I would search for and interview as many companies as you can and ask your list of questions. In my experience here is what to expect on those topics:
1- There shouldn’t be any fee when the property is vacant, but of course you will pay a leasing fee to the property management company when they lease your unit, typically one month rent. You will be charged % of “rent collected” so if they don’t collect, they will not charge their fee.
2- I believe there is a set amount of days written notice required to cancel management agreement (60, 90 days or so). I don’t think there is any fee to do so.
3-From my vetting process about a year ago, most PM companies I screened in Atlanta area were charging 8% of rent collected per month. Note that you will have leasing, renewal, on boarding and project management fees. These are standard for every company, but may vary in percentage or amount a bit depending on who you use. Therefore, I always run my PM expense at 14% when looking at potential deals. Most of the companies were all using the same Georgia template so it made for easy comparison of rates/terms.
4- Payment takes place once per month and for us that is no later than the 20th of each month and sometimes a few days before. All directly deposited to your account that you setup with the company.
5- They definitely inspect the property upon move-in and move-out but I am not sure there are periodic inspections. This is one thing I would really like to implement being that we are out of state.
When I started searching for PM companies, I first cold called/emailed as many companies I could find. The ones who responded within the first day were the ones I moved further with (asking for sample Management and lease agreements, etc). If they are quick to reply to my initial inquiry, chances are they run other parts of their business in the same manner. The ones who took a few days to reply, I did not pursue. You definitely want a company who will be quick to respond when issues arise.
Another big requirement for me was a company who could communicate well via email and not only phone. In this day, I don’t want to have to pickup the phone every time there is a question or concern. I like to do most conversation via email because it gives clarity and context to refer back to. It’s easy to forget details discussed in a phone conversation and having details saved in my inbox helps. I would think this is how most PM companies work now though.
