Property Management Companies.

[David McBrayer]

Property Management Companies, you can't live with them and you can't live without them.  Hello everyone, David here.  As a disabled person I must use a property management company.  I can no longer lift heavy things or swing a hammer or look up to the sky for to long.  The titanium in the neck don't like it.  Or the lower back.  So I must use a PM these days.   And I am experiencing a problem with our property management company we have.  We until the end of the month and then we switch to a new one.  It was the first PM Company we hired and they stunk. LOL  The new one is actually already handling any problems that may come up and using their vendors.

We have 6 investment properties / rentals in Winter Haven, FL.  We hired a local PM Company to manage them for us.  The sad part is, the owner of the company was good friends with my dad growing up.  But he got injured and this company has just went down hill and they do not do what they said they would do.  I probably have a good case for a law suit.

We started with one property and added a few more in which the PM got the commission on for being our agent.  Then he owned a paint company and would paint them.  He had his fingers all in our wallets.  But that was not the bad part.  We soon had 4 rental units that he placed tenants in.  All placed by him and no other realtor.  So he got have the first month on them all.

Well out of 4 units he rented for us? two of them we had to boot the people out. One the HOA forced us to evict them and the other one we are still in the process of evicting them for failure to pay their rent. Hopefully at the end of next week we get them out. A judge is signing off on it now. And both these tenants were personal friends of his. One tenant ended up letting his brother live there who had a 30 page rap sheet and was slinging out of the property. The one we are evicting now, he did not do a back ground check on them as we were told we be done on all renters. He did not even get their SS# for us. This PM has cost us thousands of dollars. He is also advising his friend on how to stay in there as long as he can for free. But we are about to fix that.

So good property management companies are a tough find.  Ones that actually do what they say they will do.  It takes a team and not just one person.  The company we just dumped was recommended to us by a friend of my dads.  I will not make that mistake a recommend them to anyone.  I will warn you to stay away from them.  I have been nice and not mentioned the company by name.  But they are terrible.  We had to ask 6 times for a copy of the last lease they did for us.  And they were also good at telling us a place would rent for X amount of money and then work us to lower the prices for his friends.  Or put new stuff in for them.  I am not sure what all he has done is ethical and the Florida Real Estate Board might want to look into his dealings.  The booking keeping was not right either.

As you can tell, we did not get a good PM Company to start with in Winter Haven, FL, but I think we have a better one now.  A more honest one that has a TEAM and been around a while.  They have actually already had to do some repairs for a few units and had their vendors handle them.  Everything has went smooth as silk too.

Do you have any advise you may want to share on this ordeal?  I would appreciate it.

Thank you for your time,

David McBrayer

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