It takes an amazing corporate team of talented and dedicated professionals to maintain the high standards of excellence that Karya Property Management’s clients have come to expect . Photo by Gwen Juarez
paper, but a lot of these people are living for free and they don’t pay their rent.” Indeed, the list of challenges grew larger by the day, initially leading to Swapnil feeling that he had made the worst decision of his life. “I had gone from living a nice life in a lovely Hong Kong high-rise apartment condo to sitting in a Class D apartment worrying about my life because people didn’t pay their rent. The air conditioners were being stolen; there were no appliances; there were plumbing leaks everywhere; people were complaining; and I wasn’t getting any rent. I was like, ‘What have I done?’” But Swapnil stuck it out and things improved. “When we bought the Villa Nueva, the occupancy was 65 percent. It was collecting $60,000 per month. By November 2014, we had increased occupancy to 85 percent and the collections had risen to $89,000. We were able to refinance it and double everyone’s money in six months. That gave us a lot of confidence. If we could turn this property around, we could turn any property around.” Marketing efforts also played a huge role in the success at Villa Nueva. They engaged heavily in physical marketing. “Guides
and online marketing are great for A, B, and even C-class assets,” stated Swapnil, “but not for D-minus assets. You’ve got to go on foot. You’ve got to give flyers and stand at grocery stores. There’s a lot of hustle to it.” Another small, yet clever, change made an enormous difference. Villa Nueva was initially known as Nordling Chateau which is a French name. This made no sense as the neighborhood was Hispanic. And so, a simple name change helped them reach their target audience. While marketing efforts certainly contributed toward success, it was the implementation of Swapnil’s vision of revolutionizing the real-estate industry through conscious capitalism that made the real difference. They made sure they fixed the apartments, provided real services, and supplied security and safety. “We were there late at night. If they had any problems, we used to fix them before we left. Nobody had ever done that for them before. We put in a courtesy patrol. Crime went down significantly. These people were used to break-ins twice a week. We put in security gates, and they got a key they had to scan in before they could enter.”
At Karya Property Management headquarters, they even have a security room that not only monitors Villa Nueva but every property they own. Swapnil elaborated, “We monitor the leasing office, the driveways, and staff interactions with tenants. We also track crime. This led to free word-of-mouth advertising that helped our business grow. Once you start making changes, once you start cleaning the house, once you start taking care of the maintenance requests, and once people start seeing the changes, the resident referrals are like a big marketing tool. These tenants started referring their families and friends. About 80 percent of the tenants were Hispanic. They like their friends and family to live close to them. That helped a lot.” Growth has been rapid. Karya Property Management now has 37 apartment complexes and 12,000 apartments across the Houston and Dallas areas. To support this growth, they deploy 400 employees across all properties, including corporate. Swapnil considers all employees family. “I surround myself with people who I’ve known for many years, people who I trust, and people who I love,” [ FEBRUARY 2018 ]
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