Just Fired My Property Manager

[Kenneth Garrett]

I hired my first property manager and it was a terrible experience.  I only signed a 5 month agreement so I could test the waters.  It only lasted 4 months. 

Tenant we inherited never paid and the property manager never informed us.  Two months went buy and I called about progress and the response was "Oh did you want to know about that".  Really!  When we had a vacancy I had to tell them to place an ad.  They just never seemed to have any urgency for anything.  When tenants were late in paying they had that no big deal attitude.  We'll collect it.  We tested the management by having someone call to schedule an appointment.  They weren't even sure which property was ours.  They did not ask any questions or provide attributes of the property.  When we didn't show for the meeting as we were inside the unit, the management member never got out of his car to check the unit to make sure it was presentable.  He never called to see where the applicant was.  He just sat in his car on his phone and then left.  No Big Deal.  That was the last straw.     

I have self managed prior to this experience.  At some point I will need to hire a good manager as I am at about the limit for managing units.  I will take much more time interviewing property managers to select the right one.  I know what it takes to manage so I chalk this up to another seminar (learning experience) as Rod Khleif would say.

Would love to hear any feedback on your experiences with Property Managers.      

[Kyle McCorkel]

Kenneth Garrett
Congratulations! I just fired a PM for the first time and it felt good! I think unfortunately that sometimes PM companies change and just have trouble maintaining good processes and good people. That's what happened to me - they were great 18 months ago but since then they churned through multiple key people and with all the turnover things just fell through the cracks. At that point I just said enough is enough.