Operations Manager

Reports to: Managing Partner

Type: Full-time

Location: Remote (US), with travel to communities as needed

The bar

This role owns the portfolio's operating results—not merely reporting or coordination.

We operate 10 communities across eight states with 500+ pads and multiple management companies. As the Managing Partner shifts toward acquisitions and capital, everything from closing forward belongs to this seat.

Success has two tests: the Managing Partner can go dark for two weeks without anything breaking, and the portfolio ends each year worth measurably more than market movement alone would explain.

Scorecard

Reviewed monthly and graded quarterly.

MetricTargetOccupied lots added through infill and salesAnnual infill planAll-in cost per occupied lotBelow underwritten budgetCollections (cash collected / billed)95%+ portfolio-wideBalances over 30 daysZero without a filed action or approved, documented exceptionEconomic occupancyCommunity budget; no community more than 5% belowOperating expense varianceWithin 5% by community; written explanation if outsideMissed regulatory/compliance deadlinesZero

Also expected: monthly financials close by the tenth, with no previously unreported surprises.

Decision authority

This role decides without approval:

• Operating spend up to $5,000 per community per month

• Eviction filings under the approved delinquency policy

• Vendor selection and pricing under $10,000

• Tenant concessions, payment plans, and write-offs up to $2,500

• Home pricing and sale terms within the approved matrix

• Lease terms within approved rent and screening parameters

Escalate anything above those thresholds; nonroutine legal matters; changes to rent structure or lot count; and anything affecting a lender covenant or investor commitment.

The speed rule: Make reversible decisions quickly and independently. Make one-way decisions—capital commitments, regulatory filings, lender matters, and ending relationships—slowly and with a second set of eyes.

Decisions within these limits do not come back up. Sending the Managing Partner a question that belongs within this authority is a miss.

What this role ownsInfill and home sales

Own the pipeline from vacant lot to occupied lot and rented home to sold home. An occupied lot creates permanent NOI at a fraction of the cost of acquiring it.

• Source new, used, repossessed, and abandoned homes.

• Own per-unit economics: purchase, transport, lot prep, setup, skirting, utilities, and time to occupancy. Know the projected and final numbers.

• Sequence lot prep so homes do not wait on trucks for pads.

• Move rent-to-own leads through conversion before they go cold.

• Maintain chattel-lending relationships so buyers have financing.

• Convert park-owned homes to tenant-owned when it improves the asset.

• Build community marketing through signage, listings, referrals, and on-site managers.

The annual infill plan belongs to this role: build it, defend it with numbers, and achieve it.

Collections

Own the outcome, not just the report.

• Publish a state-specific delinquency policy covering notice, cure, and filing requirements.

• Hold each management company to the policy without being asked.

• Manage collection agencies and measure recoveries against fees.

• Review aging weekly; monthly is too late.

High-stakes projects

Personally own utility conversions, compliance, permits, registrations, entitlements, and zoning.

• Identify requirements early by reading the governing permit, order, registration, or statute.

• Achieve compliance at the lowest reasonable burden to the asset.

• Select and manage engineers, consultants, and specialty counsel.

• Track deadlines with enough lead time for delays.

• Report status before being asked.

Capital projects

• Obtain independent bids.

• Require contracts, insurance certificates, lien waivers, and retainage.

• Match draws to progress and coordinate with lenders.

• Track budget and schedule variance weekly.

• Inspect the work; contractor photos alone are not inspection.

Dispositions

Maintain sale readiness: clean financials, current rent rolls, resolved delinquencies and compliance items, and documented capex.

• Assemble diligence materials and manage the data room.

• Answer operating questions accurately and promptly.

• Address issues before buyers find them; disclosed problems cost less.

• Run the management transition at closing.

Third-party manager performance

All management companies report operationally to this role.

• Set standards, run the cadence, and enforce contracts.

• Ensure on-site staff track time in the property management system.

• Train managers instead of doing their work; recurring workarounds signal an upstream process failure.

