While the fundamental mission of the professional property manager has always been to help client communities run smoothly, efficiently, and in compliance with the law, a whole lot has changed since the days when property managers went to work armed with pagers, kept important documents in metal filing cabinets, and sent inspection reports to the Department of Buildings via fax. 

As laws and regulations have changed, technology has advanced, and housing costs have skyrocketed, the needs and expectations of client communities have evolved as well. Boards and residents alike expect more from their management, and they expect it faster. On any given day, a manager might investigate an elevator outage, retrieve repair records for an insurer on the fence about a policy renewal, prepare a board for an urgent capital repair project, and respond to a resident who sent a message five minutes ago and wants to know why they haven’t gotten a response. 

The Post-Paper Era

These days, the vast majority of New York City property managers and nearly all management firms have upgraded from using paper forms, Post-Its, and Rolodexes to emails, text threads, apps, and online portals for keeping track of work orders, compliance deadlines, and communications with their client communities. While few would dispute that the switch to digital has been a net positive for management pros and the properties in their care, it has required some adjustments and adaptations as managers’ schedules fill with notifications of compliance deadlines, insurance renewals, and residents’ expectations of faster service.

“Technology has been transformative in our industry,” says Marc Kotler, president of FirstService Residential in New York, “but it has accelerated the pace of everything we do, and the expectations from our clients have changed as a result.” He notes that boards increasingly want help with lender expectations, reserves, and capital projects, so managers are expected to bring analysis as well as bids. 

“A lot of clients almost feel like we are their legal team, their accounting team, their therapist even,” adds Evangelos Fantakos, owner of Highrise Property Management in Whitestone, New York. “The average client’s expectations for  a management company are way higher than I’ve ever seen in the past.”

Keeping Up With the Rules

The job of managing a portfolio of multifamily buildings (or even just one) has always required a long list of skills and competencies, but even with the assistance tech can provide, that list has grown over the years. 

Fantakos notes the biggest change in recent years is the volume of building code requirements and local laws a manager must be familiar with in order to help their client communities stay in compliance. Elevator upkeep, fire safety equipment inspections, and energy efficiency projects connected to Local Law 97 (to name just a few) all land on the same desk. 

“Regulatory requirements, insurance renewals, and documentation for lenders, insurers, and government agencies have all grown more complex,” says Robert M. Ferrara, CPM, president of The Ferrara Management Group, Inc. in Bedford Hills, New York. “Today a large share [of managers’ time and attention] goes to tracking deadlines, collecting certifications, and making sure the building can show it did what it was supposed to do.”

This is where electronic record-keeping and retrieval capabilities come in very handy. Ferrara notes that at one property his firm handles, an insurer asked for substantially more documentation for a policy renewal than it had in previous years. Rather than reconstructing a paper trail under deadline pressure, electronic records helped Ferrara’s team retrieve reports on repairs and fire safety compliance for the carrier. In cases like this, having the needed information readily available and easily accessible can help take some of the stress out of a situation where time is tight and the stakes are high. 

The Cost of Waiting

That said, while digitized documents and faster payments and work orders help with routine tasks, they do little to simplify the decisions behind them. Management pros report that because of new, tighter laws and regulations—particularly around reducing carbon emissions and mandatory structural inspections—the conversations they’re having with their client boards have become more strategic and somewhat more difficult, with managers now spending more time helping boards understand the financial and legal ramifications of undertaking various repair and improvement projects, rather than just presenting a budget.

“Boards are weighing fee increases against deferring work,” Kotler says, “and deferring rarely saves money. Insurance premiums have risen significantly in recent years, and labor costs are increasing as buildings compete for qualified staff with hospitality and other service employers.”

He adds that more than 80 percent of a building’s budget is typically nondiscretionary, leaving very few easy cuts when residents push back against a maintenance or common-charge increase. Kotler says he advises boards to explain to residents exactly what’s driving cost increases, what alternatives they considered, and how spending now could avert a larger assessment later.

Ferrara agrees that a postponed roof or façade repair will often return as a more urgent—and therefore more expensive—project, and advises gradual fee increases that are less disruptive than a sudden assessment. He also urges boards to examine staffing, amenity hours, and contracts alongside reserve studies and capital plans. 

Managers new to a client community also have to learn the building or association’s governing documents and share structure or condominium interests, says Fantakos. “The scrutiny starts before a new managing agent settles in. When we take on a property, the team reviews financial statements and recurring invoices, contacts vendors, and establishes what money is coming in and going out.”

Previous management reports, he notes, can give a misleading impression of available money or unpaid bills. “Some form of understanding how to review budgets and financial reports is crucial,” Fantakos says. “I wouldn’t hire a manager that doesn’t have substantial financial knowledge.”

On Call, Within Reason

Ferrara notes that since the pandemic, residents have come to expect the same quick responses from their property management that they get from other service providers like DoorDash or Amazon. They want confirmations of receipt, real-time updates on service requests, and access to information about projects and financial decisions on demand. For managers, this can be a tall order when requests from residents arrive by email, text, and portal at all hours of the day and night.

“A timely reply matters,” Ferrara says, “but follow-through matters more. People still value a manager who knows the building, knows the staff, and knows them.”

Kotler notes that the shift in expectation and shrinking of response time doesn’t mean every community wants the same kind of contact with their management pro. It’s a constant refrain in these pages that every building or association is different, with its own unique blend of personalities, priorities, and expectations, and managers therefore must ‘read the room’ and adapt their approach accordingly. The residents of newer buildings may prefer to use digital tools almost exclusively, while some luxury and legacy properties favor a more in-person ‘analog’ relationship with their management. What all client communities have in common, regardless of address, demographic, or net worth is that residents and board alike want to know that when a question or an issue arises, there’s someone on their side who will respond timely and competently.

