How to find someone find tenants and screen them for rental

[Joe S.]

How would I go about finding  someone or some company to help with tenant placement in my rentals in San Antonio? I have used property managers in other areas, but they handled everything as well as their 10% monthly cut. I’m looking for someone or an agent to help lease the properties not necessarily collect the rent each month and take 10% for doing so. If you ever did something like this how did you go about finding the right person to work with? I prefer someone with experience in Screening  tenants. Any suggestions is appreciated.

Do agents normally charge half of a month for their fee. I talked to one property manager and said they would find me a tenant and screen them for a fee equivalent to the first month lease payment. The main issue I had with this is that if the tenant stays only one year that  can get kind of pricey. I’m open to suggestions though if this is common I would like to know.

[Jaron Walling]

@Joe S. How many units do you have? If it's a small amount I'd be screening the tenants yourself. Obviously if you have 20+ units that's a lot of work. I'm friends with another investor that has 30 SFH (different market) and he does it all. He remodels properties, screens tenants, and does his own taxes. I think his body produces natural caffeine. I also think he needs another hobby like mission trips, sportscars, or fly fishing but that's my opinion. haha

You could hire a maintenance/handy man in your market that understands real estate. You could pay them for some projects and see how it goes. That's what I do in my market to A: learn more about PM, B: increase my income, C: grow relationships with other investors. I don't screen the tenants but handle the small issues. 

Otherwise you're back to paying 10-15% for a PM company and there's nothing wrong with that if they do a great job.