Bell Partners COO Cindy Clare on how property managers can navigate budget pressure while keeping residents in mind and owner goals in focus.
Budgeting in multifamily is a balancing act. A budget can look reasonable on paper and still invite plenty of questions from investors. Property managers need to balance owners’ goals with costs and expenses.
In this episode of Management Diaries, I talk with Cindy Clare, COO at Bell Partners, about how property managers can approach that balance more strategically.
Clare oversees about 65,000 units across Bell- and third party-owned communities and also serves on the company’s executive and investment committees, so she has insight into how operational decisions are made and their financial impact, as well.
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Clare and I talk about what makes a budget credible and which expenses owners are likely to scrutinize most. She explains why the strongest budgets start with understanding what the owner is trying to achieve and what to do when their rent-growth expectations are a stretch for the market.
“A budget is a guardrail. It’s not going to be 100 percent exact,” says Clare. Her advice is to be “realistically aggressive,” and she says operators also need to be willing to get a little uncomfortable when setting goals.
She also acknowledged that reducing expenses doesn’t always require outright cuts; sometimes it comes down to property teams just getting creative.
Listen to the full episode for Clare’s take on reducing budget revisions and managing costs more strategically and thoughtfully.
Here are some highlights from our conversation:
- 0:00 Intro and welcome
- 2:23 Start with the investment thesis
- 3:38 Nail down owner expectations first
- 4:56 Back every number with data
- 7:38 Which line items owners will question
- 11:30 Give owners options
- 17:26 Resident expectations and amenity spend
- 26:22 When owners want rent growth you can’t hit
- 29:33 How to minimize revisions
- 32:45 One boring thing worth taking seriously
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