One Time Lease from property manager vs. DIY

[Corey Dulimba]

Hello!

I'm working on getting my first rental property and have an offer out currently. I'm thinking about the leasing process and how to tackle it. Originally I was just going to DIY it but, now I'm thinking of paying a property manager to do a one time lease. I plan on doing the property management long term for the property.

The pros for the one time lease is less work for us, especially the driving back and forth to the property for showings ~30min each way, and the expertise since I've never done this before. The con is the 70% 1 month rent cost but, if they can get a good tenant that will stay for more than a year I'm happy to pay that. The other thing I've been thinking about is the old saying "no one cares more about your money/investments more than you" - would I get better results doing it myself?

I would love to hear people success or failures on either approaches or considerations that I should take.

If I were to do DIY what are the sites people use for listing? Are there any big ones I'm missing below or ones not worth it? This is my current list:

- Cozy.co: syndicates to Realtor.com and Doorsteps.com (I would also use Cozy.co for rental application and tenant screening)

- Zillow Rental manager: Syndicates to Zillow, Trulia, and HotPads.

- Padmapper

- apartments.com: syndicates forrent.com, apartmentfinder.com, apartmenthomeliving.com, apartamentos.com