What Business Development Promises, Operations Has to Deliver
By Chas Nichol, VP of Operations, with Mike Tamulevich providing moral support and unsolicited edits
Not every property is created equally. Some properties come with signs that can make them significantly harder to manage. Factors such as condition, location, resident history, owner expectations, and overall risk are all signs that the property may have challenges.
Before an operations team ever sees a signed management agreement, someone else has already shaped how that property is expected to perform. The business development team closed the deal. They answered the owner’s questions and set the tone for the relationship, including expectations around rent, turnaround time, and profitability that the operating team now inherits.
That is exactly why my team and I operate as an extension of business development, not a department downstream from it. Sales wins the relationship. Operations lives inside it every single day after. The two only work when they are pulling in the same direction, because the client does not experience us as separate teams. They experience us as one company keeping its word.
A property with deferred maintenance, repeated resident complaints, frequent turnover, unresolved code violations, or a history of costly repairs can quickly become a time-consuming and unprofitable property. Other red flags include properties that are difficult to access, have unusual construction or aging systems, lack proper documentation, or require specialized vendors that are hard to find. These often lead to higher maintenance and repair costs, simply because finding the right vendor takes longer and costs more.
It’s also important for owners, and for the team selling the relationship, to understand what they are buying. We have seen owners come to us believing they own a legal multifamily building, only to have the city say otherwise. Ensuring a property meets all local codes and rental requirements before expectations are set will save a lot of time and expense down the road.
Owner expectations can be just as important as the condition of the property itself. An owner who expects premium rent values while resisting necessary repairs, questions every maintenance expense, or holds unrealistic expectations about rent and vacancy can create ongoing challenges for the property management team. Full disclosure, when that happens, I usually end up on the phone with Mike Tamulevich. He walks in wanting to give me a hug for how my team handled it. I usually want to strangle him for the expectations that landed on my desk in the first place. Somewhere between those two reactions is exactly where good partnership between sales and operations gets built.
Asking the right questions during onboarding, documenting the property’s condition, and confirming the owner’s willingness to invest in the property all help. But the earlier those conversations happen, the fewer surprises land on the operations team’s desk. When business development and my team are working from the same playbook from day one, the client gets the best version of Marketplace Homes instead of two teams working out their differences in real time.