Property Management on Midsize Multi-family Complexes

[Simcha Davidman]

Hello all (and thanks in advance!),

I'm looking for midsize apartment complexes (10-50) units, and I'm having some difficulty budgeting for property management expense. Here is my understanding:

On sfr and small multi-family, pm would usually run 8-12% of rent collections, plus incentives such as leasing commissions, renewing commissions, evictions, etc. On larger complexes (50+ units) that support full time pm, they usually charge 3-5% of collections, plus salary of those employed. Additionally, the full time staff should be able to handle most repairs, which means that you don't have to bring in outside vendors for every little issue, hopefully reducing the r&m expense, as well.

Assuming that's correct (please let me know where I'm wrong), what about these in-betweener complexes of 10-50 units? They don't really support full time employees (at least not a maintenance tech and a leasing specialist), but paying the higher percent to a pm company in addition to leasing incentives seems like it will add up to an awful lot.

Any and all feedback, information, direction, etc. would be greatly appreciated!

[Frank Procopio]

50 is actually sometimes the most difficult to manage because you don't need a full time manager or maint  person but often need close to that. Trying to find an onsite manager who would reside there and handle all duties usually works out really well in that size building.