Do you ever lay awake at night, mentally going through your to-do list for the day ahead? Do you wake up multiple times before the sun, remembering an urgent item that needs actioning asap?

Let’s be real - property management SHOULD NOT be this stressful, yet what we described above has become common practice amongst many talented property management teams over the years.

PRD Hunter Valley’s Head of Property Management, Heather Cameron, and Property Manager, Jordann Coote, have figured out the secret to squashing the stress for good. Not only are they sleeping better, but they’re more proactive, customer centric and ambitious in their growth goals too.

Read and watch on, to learn more about this inspiring agency’s experience with Ailo…

Heather: I think the best way to describe the team before Ailo was that we were reactive, not proactive. You come into the office, you go through your inbox, you deal with it, put out any spot fires that you need to and then you kind of are just sitting there vibrating at 10.30am going, “I don't even know where to start with the rest of my day, because I’ve just come into chaos”.

Jordann: I would wake up at 1am in the morning thinking about a task I needed to do so would send myself an email and then come in at 8am to three reminder emails that I'd sent myself during the night. [The stress] was affecting my sleep, and obviously then affecting my work the next day.

Heather: Since we introduced Ailo, my team come into the office and they’ve got a list of set tasks they've got to do, because Ailo Projects is already preempting the next steps needed. We still have to deal with emails [from customers], but because the team is more on top of their workload, it just seems smoother and they feel like they have more control over their day. This is really what I really wanted to see because property management shouldn't be as stressful as what it is. It should just be all about loving your investors and providing that high quality service to them.

Heather: I want to see our rent roll double.

Jordann: 👀

Heather: I think that's really achievable because everyone will be so happy with the service they’re getting from our team. We’ll hear them say things like, “I hear from my property manager all the time. I’m not waiting on a call back I’m not waiting on an email back and everything just gets done. I can sit back, relax and know that my investments are covered.”

Jordann: Absolutely. I think when you have a system like Ailo with the features we’ve already touched on, it does give you time and the possibility to grow your business.

Heather: Jordan is a very experienced property manager and already manages more properties than anyone else in the team.

Jordann: Correct.

Heather: Ailo is giving my property managers confidence that they could have a higher number portfolio but continue to deliver the same level of service and not be stressed. That’s really important.

Heather: What I really like is I can see and predict where my team is at and when they may need a little bit of extra support so I can reallocate resources. I also really like Ailo Chat.he other day a supplier asked me for help locating a quote because their admin assistant wasn’t in the office. It wasn’t a property that I managed, but I could go into Chat and see that the quote had been shared with the investor, so I screenshot it and sent it straight over to the supplier. This all happened outside of work hours and I wasn’t in the office. I love that I didn’t have to bother anyone from my team or log into emails. It was all just there.

Heather: My team were onboard pretty much straight away, which was really great because we were all aligned on my vision for raising our property management team. When we first commenced onboarding we were all really excited and Ailo was able to address any nerves that the team had quite quickly.

We started talking about Ailo with our investors early on to ensure they were well across it by the time we were live. This made our launch day a lot easier - there were barely any questions about compliance or why statements looked different.

For our tenants, we identified who might not want to make the change ahead of time too and made our communication to them more personalised.

Talking to everyone ahead of time through emails and phone calls definitely made the roll out easier.

Heather: I already knew that there were gaps with our old provider, but I just didn’t have the time to go through and analyse it. The report we received from Ailo was very eye-opening for me. Since making the switch to Ailo’s compliance solution, I know that it's just taken care of.

But we actually didn’t have that many objections throughout our portfolio - we have a great relationship with our investors and they trust us. I said to our investors ‘I’ve looked into this and I believe it’s the best fit for you. It’s going to provide you with the best level of coverage’, and most of them approved.

Heather: Just do it. Jump it and get it done, rip the band-aid off. It's gonna be a little bit of work initially, but it will make such a difference to the way you structure your day, the way you manage and develop your team and free up so much of your time.

It’s also important to be transparent with your team before you start. Ask them for their questions and concerns and be sure to have that conversation before you start so that the roll out is smooth and they understand that the change is for the better.

The team will start to see positive changes before you even start the roll out. And that’s not just professionally, the changes will be to them personally as well - it’s going to make their life easier.

Jordann: I definitely would recommend Ailo. It’s better for time management, you’re so much more organised which helps your day. If something pops up randomly, it’s not nearly as chaotic.