Outsourcing Landlord Duties Without PM

[Josh Bauerle]

I’m in the process of purchasing 13 total rental units to go with the two I already own.  This is in rural OH and there are truly no good property management options. 

I’m trying to think of ideas to outsource several of the landlording tasks without a true property manager.  Any ideas on tasks like...

Finding tenants- This seems to be the biggest time consumer and toughest to outsource. I’ve thought about finding someone who could simply handle showing the property and screening potential tenants and just get a 50 percent commission on first months rent for successfully placing a tenant. Any other ideas there?  Maybe electric lockboxes that would allow people seeing the properties to look themselves?

Collecting rent- Obviously they can mail the rent, but that still requires trips to the post office and bank and when people don’t mail it I will still have to go knock on doors. Anything I’m overlooking there?  Any good ways to offer them to pay rent remotely?  Most of the units are lower income type properties so several people won’t even have bank accounts. 

Repairs- I don’t see any other solutions here than having a bunch of handy men I can call with repair requests. Any ideas I’m overlooking?

Anything else I can do to reduce my day to day activities in the properties without a full property manager?

[Mike McCarthy]

I agree with the others:

1) Realtor to rent/show the property.  (Though you probably want to do your own vetting and background/credit checks)

2) Cozy to collect rent.  Easy peasy.  If it's really a problem that a tenant doesn't have a checking account, you can use an alternate option like a deposit-slip option at a local bank or I've read that some convenience stores have a "pay now" service where they can send you money on a card monthly.  

3) Find a good handyman who can handle small issues and coordinate larger ones.  This is probably going to be the hardest part to find a good one who you can trust.