6 top ways to grow your property management revenue and door count

For a fourth year straight, over 90% of property management companies we surveyed have told us that growth is their #1 priority, according to Buildium’s Industry Report. However, with the rising cost of insurance, utilities, property taxes, and labor, the question isn’t if property managers intend to grow, but rather how.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. That’s why we’ve compiled six proven ways to run your business more efficiently, free up valuable resources, and create opportunities for revenue growth. You can use any combination of these strategies to gain greater control over the direction your business takes, choosing the tools that directly help you along that path to growth.

What are the Benefits of Finding New Property Management Revenue Sources?

One of the most immediate benefits of finding new revenue sources is having a reliable pool of income to offset expenses, such as vacancy costs. There will be periods of time when there are fewer tenants paying management fees, which new sources of property management revenue can help make up for. Uncertainty is part of property management—tenants can leave without notice, market conditions can fluctuate, and unexpected repairs can disrupt your cash flow. The more areas where you can draw revenue from, the more prepared you are when any of these situations arise.

Diversification also lowers your financial risk in case you lose an income stream overnight. A varied set of income streams can help spread out risk, so when fluctuations in the market occur, it’ll reduce the net impact on your bottom line.

6 Ways to Grow Property Management Revenue and Add Doors

Getting creative with new income streams provides you the flexibility and opportunity to grow your business in ways you may never have considered before. Property owners and managers often leave money on the table by not exploring options such as reward programs, streamlining marketing, and even outsourcing.

For example, streamlining your operations with technology makes your team more efficient without increasing headcount. In turn, you’re able to improve tenant  services without extra costs. Centralized communication, payments, and reliable property maintenance can all be enhanced with the right tech to create an easier to manage and more attractive renting experience.

With these benefits in mind, we’ve included specific technologies to help you put all six of the strategies below into action. Let’s jump into our list of the best ways to increase revenue without requiring substantial time, resources, or headcount.

1. Purpose-Built Accounting Software

Let’s start with a business area that’s most directly connected to your bottom line—your books.  Accurate bookkeeping provides insights into your cash flow, giving you a clearer picture on what’s coming in and what’s going out. It also helps identify tax-saving opportunities, pinpoint rent payment trends that impact your bottom line, while staying compliant.

To get more efficient with accounting, we suggest implementing purpose-built accounting software tailored for property businesses. We get more into why purpose-built software is so important in this post, but the main takeaways are that you’ll be able to centralize all your critical financial data in one place, and show you which areas of the business to focus on.

Because every business is different, having this centralized view will let you spot the specific areas where you’re losing money or leaving it on the table—an unreliable vendor, a unit that’s particularly hard to fill, a pattern of delinquencies in rent payments—and take action from there.

Beyond spotting these specific areas, there’s also the broader benefit of cost-savings from not having to devote as much staff time to maintaining and reconciling your books. Purpose-built software can even make it easier to prep for tax season and integrate with electronic payments. This can help minimize processing time and help get money into your bank account faster.

2. Management and Maintenance Fees

According to our Industry Report, 62% of property managers plan on increasing rent and resident-paid fees to increase revenue in the next two years in conjunction with providing supplemental services like cleaning, project management, amenities, and more. But instead of tacking on fees to everything you can, it’s important to consider how additional services can benefit your tenants and sets your properties apart in competitive rental markets. This will help increase the living experience for tenants, leading to greater retention rates while minimizing turnover and vacancies.

Here are fees that you should consider that you might not already be charging:

Amenity Fees

You can charge your tenants for valuable amenities like the fitness center, swimming pool, coworking spaces, garage, and storage areas—all services that still need regular maintenance. These add-ons can improve the tenant experience and increase your overall market value. Providing desirable amenities can also attract higher quality tenants who value convenience and lifestyles that match their needs. On-site amenities can cost tenants less money than signing up for a gym or the cost of a commute, while shared spaces can foster a community among residents.

