@Amirra Elgamiel If you call any agent, they will typically charge 1 month of rent to find a tenant.
Just like in a sales transaction, where the buyer's agent and listing agent split the commission, an agent will offer another agent that brings a tenant 50% of the one-month of rent as commission.
Many owners are trying to put pressure on PMCs to lower this fee because they think the monthly management fee should cover at least part, if not all, of this.
Here's were penny-pinching owners screw themselves: PMC's will charge lower than the one-month of rent, but they offset it and do NOT tell the owner the negative repercussions!
Here's time & money an agent or PMC needs to spend to get a rental listed:
1) Make sure it's clean
2) Hopefully, take professional pics and just not use the camera-phone
3) Take room sizes and note positives and negatives about the property
4) Since most rentals aren't advertised on MLS, research multiple sources for rental comparables to determine rent.
5) Write a GREAT ad for the property
6) Syndicate or manually enter the ad on numerous websites
Then, once published for rent, how much time do you think they spend taking all the phone calls (most of them from idiots who don't take the time to read the ad), doing all the showings, chasing applications & supporting docs, processing applications?
To protect their time and try to, you know make some money, many PMCs that do placements for less than one-month of rent, cut corners like:
- Not putting it on the MLS or offering a ridiculously low split to other agents, so those agents do NOT show the property.
- Only doing showings at specific days & times, leading to longer vacancies
- Requiring prospects to fill out applications first, before scheduling a showing to protect their time invested/wasted (which turns off some prospects, leading to longer vacancies).
- Charging owners for pics
- Charing inflated application fees to make, you know, some money for their time spent
- Some even charge tenants MoveIn Fees and other charges to make money.
So, don't be short-sighted and expect PMCs to work for free!
They will make their money somewhere, somehow
