Are Property Managers worth the money? Can I do this without 'em

[Curtis Harrison]

Good morning,

I'm a landlord with 1 property.  It's a 4 bdrm and rents for $1950/month.  I have been paying $135/month to a property management company and as far as I can tell, all they do is collect the rent, keep their 7% and send me the rest.  They also collect the money for utilities and pay the utility bills.

Historically, whenever a repair is needed, I either do the repair myself, or I hire somebody to do it.  I've had the property managers estimate repair costs for me and they're usually at least double the price I can get it done for, or about 10x the price if I do the work myself, which I usually do, unless it's a water heater, fence, or something like that.

My main concern is if people stop paying rent and I need to evict them.  Does a property management company take care of those things better than I could with just small claims court, or are they going to charge me all kinds of fees and stuff if they have to do the extra work of evicting somebody.  They charge me about $350 to find a new tenant...

I looked online briefly at Zillow Rentals and am wondering if I could use them to find renters and just let the renters pay me via venmo, or through Zillow Rentals.

Anyway, what's been your experience?  With only a single rental and my tendency to do all the repairs and upkeep myself, is a property management company really worth the monthly fee?  Or should I just do it all myself?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Theresa Harris]

If you are doing most of the repairs yourself, take over the management.  If you need to evict them (this is not something that commonly happens), you can always hire someone to do it.