Starting a property management company in Northern Utah

[Wyatt Peterson]

I plan to work under an existing broker's license and arrange a deal that's profitable to the broker, then start taking on new and small rental properties in the greater northern Utah area (I am based in Cache Valley). Thoughts? Advice? Would you like your property managed? 

[Ryan Davies]

One thing you could consider is buying a book of business from another property manager. If you don't have experience in property management yet, I would recommend buying some properties yourself to manage first. I thought about this years ago and then decided not to since I don't like managing my own properties haha.

[Michael Smythe]

Make sure the broker's E&O insurance covers PMing.

Check out NARPM for better management.

[William Hochstedler]

Most brokerages will have policies on how they want to approach property management.  A broker can only manage 6 (yes 6) units before having to go through an entirely separate licensing procedure to register a property management company.

This means that if you plan on managing 7 or more units, you need to convince a broker to open a newly licensed entity with a separate trust account from their normal operations.

So there are really only two paths that you should consider.  1) Getting your own broker's license so you can control the administrative load 2) Affiliating with a brokerage with an existing property management division.

In Cache Valley, the brokerages that I'm aware of that have property management are:

--Achievement Realty

--Century 21 / Preferred Property Management

--Coldwell Banker / Catalyst Property Management

--Connect / Reeder Property Management

--Dwell / Reside

--Equity Real Estate / Equity Property Management

There are smaller shops which only have a few doors or are management pure-plays, but these are the more established ones up here.

I'd talk to all of them before taking on more than a handful of clients.