How often do you want to hear from property management?

[Angela Gilltrap]

I've worked with quite a few property managers but lately, I'm getting inundated with multiple phone calls a day and up to 10 emails from property management about non-urgent matters. Our agreement states they can spend up to $1000 without contacting me. While it's good to be kept in the loop, I feel this increasing barrage of contact is excessive. I want to work on big picture stuff and I can't do that if I'm being dragged into the day-to-day. We have a once a month in-person meeting and I'm happy to chat once a week at a designated time. What are your thoughts? How often do you want to hear from property management? At what point do you end up paying to manage management?

[Marc Winter]

We manage several hundred doors.  We don't call the owner, unless a real emergency; winter freeze-up/flood, blown water heater, tree fell on house, that type of major issue.

We have our vendors/contractors take before, during and after digital photos of all maintenance work, and submit those with the invoice via email.  Of course we keep a record of it all.

Normally, the calls we get from owners concern if/when tenants have paid rent, or when funds will be disbursed (after checks clear).  We email owners if tenant has not paid by 5th of month, but they often still want to speak with bookkeeping about it.

Some property owners want to be informed of every single tenant maintenance complaint, from drip in faucet to neighbor tossing butts on the sidewalk;  those owners want to decide for themselves what to do.  Others don't want to hear about anything under $xxx dollars.

It's all good--the most successful property owners let us do our job and only want to be informed if there is something WAY out of the ordinary.  Of course, our clients receive a monthly detailed accounting of rental income, vacancies, maintenance items, etc.

Hope this helps.