Factoring in Property Management is Overrated

[Lee G.]

Is factoring in property management into your investment spreadsheet overrated?

Cons of property management: I always care about my property more than property manager, lower ROI, and the probability you lose touch with what is going on in your properties.

I believe part of building the team is to have a great ppl you can call who will take care of tenant issues. Why have a middle man who you pay 10% of rents?? Further you have the risk of them screwing you.

 I've been a landlord for over 7 years and find it easy.  I am not handy, but I know how to pick up the phone and call someone to handle it. From a cost-benefit perspective, I don't think it makes sense. its really not difficult to handle tenant calls!   With technology advances even in the last 10 years, being a landlord (if  you utilize basic modern technology ) is even easier.  

Am I completely off?  With 10% of rents I'm saving, it gives me a margin for error to not have to penny pinch my plumbers and handymen.  

[J Scott]

To each his own.  Some people like creating jobs for themselves, and others prefer passive income.  If you want to do your own property management, go for it.  But, many of us prefer to spend our time not having to deal with tenants, contractors, HOAs, etc.  For us, having a property manager is an easy decision.

Btw, you can use this same argument to avoid ever hiring employees in your business.  Pretty hard to scale up if you're not willing to hire people to support your business efforts...  But again, perhaps you just want to create a job for yourself and don't care about scaling/passivity.  In that case, you can certainly do everything yourself.