Internal Property Manager

[Grace Gudenkauf]

Hi all, I am curious who here has an internal property manager (meaning someone on YOUR payroll who works for you and only you). I self-managed up to 25 units (over half mid-term rentals) until I hired someone for 10 hours per week to help me with the admin side of self-managing. After about a year of that, I turned that position into a full-time job that was half property management and half project management. This full-time person has now been with me for over 6 months and while it was a scary decision at the time, it was absolutely the best thing I could have ever done for my business. 

I pay the same amount to my internal manager as I would for a PM company but I get exponentially more benefits. On the management side easily I get exponential quality and have been able to move my management into a proactive phase rather than reactive (I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off my first two years in real estate!)

Also having a full-time person has allowed me to not only manage 4-5 rehab projects at once, but also eliminate paying a General Contractor. I've found that my manager GC's better than any other GC I have previously worked with. So now we work mainly with subs and pay significantly less for our labor. And because I now have someone to manage my projects I am able to do more flips  to pay for this employee and much more.

I share this because I think there is a myth that you either have to self-manage and run around like crazy OR shave 8-10% off the top of your rentals to get a PM company who can't give you the time or attention your portfolio needs. So I am curious- has anyone else structured their team this way? Or thought about it?

If you are reading this and not quite there yet I highly recommend following this route if possible. Of course, this won't work for everyone but I do think it's a great option!