Last year Blanket teamed up with the NARPM Women’s Council of Property Managers to develop the Leading Women in Property Management program.
This program brings women role models to the forefront of our industry and showcases their leadership abilities and property management expertise. Our goal is to encourage more women in property management to step up and step forward as mentors, leaders, and to invest in their professional skills. 2025’s theme was She Makes The Difference, which emphasizes the indispensable role women play in each and every property management company across the country.
As part of the program, we recorded professional interviews with all twelve LWPM honorees during the 2025 NARPM Annual Tradeshow and Convention in Orlando. The interviews are finally ready, and we’re very excited to release our interview with our friend, industry leader, and 2026 NARPM President, DD Garzon!
DD shared many great insights
- Market factors: When the single-family home sales market is weak, property management tends to grow as people can’t sell their homes and look to rent instead.
- Challenges of rapid growth: Rapid growth exposes problems, such as lack of proper systems, processes, and teams to handle the increased workload, leading to a drop in customer service quality, higher churn, and high employee burnout.
- Metrics of success: Success in property management is measured by client and resident satisfaction scores, renewed leases, positive reviews, work-life balance for your team, and manageable workloads for your team.
- Importance of industry involvement: The best way to grow in the property management profession is by attending conferences, joining organizations like NARPM, and continuously learning from other property managers and vendors.
- Selling a property management business: If you want to sell your property management company some day, don’t focus on door count. Rather, focus on improving revenue per door, streamlining processes, and building a team that can run the business without the owner’s direct involvement.
Our interview with DD Garzon
Q: What are the top challenges property managers face today?
A: The real estate market where we sit today is a good sales market. And usually when the sales market is weak, property management grows. That’s how my business grew back in 2011, 2012. It grew like crazy because when people can’t sell their homes, they’re now looking to rent. And so what I see is some property management companies are growing at a speed like they’ve never seen before, they’ve never experienced before. When that happens, their operations and their teams sometimes can’t keep up. They don’t have the proper systems and processes in place or the team in place to handle that rapid growth.
And what happens is their business starts to implode because their employees can’t catch up on email. They can’t get back to someone fast enough. In the past they maybe had time to build relationships with clients and residents. Now it’s “let me see how fast I can get through my tasks” and put the communication to the side. Well, when that happens, the quality of customer service drops and then churn happens. So we start to lose doors. And then the team gets burned out. That is what I’m seeing right now. Of course, when the real estate market shifts, our challenges will change again. But you know, that’s what I love about our industry— is it ever changing.
Q: What are the signs of a successful leader in property management?
A: Success as a leader in property management is having a balanced team. And when I say a balanced team I mean team members are on top of their tasks, they’re not overly stressed, they’re not reaching burnout. Clients are happy with us. They’re staying with us. They want to purchase more services from us that we offer. Same thing with the residents. They’re giving us five star reviews and they’re renewing their leases. All of these are metrics that tell us about success.
Q: Best advice for someone getting started in property management?
A: You have to continue to grow with the industry. This industry is evolving very fast. And the best way to stay on top of it is attending conferences. Join NARPM, speak to other property managers, and never stop learning.
When I first started in property management, I had no idea that there was this organization out there. And I built my business for two years on my own, manually on spreadsheets. I didn’t even realize there were vendors who could help me. And then I took a property management 101 class taught by Robert Locke, who’s like a founding father in the Atlanta chapter. He opened my eyes to so many ideas and so many things that I was doing wrong. And at the end of the class, he said, if you want to be successful in property management, you should join NARPM.
I joined NARPM right away, the same day, and it has changed my entire career, my personal development. The amount of education that NARPM provides, which is all accessible online now. It’s incredible. You get educational marketing on, owner relationships, on maintenance, on leasing. You name it, NARPM’s probably got a class on it. So you not only get education from NARPM, you also get the networking by coming to conferences. You get the networking by just calling up another member. It’s an incredibly open and sharing community. My business for sure grew because of the community and also meeting vendors. Every single year, I go to conferences, not only to learn and see my fellow property manager friends, but also to meet the vendors that are out there.
And as I mentioned before, technology is evolving so quickly that even a few months from now, I will go to another conference and there will probably be another vendor with a new technology to offer, or one of our existing vendors with a new product to offer. That part is super exciting for me.
Q: What do buyers look for in a property management company?
A: In 2021, my business was at a point where it was running pretty smoothly. I had a great team, making great revenue, and I wasn’t thinking about selling. I started to when my peers and people who I looked up to in the industry started selling to this company called Pure. Of course, I was curious, like, why? You guys are so respected. You guys have great businesses. Why are you all selling to this company? And if I didn’t have those relationships, I would have never found the opportunity to do that. And selling my company opened up a lot more doors for me.
If you’re someone who is building a company and your end game is to sell it, focus on improving your revenue per door, improving your processes, and getting yourself out of the business. Because if you want to sell your business one day, you can’t say “well, my business can’t run without me so if you’re going to buy my business, you got to buy me.” That’s not how it always works out. So, you build your company, build your team, build your processes so that you’re no longer needed.
About Blanket
Blanket is transforming the property management industry with its innovative platform that helps property managers grow their portfolios and retain owners. By combining AI-powered insights, automated lead generation, and seamless integration with existing property management software, Blanket provides property managers with the tools they need to succeed. Blanket is backed by leading Venture Capital Funds like Foundation Capital, Symbol, Operator Partners, RE Angels, and industry-leading Angel investors. Together, we’re shaping the future of property management.
