General Landlording & Rental Properties
Market News & Data
General Info
Real Estate Strategies
Landlording & Rental Properties
Real Estate Professionals
Financial, Tax, & Legal
Real Estate Classifieds
Reviews & Feedback
Updated about 5 years ago,
Problems with property management duo. Need some serious advice..
We started investing in upstate New York area right after the correction in 2009. Since then, me and my partners acquired several properties in C and D areas. We also have some in B areas. Our property manager that we selected back in 2009 was pretty good. However, he got married two years ago and his wife now handles leasing and evictions. She's horrible. She doesn't respond to voicemails, texts or emails. He doesn't respond to them either. We tried replacing them last year on a rehab, and the company we picked was actually worse than these two. As for the guy, I have no issues with him. However, my partners want to get rid of them ASAP. I am trying to be the voice of reason here as we tried to replace them after we purchased another property last year, and that mamangement company was even worse, so we moved it back to him and his wife. We've sold off five of the one's that were in not so great areas, and have another 7 in not so great areas, and 3 in really good areas. We plan to get rid of the remaining 7, but keep the other 3. I just do not know how to proceed. Since we're 200 miles away, it's not possible to manage ourselves. We do collect the rents though. All other areas we work out of we control and manage directly. Here are the issues at hand.
1) Communication issues are not the greatest right now. This happened right after he hired his then girlfriend to manage the office. He promised things would get better, and it did. Now, as his wife, it's very bad. Even I would e-mail them and get no response.
2) His team has been managing a rehab that we're doing in partnership with a city government in Ballston Spa, so we are stuck with him on that until it's done. Still a few months away.
3) We have 3 evictions, which no one can get an update on. I know each have been served, but we cannot get an update.
4) We have 4 empty apartments. We do not see them advertised online, but they both say they are. We see expired listings, so through Appfolio we added the listings for the vacant units to rent. We've must had sent over a dozen leads, but they do not follow up with them.
5) We have 4 of those 7 buildings under contract for sale. Two might fall through because of repair costs that were just found out about. Of course, he's not responding because he's away with his wife until Wednesday. My partner has been dealing with the attorney, and he and his wife have been CC'd on every e-mail. Neither respond with estimates.
I really do not know what to do here. We want to take over the evictions as we've already spoken to two attornies who can get a trial date and get rid of these non-paying tenants. The problem is we are concerned that telling them we're taking over the eviction process will throw a wrench into his work on the construction job he's overseeing for us with the City of Ballston Spa.
I'm at my end of the rope with these two. I've fought to keep them on because we cannot find a decent property management company in upstate New York. We plan to keep the 3 good properties and sell the remaining 7.