All Forum Posts by: James Fife

Quote from @Mark Hough:

Quote from @James Fife:

Glad I came across this. I’ve also been on the fence about jumping in and have been searching reviews. It seems mostly positive and a direct investment into growing my RE business and knowledge. I’m going to start it next week. 

 Hi James - what has been your experience with this program? Worth the money?

Sadly it was a huge waste of money for me and I regret it. It’s good if you just want to wholesale but for everything else it’s useless. I tried talking with them many times and it was always a waste of time or empty promises that never happened. 

Heavily geared towards wholesaling and generating leads with FB ads and groups. 

Quote from @Bud Gaffney:

@James Fifebe very careful with PMs. You need to vet properly.

Do you have any tips that will help me be more effective? I started with my real estate   agent’s recommendation because she is also an investor and we worked well together. I then called and talked to him on multiple occasions. What else should I be doing? 

Quote from @Andrew Freed:

@James Fife - Where I live, it is typical for a listing agent or property management company to get some portion of the first months rent for filling the unit, be in half or the full first month. I typically pay $1,000-1,500 to have one of my units listed by an agent. I'll pay that all day, finding a good tenant is a time consuming process and I'd rather leverage the time to grow my business elsewhere. 

Good info, that helps me get a better idea, thanks 

Quote from @Rick Albert:

Most charge this way. Many have the following charges:

1. Monthly management fee.

2. Finding a tenant fee.

3. Mark up on all work to be completed during ownership.

4. Lease renewals.

5. Sometimes I have seen them even keep the late fees.

So even though typically the PM fees might be around 10% of the rents, in actuality it is closer to 15%-18%. 

Thank you for that breakdown. That certainly makes it far more difficulty to cash flow positively so I’ll need to factor those fees in for the next ones. 

Quote from @Richard F.:

Aloha,

Different markets have different norms. Although we do not charge that way, I have seen many that do. You absolutely must take the time to read before you sign, whether real estate or other business transactions. It is nearly impossible to negotiate AFTER signing!

Yes you are right. I read it but clearly not near well enough. Lesson learned on that! I don't see how they can justify the expense of over 20% of the rental income on a single family new build. I know I should have been more aware but I also suspect this high amount can't be common. Is this one of those things you typically see get negotiated down when you have multiple properties you're bringing to the table? 

I recently bought and rented my first rental investment property. I hired a property manager that my real estate agent recommended to me. I interviewed the property manager and it seemed like a good fit. The rental now has a tenant and this is when I reached out to ask for payment. I was told that the first month's rent is for themselves and then they also charge 10% property management fees on each additional month's rent. I was aware of the 10% management fee but not the whole taking my entire first month's rent. I reviewed my contract and I did find it in there so that's a lesson on me. However, I would like to know how typical this is since I have never heard of it before? Is this a common practice? I'm frustrated because that just shot up my management fee to 21.7% for the year and am now cash negative because of it and also frustrated at myself for not catching it earlier. This is also a new build so very little maintenance will even need to be done with it. They have not been easy to communicate with and are slow to respond but now I feel obligated to continue with them since they already took the first month's rent. He also pocketed the two application fees. Please share you experiences and thoughts. 

Glad I came across this. I’ve also been on the fence about jumping in and have been searching reviews. It seems mostly positive and a direct investment into growing my RE business and knowledge. I’m going to start it next week.