Self managing long distant rentals

[Samuel Bergeron]

Hi everyone, I’m a fairly new member to BP so I thought I should take advantage of the community and get some advice. I currently have 5 doors in Cornwall, Ontario that I manage myself. I plan on moving to Toronto in the next 4 months which is about 4 hours away. I don’t really want to get a property management company to manage my doors, the company here doesn’t have the greatest reputation. I figured I can manage the properties myself with some helping hands. What I am wondering is how much would you pay someone to do drop by visits if there is anything that needs to be handled at the units? Would it make sense to pay a monthly fee even if they don’t have to go by the units or just drop by fees. Cheers!

[Ming Lim]

Hi Samuel - Welcome to BP.  I used to pay someone a flat finders fee of one months rent to lease up a property. It was the going rate in Waterloo at the time. I don't use them anymore however.

If you're looking to make your long distance property management more effective check out The Ontario Landlord Toolbox by Quentin D'Souza. Great Ontario specific advice on systems and processes to minimize your efforts. 

[Christine Kankowski]

What you need is a great handyman.  With the money you are saving, you can also take a trip out there every once in a while to see the place or handle any needs you have. 

Pay someone to place a tenant for you and draw up a good lease with a credit and background verification. You can collect rent yourself and handled the administration of the repairs remotely. 

In between tenants, you may ned to go out there to property assess the condition of the place to refund the securty deposit, but you can do it yourself if you are knowledgable about the laws, etc. 

[Luc Boiron]

I had a friend who paid a local real estate agent to check in on his properties and deal with the tenants. He paid her around $75 per month flat fee, and I don't think that included leasing it when it was vacant.

[Ronda R.]

I use Cozy to place ads for vacant properties and screen potential renters there. I field the calls via google voice so I have a local area code (they don't know they are calling California) and then I pay someone to show the house a flat $25 every time they show it. I also pay them to do a walk through and then send me the signed lease agreement after they sign. They send it to me, I sign and then email a scanned copy back to them.

I have been there so frequently in the past year that I hadn't thought of having someone do walk through occasionally. That is a good idea.