All Forum Posts by: Christopher Edwards

I'm looking for a list of real estate agents in Palm Beach county, ranked by number of closings, listings, sales volume, etc.   Does anyone know where one could find that information?       Thanks. 

Good ideas Dion, thanks. I do think the current part-time manager I use could do all those things and make my life far easier but I question his ability to find good workers as he doesn't seem to have any currently. I'd double his monthly rate if he could take care of those things. What we do now is that he sends me about 100 photos monthly of each property. He's not too technical but I set it up so it works easily. I'm now having him take videos instead of photos so I can see everything instead of what he points the camera at. I'm quite technical and, if I could find the right people who do good work and know technology, I'd never have to visit these properties.

But, as I mentioned, the biggest problem I have is actually getting any physical work done when the time comes and mostly that is during vacancies. I use one year leases but my houses are nice and I keep tenants 2 years on-average until they end up buying a house or moving on for other reasons. I've relied on a couple of handymen for many years who are getting older and not as interested in working anymore. I've been renting places for 30 years now and it's only been the last 5 that I've been far away from them. When I lived nearby, I could quickly get a place into shape and not spend much money. Finding people with a good aesthetic eye who know how to creatively spend your money is not easy ---like touching up paint instead of repainting everything, attractive throw rugs and shower curtains during showings. My houses are in trendy parts of Los Angeles so they really have to look great when showing them. Most of my tenants end up being in the entertainment or design business.

I found my current part-time manager two years ago by placing an ad and he was the only one that responded. Do you think another licensed property manager who provides as-needed services would be hard to find? I would think they all want the entire job for 15% of gross revenue (or whatever they charge) or they wouldn't be interested.

I have a few single family homes in another state, about 1000 miles from where I live. I used to live in the same city and taking care of them was easy then. There isn't much to do when the houses are rented and I average a two year stay for most tenants. I have a licensed property manager who visits the places monthly and takes photos for me and shows them when empty. He is on-call for emergencies too. He doesn't charge much as we have agreed that I will take care of most things.

My biggest problem is finding people to fix up the places after a tenant vacates. It seems impossible to find decent handymen and try to communicate over the phone what I want done.

This property manager I use doesn't have a very good list of resources but he does a good job of walking the properties monthly and letting me know of any issues.

I don't want to hire a full-fledged manager since I like being involved and I don't like paying such high fees when they basically would only really work hard when there is a vacancy which can take a year or more sometimes to happen.

What do others in this situation suggest? Are there services that fix-up rentals when they are vacant? I've talked to a few contractors but mostly they don't want to get involved in small projects like touching up paint and cleaning and gardening and all. I can't even seem to find a painting contractor who is interested unless they completely paint everything and since I get good tenants usually, there is rarely a need to cover every surface each time with new paint. Plus my homes are mostly quite old so I don't want to keep building up layers of paint.

Right now, I have a 3000 square foot house that is 100 years old and needs sprinklers installed, some shrubs planted, cleaning throughout, touch up paint only where it needs doing, snaking out drain lines, fixing some broken windows, etc. etc.

What I'd like is to have one person I could call who would instinctively know how to fix-up a vacant rental to make it look like it did when it was last vacant. I shouldn't have to fly there each time there is a vacancy just to show someone which walls need painting and which ones don't. I had no trouble doing those things myself when I lived nearby so I'm surprised I can't find someone to hire that could do the same thing.

Thanks for any suggestions.