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Updated about 7 years ago, 12/12/2017
San Antonio Multifamily Property Manager
Hello all. After acquiring my first smaller multifamily (4 plex) this year I have decided to pursue a larger multifamily unit (10-30 units) in the San Antonio, TX area. I have completed the first part of my path by raising capital, and am now in search of any recommendations on a property management company in the area that would be able to assist in the size of property I am looking for. I have searched a lot of the forum history, and have noticed a lot of the recommendations have been for smaller multi's or single family homes. Does anyone have personal experience with someone who handled a little bit larger multi than can help with some of the acquisition process? Appreciate any information in advanced.
Contact Jaime Sepulveda with Strategic Property Management. He just took over managing a 40 unit property for a client of mine and manages a few of my other client's portfolios... Reach out if you have any questions regarding larger multifamily properties in the SA market.
I own in SA but have my own management company.
Haven't heard of one that others have used and are happy with them, sorry.
No worries appreciate the reply Bruce.
@Bruce Petersen @Thomas Glenn As the nature of Property Management goes, we are dealing with people's HOMES and their MONEY. The two most volatile things you can touch.
What Bruce fails to mention is that most good management companies may not (by choice) touch multi-family units for a lot of reasons.
1) Most multi-family units in this area that you would get into from the 10-30 unit range are deep in the city where rents run between $400 to $700 a month give or take.
2) Bad Tenants can not stand Good Property Managers! We pull credit, background info, don't allow pets, and demand payment on time. Stuff they hate. These people want to cut corners and are looking for the Craigslist owners (slum lords) who will rent to them for zero down and a good story. Our marketing efforts on previous projects went nowhere because potential applicants won't even bother applying because they know our standards are tough.
3) How do we know this? We have managed units as big as 42 units and that was the experience we had in person.
We do offer a Multiple Property Owner program which fits in perfect for investors owning 4 or more units under management with us.....and we could take on a multi-family project with no problem.
However, this program has to make sense for the owner as well.
Bottom line - if it's low rent and high risk - NO management company is going to want to take it on which led Bruce to comment that there are no management companies he can speak of that can do the job.
Good luck out there!
Excellent thoughts Brad Larsen. Most of those size properties are in the “rougher” areas.
I have managed Class B, C, D, and a property so bad it couldn’t be classified, haha. In my experience, you have a lot more hands on as go to various classes.
@Account Closed Thank you for the information as I currently do not own property in the area, and am trying to get a feel for what is going to work heading into 2018. I obviously do not want to acquire a property that a property manager would not only not want to take on, but would be hard to obtain ROI due to operational issues. As property managers if you were to take on lets say even a 40-50 unit property are there specific hard not going to work issues you look for? I mean this outside of obvious things like bad location (war zone)/bad quality tenants due to area (I'm guessing usually due to low rent entrance).
My though process right now is basically to learn to walk before I start to run which is why my general interest has been towards a smaller apartment complex (moving up from a quad plex I manage myself). I do understand the benefits of going larger (onsite managers/economies of scale) once you get to a larger complex, but at this point I am wanting to keep it simple as my experience widens rather then get into a situational where I am working around syndication as well.
Just giving you my opinion of what I am hearing from friends that own in SA and go the 3rd party route.
I'm certain you are wonderful, I just know that there are a lot that aren't. I doubt anyone took my comment to mean that they were out of luck as they all suck.
@Bruce Petersen Bruce - I took it a little hard at first, but realized you have that opinion because you may have not had the chance to work with us (or work with someone who has worked with us).
We focus on Single Family Homes (1-4 units) around the San Antonio Metro.
We manage near 800+/- SFH's and have been the fastest growing PM Company in the market.
Our average home rents for near $1,700 per home. (This is near $400 more than ANY of our competitors)
We have Multiple Property Owner pricing advertised on our site. (Not the "It Depends" pricing model)
Lastly - for anyone interested in having us manage a multi-family project, we would be interested. The real trend we are seeing here is the rise of the duplex. Lots of pockets of land are churning out duplexes instead of MF or traditional one unit SFH's. There are a lot of reasons for this. Those types of units need good management.
The challenges in MF housing will always come down to price per unit. The lower the price, the more challenges. Give us something large in the north part of town going for $1,000 or more per unit - we can impress you. Expect us to handle the $500 per unit complex, we are not even going to touch it.
If you ever have need to refer a management company in San Antonio - let us be the referral company of choice.
Good luck out there!
@Thomas Glenn Yes there may be good ones out there but they will be hard to find. I work for a management company and it really is sad to see what people consider "good work". They do the bare minimum so they won't have people all over them, and don't care about the property so they cut corners all the time. Just please make sure you screen them well, call them randomly at other properties they manage and see how they answer. Go take a look at the properties they manage. There are far too many management companies that do enough to get by and don't have YOUR best interest in mind. They are just there to collect the check and race home at 4:59. There are good ones out there but most of the good ones have very specific criteria and need a sizable enough portfolio to even be interested. Trust your gut and make sure to meet them in person and if your gut says no or something feels off don't go with them. Good luck!
My last comment on this and will then leave it to the experts.
@Michael Guzik said it well when he said that many don't really care and are just in it for what they see as an easy and quick buck.
My analogy is a gold rush or oil boom, everyone is chasing the hot investment sector right now similar also to the tech bubble in the late 90's. Everyone is suddenly a property manager and many have little or no experience.
This market is hiding a lot of bad operators and management companies, when it does finally correct you will likely see a crap load of these companies disappear.
Just please do you due diligence on whoever you choose and be careful. Bad management will ruin the best of deals.
Having said all of this, I don't know the management company guys on this thread and to be fair, they probably are very good at what they do. There are good ones to be found you just have to find them.