Property managment company?

[leahjade]

We just bought a rental property and were wondering if we should do everything ourselves or use a company? Any advice for experienced landlords? How much do they usually charge? Any extra fees for credit checks, evictions etc?

 

[Trishtack]

We have two rental properties and use a Property Management Company. They charged $500 (in 2009) and now $750 once a lease is signed. This covers all advertising, credit checks, etc. The monthly management fee is 10% of the lease price. There is a $250 lease renewal if the current tenants choose to extend.

Having the management company handle the rentals has been overall great. They handle everything and call us only when there are issues that need repair that are over $100. We have never had any contact with the leasees of either property and one home has been rented for 2 1/2 yrs and the other for 6 months. The management company deals with screening all the applicants. We set our criteria (no pets, etc.) and then we get the apps for qualified candidates. We then make our choice. The management company assumes the responsibility for notifications, HOA non-compliance, and if needed evictions. They inspect the property yearly.

The negatives are that our agent has been replaced a number of times. There is high turnover at the management company and several repairs were made without us being notified. They are to notify us of all repairs but only need approval over $100. On our last yearly statement there were several small repairs that we had not been notified of.

Overall, we will continue to use a property management company (especially as we live in a different state now than our rental properties).

 

[DebMcDonald]

We own a rental property and do it all ourselves, we're about two hours away and after renting it for 15 years, we've only had one difficult tenant that maybe a agency would have caught. We feel doing most of the work ourselves costs far less than we'd pay a management company.

A co-worker at work has a management company for her property and she's always complaining that they are fixing things or replacing things and not telling her and when her invoice comes in she see's the deductions. With the headaches she's had it's not worth it to me.

 

[sookie]

Ours cost 10% of the rent. If they were late, they got 10% of the late fee. We kept 350 in for repairs, if it was over 100 then they had to get our approval.

It was needed for us because we lived so far away. I hated being a landlord and was happy when we sold it!

 

[jackie101]

My husband is a property manager and the crap he deals with 24/7 is crazy.

 

[mombrontrent]

We also own a rental property , soon to be two. We do all the work ourselves as we are only 10 minutes away. I cannot justify paying a management company right now. In the future we plan to own 4-5 rental properties and at that time we most likely will hire a management company.

 

[Colleen27]

When we were renting out our old house we did everything ourselves. We just couldn't justify the expense of a management company since the rent was barely covering our expenses on the property, and we did okay on our own. My husband is a contractor who started out in handyman & apartment maintenance work, so he's comfortable handling repairs himself (he about choked when he saw the minor repairs price list from one of the management companies we considered!), and we didn't have a problem finding a good tenant via an interview and basic background check. All in all it was a good experience even though the circumstances weren't ideal, and we're considering buying another house expressly as a rental investment later this year.