Hi, there! Joe White here from Grow Property Management, your trusted property management company in Philadelphia.
I’m responding to a question that Anna submitted to the podcast, although her question wasn’t entirely clear. From what I could gather, it sounds like she’s frustrated with how responsive her property management company is. While the details were a bit vague, I can still address the core issue because this is a common concern among property owners.
First, it’s important to understand that a professional property management company does need to be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, but that availability is primarily for tenant emergencies and critical repairs. In my own property management company, we are always available for emergencies such as heat going out, air conditioning failure, water leaks, or other urgent habitability issues. Those situations require immediate attention, and we respond around the clock. However, that doesn’t mean we are available at all hours for non-urgent matters. If a repair request is minor or not time-sensitive, it will be handled during normal business operations rather than in the middle of the night.
I also think there is often a disconnect in expectations, partly because of how people view real estate agents versus property management companies. In Pennsylvania, property management must operate under a real estate brokerage and a broker of record. Many people are used to dealing with real estate agents, and the reality is that a large percentage of agents are part-time. Because they’re chasing business and trying to make a living, they often respond to texts and calls at all hours, late nights, weekends, Sundays, whenever a message comes in.
A property management company operates very differently. While being a real estate agent is absolutely professional, a property management company is more of a structured, company-oriented operation. We keep defined office hours, have departments, and follow systems. In my company, we technically operate from very early in the morning, around five a.m., until about six or seven in the evening. That said, the hours during which owners and tenants should expect direct responses are more realistically from around 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, with some limited hours on Sunday.
Because of this structure, you shouldn’t expect a property management company to respond the same way a solo real estate agent might. Sending a text at 9:30 on a Sunday night and expecting an immediate response is not realistic for most professional management companies. That doesn’t mean they’re unresponsive, it means they operate within professional boundaries.
So when we talk about “responsiveness,” the real question is what you mean. Are you reaching out during normal business hours and not hearing back within a reasonable amount of time? That’s a fair concern, and that’s where key performance indicators, or KPIs, come into play. As a property management company owner, I track response times closely. I want to know how long it takes my staff to respond to owners and tenants.
For some companies, getting back to someone within 24 hours might be considered acceptable. In my company, we aim to do much better than that. Our goal is to respond within hours, typically within three to four hours at most for non-emergency inquiries. That applies to both owners and tenants.
That said, delays do sometimes happen, and they’re not always due to negligence. For example, if an owner asks for an update on a repair, we often need to contact the contractor to get accurate information. We’re not going to guess or provide incomplete details. Usually, we’ll let the owner know that we’re reaching out to the contractor and that we’ll follow up once we have more information. Still, there can be some lag depending on how quickly the contractor responds.
Another factor is that my company has multiple departments. An inquiry may need input from several team members before we can give a clear, accurate answer. It’s not uncommon for us to message internally, asking who has updates on a specific property or repair issue, and then wait for responses so we can give the owner a complete picture of what’s going on.
Ultimately, if Anna’s expectation is that a property management company should be as instantly accessible as a real estate agent at all hours, that’s probably not realistic. However, if the expectation is that tenant emergencies are handled immediately and that owners receive timely, professional responses during business hours, then yes, that’s exactly what a good property management company should be doing.
I’m just a humble Philadelphia property investment company owner doing my best to answer rental property investing questions, and as always, happy rental property investing.
