Maximize Property Management Revenue Part 2: Churn, Lifetime Value, and Legislation

Most property-management owners focus on adding new doors, or, they’re just concerned with reputation management and they don’t feel like they need to grow their business. But, they ignore the cause of lost revenue and lower customer lifetime values: annual churn that quietly erodes 20–25 % of portfolios.

You probably don’t realize just how big your churn rate is.

Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation with Todd Ortscheid, CEO of Revolution Rental Management. In this part of our series, we are talking about real world churn rates for property managers, how boosting your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can elevate your property management company and give you the budget necessary to effectively market your services, and some of the most threatening legislation and regulation around fee-maxing.

How Much Are You Really Losing? Getting Honest About Churn

Any industry report you read will show you that property managers can expect to lose doors every month and every year. Even if you’re doing a perfect job, your owners are going to sell their properties. They’re going to die. They might change their minds.

Todd says that when asked to estimate churn, many managers guess that their churn rate is around five percent. But really, most property managers are losing 20–25 % of their doors every year.

The latest NARPM® benchmarking guide says the average churn is at 20%, and Todd says that property management companies that can bring that loss down to around 10% can feel really good about what they’re achieving.

Some property managers might think that they’re not losing money on churn because they’ve helped one of their owners sell a property. That’s great. There are commission earnings to be made. But, they’ve lost the recurring revenue.

Never underestimate what you’re losing to churn, and even though it’s surprisingly difficult, try to bring that churn rate a bit lower. When sales are intense, churn rates will jump. Be prepared.

Increasing Customer Lifetime Value

When you have responsible ancillary fees in place, you’re earning extra cash to invest into better services.

Better services reduce your churn and increase your cu