That being said, Fantakos notes that it’s important for management professionals to maintain certain boundaries, and for client boards and residents to understand and respect those boundaries. His staff can be reached around the clock for emergencies such as a power outage, water leak or flooding, or someone smelling gas, but routine questions can—and should—wait until the next business day. Fantakos makes a point of communicating this in building-wide notices his company sends out to residents to protect staff from an endless stream of late-night and weekend texts.

The boundary does not mean brushing off a frustrated resident, he continues. A call that at first glance sounds like a possibly frivolous complaint may reveal something more urgent, such as an elevator problem affecting someone on an upper floor, for example. “If a person is calling because they’re frustrated, find out what the frustration is from,” Fantakos says. “There’s always something to it.” 

More People at the Meeting

Moving board business online is another seismic change in how managers do their jobs. For one, holding hybrid in-person/online meetings has changed who can participate. Kotler says going remote has made monthly board meetings easier to schedule, and has increased resident attendance at annual meetings, particularly for those who travel, or have mobility challenges or other demands on their time. He says he’s seeing people participate who rarely attended in person before—and that’s a good thing.

No matter the format, however, people in the room and on screen need to be able to hear one another, questions must be taken in an orderly way, and votes and minutes still have to be handled properly, just as they always have. That’s why Ferrara recommends setting an agenda in advance and sending it out to everyone in the building or association well ahead of the meeting. Along with testing AV and internet connections ahead of time to iron out any tech glitches, he also advises naming a chairperson—the board secretary is usually a good choice—to keep the discussion on track. In hybrid meetings, it’s also important to appoint someone other than the chairperson to monitor the chat and question sections to make sure that those attending remotely aren’t shut out of the discussion. 

“Hybrid meetings can be harder to run than either fully in-person or fully virtual ones,” Ferrara says. “So preparation matters.”

What Software Can’t Do

Ferrara points to online autopayments, resident portals, digital work orders, and electronic board packages as innovations that have made managers’ work smoother, if not necessarily easier. “An approval that once involved phone calls and couriered documents can now move more quickly,” he says. “The harder decisions still warrant a manager’s attention.”

Kotler says his company uses an AI-powered Homeowner Digital Assistant, or HODA, to handle residents’ routine questions about account balances, service requests, amenity bookings, and documents at any hour and in multiple languages. He notes that in a pilot across 900 communities, it resolved 90 percent of inquiries on first contact. Emergencies and complex matters like disputes and sensitive resident issues are routed to a person, and residents can still ask to speak with an associate if they prefer.

Ferrara says his team is using AI for first drafts of notices and reports, searches of records, and to summarize lengthy documents. He notes that while AI can shorten repetitive work, like Kotler, Ferrara’s firm defers to experienced human professionals for handling arrears conversations, neighbor disputes, or advice on major financial and legal choices. 

Fantakos says he has heard mixed reactions to having AI or automated systems field first-contact calls from residents, noting that while some like the speed with which an AI agent can respond, others want to speak to a real person.

All the pros spoken to for this piece agree that while AI is an undeniably powerful tool that can streamline a great many administrative tasks, there are always going to be things an AI agent can’t see, and tasks a portal cannot carry out. Ferrara says that managers still have to visit properties in person, speak with staff members, and inspect a leaking roof or troubled boiler themselves. Photos and reports provide a record, but they cannot give a manager firsthand knowledge of a building—and that’s why the profession will by necessity always involve a very human component, and the skills necessary to maintain that.

Who Wants the Job?

Like those who came before them, the next generation of managers still needs to be comfortable with analyzing financial statements, have a basic understanding of building systems, laws, and software, and possess the interpersonal skills necessary to deal with a broad array of personality types and temperaments. Fantakos says he also values construction experience and an understanding of how community finances operate. He notes that someone who has worked around the trades may be better equipped to ask questions about a plumbing invoice, or recognize a faulty diagnosis.

“Managers need clear, calm communication in writing and in person,” Ferrara adds. “Those soft skills are just as important, and often harder to teach.” 

To that point, Kotler says he looks for candidates with a hospitality mindset. “Buildings need people who can deliver service, even when the answer isn’t the one a resident wants,” he says. His firm trains their staff in the kind of skills that restaurateurs and hoteliers use in serving their guests and customers, assigning experienced managers as mentors to show newcomers how the pros handle a disagreement or emergency, along with grounding in budgets, governing documents, and building operations.

Another concern that has risen alongside the expansion of client expectations and the ever-increasing pace of life in general for managers is burnout. The sheer breadth of the job, of being expected to know every answer and be reachable all the time, can really wear people down. Kotler, who has spent nearly 40 years managing residential properties in the city, reminds newcomers to the profession what is at stake: “We are entrusted with caring for people’s homes,” he says. “This is a stressful and demanding task.”

Boards have both a stake and a role to play in this as well, say the pros. Ferrara reminds board members that their manager may oversee several buildings along with theirs, and says that maintaining clear channels of communication, making timely, proactive decisions, and respecting after-hours boundaries all have an enormous positive impact on the board-management relationship. 

Fantakos concurs, adding that a board that micromanages or publicly undermines its management company can slow projects down and create tension throughout the building. A board and manager will not agree on every decision, but they should be able to discuss options, settle on a direction, and present a united front when communicating it to residents.

“Loyalty and support for a strong management team are among the best investments a board can make,” Ferrara says. “The whole community benefits.”

Keith Loria is a freelance writer and contributor to CooperatorNews.