Ohio Property Management - more hands on approach

[Jake Recz]

Sometimes investing out of state is the only way to get decent cashflow. I suppose a lot of out of state investors want to be hands off. Now, what happens if you have a property manager, but you would like to be more hands on? If you don't wanna to just get a 1099 at the end of the year? 

When I do purchase out of state, I'm gonna have to hire a property manager. There is no other way around it. Let's say that the property manager finds a qualified tenant and decides to rent to them. Personally, since it's my money thats invested into the property, I would like to review every tenant application personally and work with the property manager on choosing the best qualified tenant. If I can't meet them, at least I wanna be able to review them. Sometimes if you wanna do something right you gotta do it yourself. Obviously as an owner you're gonna be more vigilant than a property manager who has another 500 properties to look after. How does it work from the property managers perspective?

Personally I would like to:

-Review every tenant application and make the ultimate decision on who to rent to (I had tenants who were well qualified but couldn't come up with a deposit on time. Big red flag... )

-Have to approve every single repair request, no matter how small (for example if a tenant damages the closet door for the 3rd time in two months, obviously I'm not gonna keep having somebody come out, keep fixing it, and charging me)

Are there property managers out there in the Cleveland, Ohio area that are willing to work with owners like that? It may be a silly question, but I never dealt with a property manager before. 

As I said before. I don't want to be completely hands off. I like to maintain control of my rentals AND tenants. Personally visiting the property at least once a year for an inspection to be included. Just as if there is a major fix that has to be done to the property. If I can fix something myself over the weekend for $300, obviously I'm gonna come out and do it myself, instead of paying a contractor who may wish to charge me $3000 for the same job. NJ to OH may be a trip but it isn't THAT far. I can drive those 7 hours straight non stop, plus I like driving :)

Your insight and experiences are greatly appreciated. I'd love to hear from out of state investors and property managers alike. 

[Gwen Fyfe]

I am not a professional property manager. (I manage seven rentals of my own.) But I am in professional services. I do bookkeeping, accounting and tax preparation.

My first reaction is that... you sound like a nightmare client. You are the client who is going to look at what I did for you last year, and try to replicate it on your own, then present me with a mess that's going to take hours/days to untangle and tell me you should be charged less because you did some of my work for me. I don't want to work with that client. And you don't want to be that client, because I'll spend as little time talking to you as possible.

Or, if you were my boss, you'd be the micro-manager.

But, I get where it comes from. This is an area you're not that sure about yet and you're hiring a new person who you don't know to manage something that you're sinking a lot of money in to. I think most good professionals will expect to do a little hand-holding at the start. But I don't think you're going to find many who are enthusiastic about you wanting to re-check all of their work long term.

Why not treat it like hiring any other employee? Interview a few different ones, see who you trust the most, ask them to run everything by you for the first three months, and after that probationary period, decide whether you want to keep them. If you do, let them do their jobs.