Multifamily Dive’s Small Manager Spotlight series highlights small, local property managers, offering solutions to issues that operators across the country face.

Peter Jakel has been in the multifamily industry for almost two decades, including working at what was once one of the premier names in the business: Archstone. 

But Jakel's focus wasn’t operations, until recently. Instead, he toiled on the public relations side, serving as a communications manager and then as director at Archstone, according to his LinkedIn. Then he moved on to the multifamily PR firm LinnellTaylor Marketing as vice president of strategy when the Englewood, Colorado, company’s assets were split between its merger partners, Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities, in 2013.

In 2021, Jakel decided to take a leap into property management, starting local Denver-area operator PMI Aspire. He launched the firm in an effort to generate retirement income and quickly built a management portfolio of approximately 1,300 residential small multifamily and single-family doors and more than 2,000 housing association units in Denver and Boulder County. 

“I started with zero doors,” Jakel told Multifamily Dive. “I didn't have anything to manage. I built it to about 165 doors between one and two years. I did it on my own time — over nights and weekends.”

In the beginning, Jakel managed single-family rentals before eventually adding two 30-unit multifamily properties. Then the acquisitions started. He bought a company in Lakewood, Colorado, that managed and maintained housing associations, and purchased a small multifamily management company in Longmont, Colorado. 

Eventually, he started taking on properties from special servicers, which has led to more business. “At this point, I'm scaling up in class B, but right now, they're mostly class C,” Jakel said.

Here, Jakel talks with Multifamily Dive about how class A concessions hurt other owners, the challenges in class C and private equity buying property management companies.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

MULTIFAMILY DIVE: What are the challenges in class C properties?

PETER JAKEL: Vacancy is high in class Cs right now. There are a lot of new builds in a tough spot, especially in Colorado right now. The new builds are doing whatever they can to get people in. So there are a lot of specials and stuff being put out there that the class Cs can't do because they're smaller owners.

Smaller owners can't afford to lose too much of the rent value. So that attracts a lot of people away from the class C into these nicer, newer buildings. There's somebody down the street here that's doing nine weeks free, and it's a really difficult rent market. 

Have the Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions occupancy?

I'll be honest, ICE did have some impact on it, especially in certain markets in Colorado. ICE did show up, and you did see a lot of communities suffer extensive vacancy loss from that. So there is a little bit of that going on.

How do you rehabilitate these properties?

Trying to get them back on track just requires, honestly, helping owners figure out what rents need to be at in order for them to fill the building and what they can afford to do. And you have to manage your maintenance very carefully because you have to go into expense control mode. You have to pick and choose what you can and cannot do at this moment. And then obviously you're going to take care of anything that's affecting habitability.

In some states, that's harder than others, because in Colorado, a resident can say, ‘I'm going to file a warrant of habitability for anything.’ Then you have to provide some response to that warrant of habitability. 

So you just have to manage those expenses carefully and try to cut down on the cost to the owner. And sometimes you choose to defer a piece of maintenance until later to make sure that the expenses don't cause them trouble with paying their mortgage and paying their insurance and paying the expensive stuff that hits them every month.

How are you generating demand at those properties when occupancies are struggling?

You’re offering big concessions, and you're using alternative sources to draw in more leads. You’re using Facebook Marketplaces of the world. You're using Housing Helpers and other organizations that can help you find residents to shore up occupancy. Really, you get extremely aggressive from a marketing standpoint.

In both of my offices, I have a lot of bilingual staff members that can help with residents who are Spanish-speaking and prospects who are Spanish-speaking. You have to be very bilingual in these circumstances. For class C in general, bilingual is almost a requirement. 

Do you see more consolidation coming in property management?

It is now a trend to pursue small businesses in property management. I honestly believe the market is ripe for consolidation because there are many smaller companies and many owners are retiring. They don't have anybody that's going to take over, and they want to find their exit when there’s an opportunity to exit. Honestly, you've seen a lot of private equity firms get into that mix as well. 

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