Resource on remote helper? (To give rental tour)

[Mei Li]

My friend owns a rental property in Fort Myers, Florida while residing out of state and I’m helping him to rent it out. I’m experienced in listing properties for rental and screening tenants. The only problem is I’m not located in Florida to do house showings in person.

I’m wondering what do most of the out-of-state investor do in this situation? Hiring a property manager/realtor is an overkill since we are only looking for help to open doors.

[Austin Drew]

@Mei Li it sounds like you and your friend are using a third party to advertise the unit and due to not being in Ft Myers you need someone to "Show" the property. Allowing yourself to avoid paying the 1 month commission usually paid to the broker.. As Stetson mentioned above tenants are signing sight unseen due to the market demand. However, this can cause a number of problems, such as a tenant complaining about issues not seen from the photos. When a tenant "walks" the property they can not come back and complain about issues due to themselves having seen the property in person before. If a tenant moves in and then notices things they do not like, then move out. You may have to lightly turn the unit due to their selves moving items in and out. In my opinion it is not worth the headache to sign a tenant "sight unseen". I also believe it is going to be difficult to get someone trustworthy to go over to the property multiple times to show the property for less then 1 month of commission. I would just bite the bullet and hire a Agent. I just had to do this on one of my properties in Chicago.