Do You Manage Your Property or Hire a Manager?

[Zach Knoll]

I'm curious about your property management approach. Do you handle it yourself or hire a property manager?

Self-Management:

• Pros: Saves money, offers control, and builds tenant relationships.
• Cons: Time-consuming, stressful, and needs expertise.

Hiring a Property Manager:

• Pros: Saves time, provides professional expertise, and market insights.
• Cons: Costs money, less control, and finding a good manager can be tough.

What about you? Do you prefer managing your properties or hiring a manager? 

[Gino Barbaro]

@Zach Knoll

Great post! We started out self managing, and continued as we scaled. The problem with being vertically integrated is that it will slow you down. We currently have 80 team members on our property management team, and every time we take over a deal, we need to hire staff. Pretty challenging to do, especially during Covid and times of tight labor markets.

We focus on PPU (profit per unit) and are able to manage our properties more efficiently. It all comes down to an investor's goals and what they are trying to accomplish. I've seen a lot of our community members start out with third party, learn their systems, and then bring it in house when they own several hundred units.

I would read the book Small Giants, by Bo Burlingham. It helped us formulate our strategy when we were starting to scale.

Gino