Any Experience with Renters Warehouse

[Jamal Tyree]

I'm turning the corner on getting my house ready to rent.  Lesson learned pay others to do the time consuming labor. No matter..

Does anyone have any experience working with Renters warehouse.  My main goal is to get this house rented so I can start shopping for my first duplex... I'm not asking you to bad mouth or anything.  I'm just looking for some real world reviews before I sign the dotted line.

[Ronald Perich]

Originally posted by @Mark Totzke:

Hi - I use Renters Warehouse to manage one of my single family homes in MN. They have managed the property for three years now and they have been great to work with. They are pretty cheap ($80/month) and I have had good luck with them funding qualified tenants. The fee for finding a qualified tenant is quite high though, one months rent. If you can find your tenants that will put a lot more money in your pocket. Mark

 I realize Ali Boone just had a great blog post about PMs (the good, bad, and ugly) and how it is worth it to pay them for their services (if they are good). Having just gone through the lease-up process during a winter month, I can tell you that it is time-consuming! And then dealing with the 20% of residents who cause 80% of your time to be used - what a pain. They seem to have this down pretty well with a "less than 1% eviction needed" claim.

It looks like RW is a decent franchise. They seem to have all of the tools and provide a lot of back-end support to their franchisees. 

But I hate lease-up fees. They are counter to the goals of an owner. An owner wants their rentals rented; lease-up fees encourage the PM to let the rental to go vacant so they can get the fee. 

Give me a "low-vacancy" guarantee. If the PM can keep the "rental payment default rate" below 8%, he/she can keep 75% of that difference. If I don't get paid at least 92% pf the rent, for any reason, there is no bonus. That would be a model I could support. 

That model encourages PMs sign long-term leases. That model encourages them to re-lease quickly on a resident-turn. That model encourages the PM to have people pay on time. It also encourages me to keep the maintenance up because I get a bonus for a quick placement and I don't risk getting fired by the PM for maintaining my property poorly. Under this model the PM's financial interests and my financial interests are well-aligned.

Under their current plan, a $12K/yr rental costs me at least $1,960 in fees with no guarantee I have a low vacancy rate. And the PM is encouraged to not to renew the lease so they can earn another $1000 lease-up fee. If it sits empty for two months, they still get paid. And if they don't encourage a re-lease, I have turn costs as well. 

Under this new plan, vacancies and non-paying tenants cost the PM their bonus. They would make less under this plan, but the amount of work they have to do should be lessened because they are really looking for the very best, long-term resident they can find.