my first duplex would appreciate some good pointers

[Brad Pietrzak]

hey bigger pocket community how is life? OK so my question today, I will be moving to co springs soon I just got out of the navy and am going to college while bunking it with my family. I should be able to get my first duplex while in college pretty easily with my rate of savings. so I actually have a few questions. how should I go about management? should I do it myself while I am in school? my major is electrical engineering so it is not exactly going to be the easiest major. if property management seems to be the best choice how do I go about choosing the correct one? were do I go looking for deals that give over 10 percent returns? or are those to dried up right now because of how hot the market is? I only ask that because my money is in the market currently and has been receiving that over a historical 10 year period with last year actually being a 20 percent return. I would just keep my money in the market until I am done with college and then obtain my first rental but, with how overvalued the market is as a whole, I would like to hopefully hedge even if it is marginally against a huge correction. any advice is welcome and thanks again for being the best!

[Mike H.]

As always, appreciate the service. 

As to whether you should PM it yourself, I would say definitely. In those early years every dollar counts and self managing a property is not as hard as you think. There's a huge difference in self managing versus doing the repairs yourself.

Self managing is incredibly easy and doesn't take up anywhere near the time most people think. If you're doing the repairs yourself then you're looking at something completely different.

But self managing only requires you to handle the vacancies and rent collections and to play phone tag with the tenants and contractors when repairs are needed.  But the time you spend compared with the costs you save are easily worth it.

Train your emails to text or email you. Don't answer the phone. When they report an issue, you need to have a contractor or list of contractors that can fix that kind of problem. Text them (find contractors that are text friendly or don't use them) the problem, the address and coordinate a time that works for them and the tenant. Done.

You'll likely only need to do that 3 or 4 times a year with most tenants. And managing turnover is easy too. Assess the property. Quick repaint - I roll my walls with the same color paint and don't have to cut anything in at all. It takes me an hour a room roughly. And then give your repair punch list to the contractor.  Oh, be sure to buy rekeyable locks so you can rekey the place yourself and stick a lockbox on it. 

I can't imagine giving a PM 100 or 150/mo plus a half or a full month's rent (1300 to 1500) to rent a house out for me.  I can get em rented in 2 to 5 showings.