Pet Fees

Over 66% of American households have at least one pet in their home. Providing a pet-friendly community can incentivize a wider pool of responsible tenants to move in while being an additional revenue source for your business.

Service Fees

Consider charging for additional services that improve the tenant experience like concierge services, advanced security, laundry pickup and drop off, dog walking, community gardens, and housekeeping. The aim is to offer optional services that enhance the living experience, allowing them to select the ones they find valuable while avoiding steep increases in rent.

Fees for Tech Based Services

There’s no shortage of technologies out there to make the rental experience easier. By choosing the ones that make sense for your properties and tenants, you can enhance that experience while also charging a fee that generates recurring revenue. These can include everything from rent reporting to help tenants build credit to keyless security systems.

Fees for Owner Services

You can also consider owner benefit packages, where owners receive additional perks or securities from a third party, such as Steady. With Steady’s package, owners can receive up to 12 months of rent up front in a non-recourse transaction. This removes resident nonpayment risk while providing liquidity for owners. You can choose the amount you want to charge for these services, bringing in additional property management revenue.

For a full rundown on the types of fees you can charge, you can read our breakdown here.

3. Outsource Utilities and Get Cash Back

Settings up power, gas, cable, internet, water, and security is a time-consuming move-in experience for both tenants and property managers. Instead of coordinating back and forth with your tenants and utility companies, you can tap into a revenue share service such as Nutiliti or Citizen that handles it all for you.

4. Introduce a Reward Programs

Reward programs offered by the services and software you use can be an excellent way to earn incentives, discounts, and cashback for services you’re already paying for.

You can also offer your own reward programs to tenants to encourage them to maintain healthy rental habits and share their feedback. Gravy offers renter rewards, including 5% cash back on rent each month. This incentivizes renters to pay on time and renew leases, giving you higher retention and cash flow.

5. Optimize Your Marketing to Attract New Business

Beyond optimizing your existing properties and leases, one of the best ways to generate property management revenue is also one of the most obvious—expanding your portfolio. However, in the current market, this is often easier said than done.

A reliable place to start is to sharpen your marketing. There are several ways to build your brand and get more qualified applicants. Website builders with customizable templates built for property businesses, and listing syndication services can do some of the heavy lifting. If you want to take it to the next level, you can work with a dedicated property management marketing service such as goodjuju to optimize your online presence, conversion funnels, and ranking on search engines.

You can let new business come directly to you by joining a network such as All Property Management. The platform helps connect property owners with property managers based on their location and individual needs.

WIth the right marketing in place, you can focus on diversifying your portfolio on your own terms, a topic we explore in depth in this post:

• 7 strategies to diversify your property management portfolio in 2024

6. Let the Right Tech Work for You

Sometimes your existing software doesn’t fulfill all the critical tasks of your business. Mixing and matching different systems can not only be frustrating, but become costly, too. The right tech stack helps your company grow without additional headcount.

Just one example of what this looks like in action comes from Presidio Property Management. They saved 20 hours a week on maintenance, applications, and renewals—which means 20 more hours networking, returning important phone calls, and showing more units. They automated follow-ups, addressed maintenance requests faster, and automated renewals, all which used to be done completely manually.

It’s also important to find technology that grows with your business. When you first purchase software, your needs may be different from your business a year from now. Software with an Open API lets you create custom workflows that integrate with your accounting data, other processes, and existing software. This makes your business more efficient while giving you the flexibility to offer additional services you can charge a fee for.

The All-in-One Solution to Grow Property Management Revenue

With so many new ways to expand your business, it helps to have software that can kick off these initiatives without adding extra workload to your staff. An all-in-one solution like Buildium can help. From marketing to financial management, Buildium offers purpose-built tools for portfolios of all sizes.

You can give Buildium a try with a free 14-day trial (no credit card required), and test out the specific ways the software can help you unlock new revenue.