Boot on the ground instead of lame and lamer property managers?

[Michael Klinger]

I am in month 5 into owning 64 units over three properties in the same city, but split between 2 different property management "companies."

I am out of state and sold office building on a 1031 exchange. Otherwise new to multi-family. In addition to trying to run this these properties with local management. As a side note, I also self manage a small business remotely (not real estate).

To say the least I am frustrated with property management company 1: "lame" and company 2: "lamer." 

"Lame" handles matters at the properties okay, but their effort on Appfolio drives me bonkers with basic bookkeeping errors that go in circles. There responsiveness to me stinks. My "manager" recently took 14 days to reply to a email with 5 bullet points that needed attention. To this day. Only one of those items has been addressed. If I hear one more time "I'll try to call you but I'm closing 8 properties today, so it's going to be tough" I'm going to punch a hole through the wall.

"Lamer" is even lamer. As my communication has become increasingly heated, main contact swears they are working their "A**" off for me. But aside from what I perceive as their incompetence in almost every aspect, they are also an accounting disaster zone. They use Rentmanager and royally fowl up all the time and I have to show them all the mistakes. I mean how can you F-up only 30 book entries a month? Plus they really stink at the rest of it too. And they don't answer their phone or emails with any regularity. Makes me wonder how the tenants feel. Did I mention they stink at their jobs? I have to say, they are pretty lame, too.

Also -- I haven't received any money yet on any of it as it's been a rough ride in the beginning. I am not pegging this on management, but its not helping.

I need a change. Fast. I know I can get another company or two, but I am concerned about just ending up with more of the same, with a lot of disruption.

Here's what I'm thinking... I can do this better myself. Until these units stabilize, I can enter my own books and bypass ALL of the bookkeeping nonsense. I'm happy to take a front line position on anything possible. 

All I need is a local assistant to be my boots on the ground that I can locate and trust to handle thing there.

As I said,  I manage an unrelated business in another state remotely, so remote management is not new to me. 

Thoughts?

[Caleb Heimsoth]

You need a new PM and just one PM. Don’t have two PMs for the same area. Second my advice would be to use a PM who only does management. A lot of PMs will do a lot of sales, sometimes flips, run their own rentals etc. you need someone who does only property management.

The other thing you should think of doing is bringing the PM in house, especially if you plan on buying more units.

Pay then a fixed 6-8 percent of gross rent and maybe quarterly bonus or something like that. (Likely should be in the 40-50k) range depending on area. This would save you headache going forward