Is a commercial property management company necessary to scale?

[Adam Craig]

I am relatively new to commercial real estate with 4 buildings under my belt in 3 years. So I am learning as I go and would love you to critique what I am about to say.

In my 8 years of residential single family rentals I had 3 different property managers early on and non of them did a good job, at all. At some point around 2018, my involvement in my real estate business went from part time to nearly full time. I do not have a day job, just another business I own and I split my time up rough 80/20 (real estate/other).

This is when I decided to ditch my PM and self manage (with my wifes help). Since then, I am getting much higher rents, filling units quicker, and tenants are getting work orders resolved faster and for less. Not to mention saving 30-40k a year in fees. My goal is not to self manage much longer since I am approaching 65 doors. I want to bring on a part time employee to work in house as the PM in addition to other tasks. Not only to save money, but to have better control over things unlike when I hired out property management companies and I was just a drop in the bucket.

So far, I have taken this same approach to commercial real estate. I see SO many vacant units in and around my buildings that stay vacant, but we are able to fill our spaces up much quicker. The only thing I can think of is that I work much harder at finding tenants then a PM with dozens and dozens of properties. Know one is going to care about my properties/tenants the same way I do and I understand that. And for me to pay them a hefty fee to do a lesser job does not sit well with me. I feel I can train a part time employee who can nearly work from home to do a better job for less in the near future.

Thoughts on this?