This is the final post of a four-part series on how property owners can set goals for their rental portfolios. Check out Intellirent's blog for Parts 1, 2, and 3, which discussed personalizing your strategy, setting meaningful metrics of success, and holding yourself accountable.

At this point, you've set your strategy, established concrete metrics, and given yourself the accountability standards you need to drive for success. The final step is closing the loop and acting on the progress you're tracking and observing. This is a critical final piece because it leverages all the systems and knowledge you've established up to this point: you can transform what you've learned into actionable course corrections to build future success.

So, how do you capture and act on the results of your strategy, metrics, and tracking?

Look for Obvious (and not so obvious) Trends

As discussed in part 3, there are many useful visual aids and graphing techniques you can use to most efficiently digest the feedback you are getting on your strategy. However, sometimes it is hard to see the trends that are right in front of you. For example, you may see a seasonal uptick in vacancy in certain classes of property in your portfolio. If this data matches your preconceived assumptions about the rental market's natural fluctuations, it may be hard to recognize it as a trend that needs attention or mitigation strategies.

On the flip-side, it can also be easy to overlook less obvious or explainable trends in your results. It is important to stay vigilant about unintended consequences and how decisions are playing out in your portfolio's performance (e.g., is there a connection between increased pest control costs and the new sprinkler system you installed a few months ago? Is the increased turnover in units connected to your property manager's new policy on pet fees that was intended to mitigate the cost of carpet replacement?)

Clearly, it takes some connecting of the dots to find relationships between certain inputs and outputs in your strategy. Devoting some uninterrupted time to think through these trends will pay dividends in the savvy management decisions you're then able to make.

Ask Yourself (and Others) What's Missing

The data you've collected on your goals can tell you a lot, but it's also important to ask yourself what's missing from the numbers and metrics. In other words, what's your blind spot? What is a risk or an opportunity you haven't even thought to track? This is the process of identifying your 'unknown unknowns': the things you don't even think to consider because you can't know what you don't know.

In order to capture these important considerations, it is helpful to pull in a mentor, adviser, or coach periodically. Consider having a quarterly update with whichever individuals or team you look to for this type of guidance so they can point out the things that you may not even realize you're missing in your strategy and metrics.

That's a Wrap!

Congratulations on completing this series on setting goals for your rental portfolio. Intellirent is always here to help you on your journey to property management bliss and success!  and feel the freedom you've been longing for.