February 2010 Special Issue - The Property Management Buying Guide
A reference to assist in making the right choices

In a challenging economy, vendor selection becomes an even more critical issue for the property management industry. A myriad of companies are key components to the success of your communities, essentially serving as your partner, all during the year. Regardless of the product or service provided, they can have a dramatic effect on resident retention, maximizing staff efficiency and, of course, the financial bottom line.

Factors such as price and delivery are naturally key elements in the process, however additional facets of equal or greater importance include integrity, personal attention and exceptional service - all part of the formula that will continue to enhance the quality of your companies and communities. It can sometimes be an arduous task to disseminate the huge amounts of information presented by suppliers when making choices, which can also be significantly impacted by references from their current clients and your peers.

This special issue of The APTS Magazine is dedicated to those companies we strongly believe to be among the very best in the business. While we have spotlighted many of them on occasion with articles and other information, our goal is for The Property Management Buying Guide to serve as a comprehensive reference for you.

The Directory on pages 6 & 7 will give you an at-a-glance look to locate the product or service you may be seeking. On the following pages, each company is provided an expanded forum to more fully describe in detail the benefits they have to offer.

The Property Management Buying Guide presents expanded information of those companies who provide virtually every product and service used by apartment communities throughout the year. In addition, their contact information, including web site and telephone number, is listed at the top of each page.

To offer further use of the Buying Guide as a daily reference, we have listed each of the regional and national industry organizations on pages 96-99. It is our sincere belief that interaction with your peers at events provided by all the associations can only benefit and enhance your industry knowledge. Included with all contact information is a listing of the staff, officers, board members and, of great importance, a current calendar of events for 2010.

Beginning with the very first issue of The APTS Magazine, our goal has always been to educate, inform and entertain our readers in the property management industry. The most important principle we established right from the start was to ensure that the companies who advertise with us are held to the highest standards.

Therefore, our readers can feel secure, and know for a fact, that each and every one that is in our program can be counted upon to provide superior products and services to the industry. It has always been our mandate to only allow those that meet and exceed certain criteria for The APTS Magazine to strongly recommend and advocate them to you.

Every company in every issue is researched thoroughly so that we are confident they will provide excellence and integrity to their customers. Only those who have been highly recommended to us by management companies that have successfully used their services or those with whom we have had our own similar experiences are considered. In the event that a company contacts us with whom we have little, if any, knowledge, we will require references in addition to conducting our own research as to their reputation among our peers.

We strongly encourage you to keep The 2010 Property Management Buying Guide in a convenient area so that you can easily refer to it throughout the year. As so many of our readers have come to rely on us to provide information about what is going on in the industry each month, you can feel equally confident that the companies who grace the pages of this issue will provide you with the best products and services currently available.