Landlords with 10+ Properties

[Joey Fontenot III]

I wanted to ask all of the landlords that own more than 10 rentals.
Do you manage them all yourself and if so how much time do you spend a week doing it? Do any of you have a property manager and if so how involved are you in the process? Do you live within 30 minutes of all of your properties or do you not find it as important to be so close?
I feel once you get past 5 or 6 properties your time commitment is going to be pretty significant. Of course it all depends on what kind of tenants you have in the properties because 1 bad tenant for someone with 1 property can be more time than 5 properties with good tenants.
Thanks

[Steve L.]

Scaling management is a lot easier then many people think. Up until recently my partner and I managed 65ish SFHs with maybe 10-15 hrs a week between both of us. I'd probably spent another 5 hrs a week leasing up the new acquisitions.

We decided to hire someone full-time after we broke 60 units, so we can can concentrate on acquisitions and flips. He probably does management 75% of time and other tasks for us with the rest of his time.

The factors that I think save a landlord time and money are:

- Tenant selection and related to that the type of product you buy is key. If you pick the wrong tenant, get rid of them as soon as possible.

- Provide a product in average or better condition and fix legitimate repairs quickly. You don't want to give tenants any excuses not to do their job (pay rent).

- Train the tenant from day 1. We give them a "Welcome Letter" that has very specific requirements on how to pay rent, how to report maintenance, etc.

- Get emails and an online management system: Buildium and Appfolio are both great.

- Your length of occupancy and turn time/cost is what is going to make or break your business. Do what you can to keep the good tenants and fill your vacancies as fast as possible.