Property managment concern

[Andrew Hughes]

I own  one 4 unit property that I have had for five months and have been managing myself, mainly for the experience and because this property seems easier to manage than most would be. Everything has been going really well with this property.

I am currently closing on my second property. I plan to self manage this for a while as well but I know that as I scale I will need property management. Most companies seem to want 10 percent of the rent, which is fine. They also seem to want the entire first month's rent when they place a tenant. This is the sticking point for me. The goal is to have long term tenants and to me this would give the management company an incentive to turn the units as often as possible.  For people that use managers is this an issue?  I worry that this system makes it more profitable for a management company to do a bad job than a good one.