Options for financial recovery from former tenant

[Robert Leitner]

Hey BP, 

I had a tenant that decided they weren't going to finish out the lease, and they didn't pay the last month of rent claiming that the security deposit will cover even though the lease clearly states that's not allowed. They also left the place in very poor condition where I had about $5k worth of repairs. I do have a property manager, and they added up all the repairs, last month of rent, time spend off market fixing the place, and send them a final statement once deposit was subtracted. The tenant has ignored it and refuses to pay. It has been 30 days and the property manager's process is to now send to a collection agency. My concern is the collection agency will take 40% of what they recover, which means the best case scenario is I'd recover 60%, and that only if they get all of the money. This is my first time dealing with this situation, what other options do I have to recover my costs?