Meet Ed Hochman of Hawk Management

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ed Hochman.

Ed, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
When I first entered the field of property management 15 years ago, I started off as the person who was in charge of taking the work orders from the tenants and making sure that the maintenance technicians completed them. After about 4 months of doing that I noticed that while I was handling the complaining tenants, the leasing consultants were showing new tenants the apartments and getting a nice commission check for signing them up. I quickly asked if I could start showing the apartments as well. At first my manager was very hesitant to put me on the leasing floor because I had not been properly trained, but I begged and eventually she let me, I leased more apartments than any of the other leasing consultants, and when the secret shopper showed up to do his inspection, I received the top score out of all the leasing consultants on the leasing floor.

A couple years passed, and the property that I was working at was sold and the apartments were slated to be converted to condos. The company I worked for, offered me to transfer to another property they owned in mid-city and to become an assistant manager. I moved to the new property and then a week or two later, the on-site manager who was supposed to train me suddenly quit. I was left on my own to manage the building and had to figure out everything.

A few months later, the manager I had at the first property called me and asked me if I wanted to come work for her again as a property manager for a property down in Lakewood. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, because I had just been accepted to UC Irvine and wanted to live somewhere in the middle between school in Irvine and my friends and brother in Los Angeles.

I managed a large property of 206 units in Lakewood while going to school. During my time at the property we conducted a complete renovation of the entire property. I received numerous rewards for exceeding the budgets set by the company and was even awarded the title “Manager of the Year”. I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a bachelors degree in Political Science and continued on to the MBA program at Loyola Marymount University. While studying for my MBA, I was asked by my boss to take over the management of another 565 unit property that was adjacent to the property I was managing. I of course took the challenge.

Upon completing my MBA, I was hoping to move up and become a regional manager for the company, but unfortunately there just wasn’t an opening. I started searching for a regional manager position and found one in West LA working for a privately held company. At that company, I managed close to 1000 units and my territory extended from the San Fernando Valley down to Orange County. The owner of the company was ill and as such I practically managed the company for him.

When he passed away, his son took over, and I felt that it was time for me to move on. I sat with my older brother at Baby Blues in West Hollywood, and on the back of a napkin we calculated how many units I would need to manage in order to break even with the salary that I was making back then. At the time, it was approximately 200 units. I left the restaurant with mixed feelings. On one hand, 200 units didn’t seem that many, but on the other hand, I didn’t even know where I was going to find my first client. I started speaking with everybody I knew and with complete strangers about my intention to open a property management firm and soon enough I got my first client.

With hard work and a lot of dedication I started collecting more and more clients, I have since exceeded the goal I set for myself and raised the bar to a new level.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It required a lot of hard work. There were many struggles along the way.

The main struggle was finding new clients, but somehow, I was able to overcome that and today we have people calling us asking four our services.

Another issue I had was that I could not afford to have employees even though I really needed them. So, I continued working very long hours. I worked 18-20 hours per day and was extremely driven to succeed. Just this past week, I was able to hire a second employee. She is part time, but will soon become a full time employee.

Decision making was nerve wrecking. I was used to working for bigger companies where all the processes were already in place, and suddenly I found myself having to make decisions such as which software to use and what insurance company to choose, etc.

Please tell us about Hawk Management.
We are a property management firm. We manage primarily residential properties in Los Angeles County. We also manage a couple of commercial properties. We are a small company, but we take pride in thinking and operating like a big company (without the bureaucracy), except we hold the values and service level of a small company.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I may have invested more money in the beginning to grow quicker. I would have maybe taken a loan so that I could afford to have employees sooner.

I would have taken a little more time to make better decisions so that I wouldn’t have had to redo some things. For example, at the start I chose a cheaper management software company which we recently replaced. The new software is worth its cost and saves us a lot of time and headaches.

Contact Info:

• Address: 18375 Ventura Blvd., Suite 712
  Tarzana, CA 91356
• Website: www.hawkmgmt.com
• Phone: 424-777-9848
• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hawkmgmt/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/hawk-management-los-angeles

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