charleston west virginia

[Alex Case]

Hello- Anyone with experience in this town? looking for recommendations on real estate, contractors and property managers. thanks 

[Jobie DeVinney-Walsh]

Since 2001, we have had 3 rental properties in Charleston. I'll start with the good news: On average our tenants stay for 7 - 10 years. Since the maintenance and repairs necessary when a tenant leaves and the lost rental income when property is vacant this is a real plus. 

48% of the residents in Charleston are rentals, so there is a fairly large population of possible tenants.

And the city is great to work with when there are issues.

The bad news: If you're expecting to buy properties, rake in the income while a management firm does the work, don't. We've had three different management firms. All have had their good points and their bad. But, none of them kept sufficient oversite to keep us out of trouble. In one instance, a friend drove by one of the houses and found it empty. The tenants had moved out, without notice, 2 months earlier. A good management firm would check within a week when the rent wasn't paid. 

In another instance, it cost us around $18,000 in repairs to the house. it took 2 dumpsters to remove trash and garbage, four trips from pest control to kill all the bugs, replacing a refrigerator (that was  only just over a year old), and more. If the management firm had visited every two months, as we requested, things would not have gotten that bad. Due to serious health issues, we know the family was struggling. So we offered to pay for a monthly cleaning service to help out. It would have been cheaper for us if they had taken us up on the offer.

These are just two of the worst situations we encountered. There are more.

To be fair, I understand that several management firms were closed due to retirement, and the remaining firms were left to pick up hundreds of rental units. It can be overwhelming.

So, if you choose to invest in Charleston, be prepared to be proactive. Don't assume things are being done in your behalf. Nag the managers to do what you want and request photos of the before and after. My husband was in the construction trade (HVAC) and knew what it took to keep the mechanical systems of a house healthy. He kept track of when routine maintenance needed to be done and scheduled HVAC maintenance directly with a firm he chose.

Hope this is helpful.