Quarterly Business Analysis

02Your scorecard

Revenue is read as working with a caution. It is up 2.4% in six months, and $8,410 of that is old vendor invoices billed once. That part will not repeat.

Days vacant is also working with a caution. It is compared with the same quarter a year earlier, because winter cannot be judged against the full year. Only 15 units turned over in six months. 21 of last year's 36 turnovers fell between April and September, so summer will show whether the gain holds.

Leases renewed stays on watch. Most leases end in summer, and too few have ended since October to judge.

03What worked, and why we think so

Listing at notice. A listing is now drafted the day a tenant gives notice, and your property manager approves it. Of 15 turnovers, 14 were advertised before the unit was empty. A year ago it was 7 of 36. From your data

Make readies booked ahead. Vendors are booked from the notice date. Move out to make ready finished went from 13 days to 8. From your data

Answering. Every rental inquiry gets a reply within minutes, at any hour, in wording you and your attorney approved. The median first reply went from 19 hours to 9 minutes. Every missed call gets a text. From your data

Decisions on applications. Your staff still make every decision. A complete application now reaches them the same day, and a decision takes 2 days, down from 4. 16 of 22 approved applicants signed, or 73%, up from 61%. From your data

Vacant days. The 15 turnovers were vacant 204 fewer days than the same number would have been at last year's pace for each quarter. At $85 a day that is $17,340 of rent your owners received sooner. From your data

Billing back. Of the 23 unbilled vendor invoices, you approved 19 for billing, worth $8,410, and $7,930 has been collected. You chose not to bill 4 older ones worth $1,430. The weekly match has since caught 9 new invoices worth $3,620 in the week they were paid. From your data

Fee terms. All 58 agreements were read again and every fee term entered in AppFolio in October. Markup since then on the 9 owners who had none: $2,510. 13 renewal fees were added after the weekly check found them missing, worth $2,600. From your data

Renewals. No lease has rolled to month to month without an offer since October. A year ago 21 did. From your data

Statements. Vendor invoices now have a cutoff on the 3rd, and each statement carries a short note naming every repair. Statements went out by the 10th in 4 of the last 6 months. Owner messages that waited more than two business days fell from 17% to 6%. From your data

Your own hours. Quo shows 6 hours a week of calls on your line, down from 9. You put email at 13 hours, down from 17. From your data, and our estimate from your own count for email.

Money the records tie to this work, in six months: $18,614 for the firm. That is $8,410 in old invoices billed back, $3,620 in new invoices caught, $2,510 in markup, $2,600 in renewal fees, and $1,474 in management fees on rent that arrived sooner. Your owners received $17,340 of that rent, which is theirs. You have paid Sannidhi $3,000 in that time. The records show each sum followed one of these actions. They cannot prove that none of it would have happened anyway.

04What we adjusted last quarter, and what happened

In December, rent paid by the 5th had slipped from 74% to 73%. The reminder on the day rent was due was not changing anything.

We changed three things. Each tenant who has not paid gets a text on the 3rd. Your property manager calls on the 6th, from a list we send that morning. Every late payer is offered automatic payment, and may decline.

Tenants who pay automatically rose from 38% to 52%. Rent paid by the 5th is now 81%. Rent owed for more than 30 days fell from $38,200 to $24,600, which is your owners' money. From your data

A caution. January to March is a better season for rent than October to December. The same months a year earlier were 76%. The fair reading of the gain is 5 points, not 7.

Any notice to a tenant about unpaid rent has legal rules. The texts and calls here are reminders only. Your notices stay as your attorney set them.

05What needs adjusting now

Tenant repairs are waiting behind make readies. Booking vendors ahead for turnovers is why units fill sooner. The same three vendors do 58% of all your work. They now arrive with turnover jobs already on their calendar, and tenant repairs wait. From your data

Of the 58 work orders older than 14 days, 37 are waiting on one of those three vendors, 14 are waiting for an owner to approve the cost, and 7 are waiting on parts or access. The median time to close a tenant work order went from 6 days to 8. Three of the 7 new tenant reviews this quarter mention waiting for a repair. From your data

This matters before summer. 21 turnovers are likely between April and September, and each one will take vendor days.

The decision for you. There are two ways to fix this.

• Add two vendors, one plumber and one general repair firm. Your maintenance coordinator has a short list of five she has used before. New vendors may charge more, and that cost falls on your owners.
• Or keep the three vendors and hold two days a week for tenant repairs only. This costs nothing. Make readies would take about 2 days longer. Our estimate

We would add the vendors. The decision is yours, and the short list is ready for you to read.

06Supporting numbers that moved

What the changes cost. Two owners left, with 5 units. A reason was recorded for both.

• One owner with 3 units left in January, after the first statement that showed markup and a billed back invoice. Both charges were in the agreement. That owner paid $7,900 a year in fees.
• One of the two owners whose units cost more than they earned declined a higher fee and left, with 2 units. That owner paid $4,700 a year in fees and took about 4 staff hours a week. The other accepted a fee of 10%, up from 8.5%, on 3 units that rent for $2,100 a month on average. That adds $1,134 a year.

Together the firm gave up $12,600 a year in fees. In January, calls from owners about the new lines on their statements took about 5 of your hours a week for three weeks. From your data, and our estimate for the hours.

You also gained 4 owners with 6 units in six months. You now have 60 owners and 143 units.

07Changes to what we measure

• Added: work orders waiting on a vendor for more than 7 days. It was not a problem six months ago and it is the main one now.
• Retired from the scorecard list: days from make ready finished to listing live. Listings now go live before the tenant leaves, so the number has no meaning.

The list of numbers is expected to change as the business does.

08Next quarter

Any rent change in a renewal offer is your property manager's decision. Limits on rent increases are set by law, and each offer is checked by your staff before it goes out.

Cost. Sannidhi: $500 a month, unchanged. No new software.

Your largest owner. The owner with 14 units is still 8% of the firm's revenue. That reliance has not changed.

What we still cannot tell

• Whether the gain in vacant days will hold through summer. 15 turnovers in the slow half of the year is a small number.
• What each unit costs in staff time. It is still built from counts. A real measure needs time recorded by unit for one month.
• Whether tenants are leaving over repairs. A reason is now recorded at every move out: 13 of 15 so far. Two named repairs. That is too few to read.