Management Transition & Imbalanced Feedback (RPM Living)

[Long post, but we’re *begging* you to please hear this out and offer your perspectives]

We’re asking to see if anyone has any anecdotal experiences they could share having “survived” a management transition, more specifically *into* RPM Living. Our community’s team was retained by our client when transitioning from boutique-management into RPM Living and it’s been absolute hell.

It’s no secret on here that RPM Living is somewhat of a succubus to work for, but our experience has been very catty, for lack of a better term. For context, we went from our management’s/client’s quickest lease-up in one of the most competitive markets out there, to complete stagnation after the transition. Sure, RPM added allocated fees our residents weren’t paying, an amenity fee, a shitty payment portal, etc., but we expected changes like this in order to boost our NOI, especially being in as saturated and competitive a market as we’re in.

What we *didn’t* expect, however, was to be thrown into the RPM circus beneath an RM who was promoted solely to oversee our client’s onboarded portfolio, which has created a clusterfuck of miscommunication and misdirection on her part. This trickled down into our onsite team as going to our RM with questions about new processes and procedures results in absolutely zero help; or worse, incorrect help that causes pushback/ridicule from our ownership and upper-management.

Worse, though, is the complete 180 of our client(s), a family-owned and operated LLC who we’d had a proven relationship with previously for YEARS. Suddenly, our feedback at the site-level is not being taken seriously—which previously helped fuel our lease-up to award-winning status in our market as we’re all very passionate about what we do, and care to over-perform in all aspects specifically FOR our client(s).

The *worst*, most-shocking part, is the clear sabotage we’re experiencing from our RM, RVP *and* client. For more context here, the client we now report to is the daughter of our senior client who is completely new to property management and ownership, fresh out of college as a business undergraduate.

We have been keeping documentation of our RM’s lack of attention-to-detail when it comes to our operations. To list just a few examples:

-Incorrect KNOCK schedules (weekend hours were entirely omitted from self-scheduling for prospects, which is our RM’s responsibility as she has the access to change this [mind you, we transitioned last Summer *and* had a change in office hours since then, and this was completely overlooked BOTH times]) while our in-portfolio sister-properties did not see this error for their communities.

-We have documentation of a current corporate leaseholder being steered by our RM *away* from our property to lease at others in her portfolio whose numbers were already *above* ours—so blatantly that said corporate leaseholder reached out to me to ask “why in the hell she would do that.”

-We have documentation of our online hours being entirely wrong while, yet again, our in-portfolio sister-properties’ were not. Again, we do not have access to change these things.

-We repeatedly give feedback from prospects about our pricing being over-market to upper-management/ownership, which results in—again—our *in-portfolio sister-properties* seeing price reductions while we see no changes.

-We’re constantly knit-picked and threatened staffing-changes over DRESS CODE items (which are permitted through the employee handbook, by the way, but ultimately left up to the RM’s discretion), meanwhile our Community Manager is asked to help at an in-portfolio sister-property whose staff is wearing items we were specifically told weren’t appropriate (cardigans, cowboy boots (Texas), property-branded polos, etc.

Sadly, the list goes on, and on, and on, and *on, and on, and on.*

We’re wondering what your perspectives are given the circumstances—Maybe we’re pushing back too hard; maybe we’re just being too sensitive; maybe we’re just a shit staff despite accolades, consistent praise from residents, etc. Who the hell knows. At this point, we’re just completely defeated—from Community Manager to ACM to Leasing to part-time Leasing—and need some outside perspectives without stirring the pot in the company (involving HR lol).

If you made it to the end, bless you lol. Please help :,)