Living where you work: Determining the value-added nature of the on-site residential property manager

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine whether property managers who live on-site within a residential apartment building provide a value-added benefit to the management in the form of cost control and revenue maximization.

Design/methodology/approach

This research uses two large US data sets that cover operational and financial data of apartment owners/operators and the financial and individual housing situations of renters themselves. The regression models developed were general linear models with operating expenses, rent collection and monthly rent paid as dependent variables, with on-site resident manager status as the experimental variable.

Findings

This research finds that the value of on-site property managers does not definitively maximize rent revenue, as expected. On-site property managers also don’t show significant reductions in operating expenses, although they are not cost centers either. Individual renter households do, however, pay a significant rent premium for units in communities with on-site personnel living there.

Research limitations/implications

The limitations of this research include the inability to merge the two data sets and the inability to measure the intangible attributes of the on-site residential manager’s experience.

Practical implications

As roughly 30 per cent of US rental apartment buildings have some form of on-site manager, this research has some practical implications for multifamily housing investors/owners, a highly visible US building sector.

Social implications

The action of hiring an on-site residential property manager also addresses issues related to the optimization and efficient allocation of human resources for property management companies.

Originality/value

This appears to be the first research addressing property managers who live at the site where they also work.

Citation

Carswell, A.T. (2018), "Living where you work: Determining the value-added nature of the on-site residential property manager", Facilities, Vol. 36 No. 5/6, pp. 258-271. https://doi.org/10.1108/F-12-2016-0106