• Surface and fix contractual gaps that make standards unenforceable.

Financial operations

• Own the monthly close with accounting, completed by the tenth.

• Own annual tax packages and supporting financials.

• Ensure capex is classified correctly.

• Own budget-to-actual results by community and explain material variances in writing.

• Keep books ready for lender packages, investor reports, acquisitions, and dispositions.

Clean books are a fundraising asset, not an accounting chore.

Acquisitions support

• Pressure-test underwriting using actual expenses, turn costs, infill absorption, and collections; identify risks the model misses.

• Own closing transitions: accounts, software, management contracts, resident communication, and day-one operations.

Process, playbooks, and documentation

This is a build role as well as a run role. Repeatable process is the constraint on growth.

Build usable playbooks for collections, infill, vendor and project management, contractor onboarding, acquisitions, dispositions, and the employee handbook. A new employee should be able to execute without a conversation. Use guides, checklists, videos, or screen captures—whatever works.

Keep the operating stack current:

• Google Drive: property journals and documents

• Notion: SOPs and playbooks

• Asana: tasks, projects, owners, and deadlines

• Property management system: accurate operating and financial records

The status of a community should live in the system, not someone's head.

How we operateTruth

Truth over comfort. We would rather be corrected early than right late.

Confidence is not data. State what you know, how you know it, and where you are estimating. Be specific: “collections rose from 88% to 92%, driven by two filings,” not “collections are improving.”

Raising a problem early is never held against you. Concealing one is terminal. Naming a constraint is responsible; accepting it without action is not.

Excellence

Excellence is the passing grade. Results first, process second.

Treat every dollar like an owner. At a 7% cap rate, one dollar of recurring annual NOI is worth roughly $14 of asset value. Both waste and underinvestment destroy value; spend deliberately.

Practice extreme ownership. If something outside your remit blocks your result, solve it or escalate it. “That wasn't mine” is not an outcome.

Dependability

Commitments have a written owner and deadline. Deliver and notify the person waiting. Communicate any delay before the deadline.

Move with urgency while applying the speed rule: fast on reversible decisions, deliberate on one-way doors.

Operating protocol

Meetings: Circulate context and an agenda beforehand. No preparation or agenda means no meeting. If a Loom or email would work, use it. This applies to everyone, including the Managing Partner.

Weekly commitments: Identify the three outcomes that would make the week successful. Updates open with those commitments, each result, and one honest line about every miss.

Definition of done: Define completion before starting. Stay firm on the outcome and flexible on the method.

Transparency: We do not hide from one another, investors, or residents.

What this role is not

• Not a reporting or coordination seat; status updates are not results.

• Not an analyst; financial work is owned, not performed line by line.

• Not the Managing Partner's inbox; authorized decisions are made, not forwarded.

• Not property management; this role manages the companies that perform it.

Requirements

Required

• 5+ years operating multifamily/manufactured housing or portfolio operations at a firm with 1,500+ units

• Experience managing third-party property managers, not only direct staff

• Multi-state collections and eviction experience

• Capital-project experience involving contractors, bids, and draw schedules

• Fluency in property-management software (Rent Manager preferred; AppFolio, Yardi, or Entrata acceptable)

• Strong P&L judgment and ability to identify incorrect line items

• Understanding of sponsor economics, including waterfalls, preferred returns, and promote

Preferred

• Manufactured-housing experience: lot-rent economics, park-owned and tenant-owned homes, chattel lending, infill, and utility submetering

• Demonstrated record placing and selling homes

• Experience at a firm under 50 people where systems had to be built

• Acquisition and disposition transitions

• Regulatory and environmental compliance work

How this seat creates value

The firm receives value through four channels: management fees, GP promote, acquisition capacity created by freeing the Managing Partner's time, and avoided losses.

Above the preferred return, promote makes marginal operating gains unusually valuable to the sponsor.

You will be graded on operating performance—not exit timing or cap rates outside your control. But understanding these economics matters, which is why compensation includes promote participation.