Picking the Perfect Property Manager
Having a property manager can be a great asset to you because they handle all of the day to day needs. This will take a lot of stress and things to do off your plate, but picking the right property manager for your properties is crucial to your peace of mind. People do business differently and having a property manager that manages properties with how you envision your property being handled will ensure a smooth and successful relationship.
- Referrals
As with pretty much anything these days, referrals should play a huge role in your choice of a property manager. Referrals help you gauge the property manager’s experience and how they handled certain situations for the person referring them.
- First Impressions
This property manager will be the face of your company or property to potential and current tenants. Pay attention to your first impression of the potential property manager: are they well spoken? Are they professional? Would you rent a house or apartment from them? Trust your first impression, if you are not confident that this is the exact right fit for your properties, pass on that applicant and continue your search.
- Find Out How They Handle Advertising, Vacancies and Conflict
Advertising is critical to ensuring that when your property is vacant it is rented again quickly and that the tenant is qualified. Some questions to ask are:
- Where does the property manager advertise homes?
- Do they have a website? Do you like the website?
All properties will have vacancies at some point, so understanding how the property manager deals with vacancies is good information to have. Questions to ask are:
- What is their turnover process?
- Cleaning crew
- Walk throughs with tenants
- Determining how much to deduct from the deposit
- Do they require a lease? This may seem odd to include in vacancies, but if an owner has multiple properties knowing that their tenants are on a year lease or 6 month lease gives you the owner peace of mind. This helps lower the odds that multiple properties will be vacant at the time.
Your property manager may have to deal with some uncomfortable situations at some point: tenants not paying their rent, tenants ignoring the rules of the property or an eviction. Having an organized and level headed property manager that can take a tense situation and not escalate it makes life easier for everyone. Referrals will be very helpful in this aspect because you can see what experience they have when things didn’t go as planned.
These are some basic things to think about before hiring a property manager, the most important thing about hiring a property manager is that you are 100% comfortable and confident that they will do an excellent job representing you as the owner.
