Self Property Management -

[Jesse Kerr]

Question - How many of you invest out of state and manage personally without a property manager?  If you are doing this, how are you handling "boots on the ground" when tenants need to see properties etc? 

[Zeb B.]

I have 2 houses and a duplex out of state that I own and manage myself. I usually visit each property 1-2 times per year. Long term, responsible tenants really help when self managing an out of state property.

I'm still on my first set of tenants on two of my out of state units (6 years and 5 years). I have turned over the other two out of state units a few times over the years. If you have to turn your units over every year, or if your property does not attract responsible tenants, it might be hard to justify the hassle of managing them yourself.

Managing the properties is pretty easy when you are not turning them over to new tenants. I make sure that prospective tenants know that when there is a maintenance issue they will need to to give the service tech access to the house. When a tenant calls me with a plumbing issue, I call a local plumber and have them coordinate with the tenant on service call timing.

When it's time to turn the place over, I advertise it for rent for about 10 days before I start showing the property. Anyone replying to the ad gets an emailed questionnaire to pre-screen them. After I have a list of prescreened prospective tenants, I set up 6-10 appointments for showings on a Saturday. I fly or make the long drive out to the property and show it 6-10 times on a Saturday. By the end of the weekend I usually have 3-6 applications. I do my screening and approve a tenant. I usually go back to the property for a weekend to check out the property after the outgoing tenant moves out and to hand over the keys to the new tenant.

Sometimes I end up paying through the nose to get simple issues fixed because I can't be on site to deal with them, but it's still cheaper than paying a property manager for all the months when there are no issues. I make sure I'm very responsive to issues so tenants want to stick around and are willing to be accommodating to the fact that I can't run over there and let the service techs into the unit myself.