Fired my Property Manager Yesterday / Questions on Next Steps

[Mike Welch]

I am an out of state buy and hold investor located in Northern California with two single family homes in Arizona.  Yesterday, after three years with the same PM, I took the step to terminate their agreement.

The final straw came during a turnover of a tenant.  I inquired three times with the PM if there had been any damage found during their inspection of the property.  The PM did not respond at all, ignoring my emails.  

My October invoice arrived on Saturday and contains invoices for over $1,200 of repairs, fixes, and replacement (property rents for under $800 / month).  The invoice is itemized and contains dollar amounts all right under the threshold for seeking my approval (language in PMA stipulates approval for 'any one item over $300).

Furthermore, the PM decided to take all of the rental income from my second SFH (the owner's draw was, by sheer coincidence, within a few dollars of the line item invoice) to pay for the unapproved repairs, replacements, etc. The PM does this even though there is no bridging agreement between the two contracts allowing her to inter mingle funds.

I have worked with this PM for three years and have looked the other way, ignoring poor communication style, and questionable invoices, but could not ignore their egregious behavior in this transaction.

Moving forward, I am going to try my hand at managing the two properties remotely.  I have a network of contractors and handymen I've built up over the years and can just as easily arrange for them to service these two homes as the PM (without the markup, kickbacks and graft).  I also have a good attorney who could handle evictions if necessary.

The one gap I see relates to placement of qualified tenants.  Does anyone have recommendations for out of state placement?  I'm willing to compensate a local agent to advertise and show the property (or at least provide keys), and then screen tenants on my behalf.  Let me know your thoughts on 1)  the experience wit the PM, and 2) finding good leasing agents in remote markets.

Thank you in advance.