Over the last five years, we’ve pretty much been priced out of multifamily acquisitions. What changes have you made to your investing activities? Our turnover during COVID was cut in half and that has been a huge factor in offsetting increased costs across the balance of our business. We’ve always had relatively low turnover. That phenomenon has carried from April to today. Consequently, what we lost in terms of increases in staffing, overtime, supplies and utilities, we made up for in lower turnover and lower maintenance costs associated with turning around apartments for new tenants and downtime associated with re-tenanting an apartment. People simply did not want to move, didn’t want to be out looking and were stretched on their finances. Occupancies in Greater Miami have been increasing very strongly over the past couple of years. We went into COVID very strong on our occupancy. How was tenant turnover affected by the pandemic? It also took additional time to do what we needed to do in terms of disinfecting and upgrading the virus-proofing of our buildings. We upgraded a lot of our cleaning supplies, housekeeping practices and added cleaning touch points throughout the day – tasks that we had never done before. The changes in our maintenance products and protocols increased costs by about 6%. Our maintenance people worked hard to keep up with work orders and maintenance given the high level of use that was going on in the buildings. When the pandemic started, we were at an average occupancy of about 95% and suddenly our 95% occupancy was 100% occupied 24 hours a day, which meant our utility bills went up dramatically, especially water and electricity. Adults stayed home to take care of children, were furloughed, or were working remotely. Multifamily was the enigma we did not expect. What was the biggest surprise during the pandemic? In an interview with Invest:, President and CFO Ralph Godwin shares his experiences managing the YMP REM portfolio of properties over the last year and gives a peek into the company’s investment strategies. 2 min read April 2021 - YMP Real Estate Management, LLC is a privately-held, fully integrated, real estate firm engaged in the acquisition and management of multifamily, office and assisted living properties.
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