Get the properties.
   2. Lease the properties.
   3. Manage the properties.

Simple enough, right?

But how effective are you at each of those three things — both individually and as a team?

Get the properties

This isn’t just a PM responsibility. Your sales team, BDMs and everyone involved in winning new business play a role here.

The question is: How effective are you at winning new managements?

And once you win them, the process doesn’t stop there.

Lease the properties

How quickly are you getting properties leased?

If your properties are consistently leasing faster than your competitors, that becomes a genuine point of difference.

Your BDM can say:

“Are you looking for an agency that can simply put your property on the market, or one that has a track record of getting properties leased quickly?”

That difference matters to an owner.

Maybe you’re two weeks faster than your competitors. Over one property, that might not seem like much. But when you add it up across an entire portfolio, it becomes significant.

It can even help justify a higher management fee because the owner isn’t simply paying for a service — they’re paying for a better process and better outcome.

Manage the properties

Of course, once the property is leased, we need to manage it.

But as I’ve said before, property management is less about property and more about people.

It’s people management.

It’s managing your relationships with landlords. It’s managing relationships with tenants. And it’s also managing your relationships with your tradies.

Because when your tradies have a great relationship with your team, they’re far more likely to go the extra mile, prioritise your jobs and help you get things done quickly.

And that all contributes to a better experience for everyone.

So, PM loves a process...

But the best processes aren’t there simply because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

They should help you win more properties, lease them faster and manage them better.

So take a look at your current processes and ask yourself:

Are they simply keeping the machine running — or are they actually helping us grow?