Advice: Landlord w/ Property Manager headaches - Alternatives?

[Marty G.]

Hi BP!

First off, thanks for reading this and any help you can give would be appreciated.

I own 6 units in 2 houses and going through my share of headaches with a property management company (I know this is, unfortunately, too common).  

Mainly the issues with the PM company are their lack of responsiveness to both me and the tenants, issues with deposits being made on time (moving to electronic soon) and a host of other issues where they don't even visit the properties once in a while to make sure things are ok.  I've had neighbors email me about lingering issues when they haven't been resolved in weeks...

Both houses are easy to manage.  I used to do it myself, for years, and maybe get a call or two every month.  With a job change, I'm just not in state enough (or even in the same time zone as I travel internationally too) to handle it myself.  With the property manager, I like having the buffer between the tenants and myself, so I can have someone act as a mediator if there's an issue.

The problem?  They just aren't handling what they should and I'm hard pressed to continue to spend the money on a manager when they aren't doing what they should and there's probably a better way to handle things that I may realize.  Suggestions?

I was thinking of hiring a handyman and have him be on-call for the minor things and any larger projects could be handled by the contractors I hire.  When vacancies come around, I might ask them to show the apartment for a fee, or just use a realtor to handle that if need be.  

As the PM company is moving towards handling payments electronically, which I can handle with or without them, I'm just trying to figure out a way to get my sanity back without dealing with this non-sense and maybe coming away spending a bit less but getting better responses.  

Unfortunately, I've called around and there aren't many PM's locally (CT) that I can find willing to manage two 3-families (most want business accounts, etc.).  

Just wondering if anyone can think of any arrangements that might work that would give me the buffer between the tenants and myself and maybe make things run smoother without a PM?  

I tried to keep things as brief as possible as I know everyone is busy -- if you need further details, let me know and I'll gladly expand.  

Thanks in advance for any suggestions - I truly appreciate it!