All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

I believe the best way to find a good property manager is to seek a property manager out and has invested in advanced training and education and has attained designations, usually they also have years of experience.

The best place to go to search for good property manager National Association of Residential Property Managers. www.NARPM.org

You are able to search for members in your local area and then look for members with designations like Residential Management Professional (RMP) or Master Property Manager (MPM). These are property managers that are cut above the rest, and the ones that can be trusted to provide quality service and care for your investment property.

Also another designation to look for if you can find it is a company that has there CRMC designation. There are only about 50 management companies that are Certified Residential Management Companies. (CRMC).

These are companies that have been audited by the National Association of Residential Property Managers and have demonstrated a high standard for both procedures and customer service.

The first month's rent is still income to you. This first months rent would reflect on your year-end statement and your 1099 income reported to IRS by the property management company.

The first month's rent is just being offset by the expense of the leasing fee that is one months rent and will show up on your expense category on your year-end statement.

If you had another management company handling it differently in the past, I am not sure that they were doing it properly.

I do find one of the most important things that landlords can do is keep good open communications with their property managers.

We never have problems with owners questioning us on the things that we do and are always happy to explain why were handling something a certain way.

I am amazed sometimes that the initial attitude and some of our owners can be very poor and do not make for good working relationship.

When dealing with your management company try to keep things on a positive note. Most good management companies are happy to explain their systems and procedures. A good working relationship between you and property management company is one of the keys to your success as a investor.

You have to look at the wording in your property management contracts.

Our management contracts as we take a 10% fee on rent collected so we charge 10% on the first months rent that was collected.

Also, our management agreement says we charge a 50% leasing fee will we initially put in a new tenant. So this 50% would have been also charged against the first months rent that was received.

I am not sure why they sent you the monthly rent and then turn around and billed you. They should of deducted the leasing fee from the rent and then showed you had a remaining balance with them.

They may be operating on a different property management software system and have to do things differently.

You need to have a good understanding of your management agreement agreement with the management company. I would call or email them and ask for an explanation. It is important to keep good communication between your management company.

Now they just need to do one on tenants!

A lot of times being a landlord it is about minimizing your exposure to liability.

If a tenant or their guests or kids were to get hurt on the property, you can easily expect yourself in today's society to be involved in an very costly and possibly very long lawsuit.

We advise owners not to leave on lawnmowers, ladders, weedeater's, yard equipment, or even cleaning supplies and chemicals.

It is amazing how fast a tenant will run to a personal injury an attorney.

Always carry high-quality insurance with plenty of liability insurance to protect yourself and remove any items that you do not need that exposure to additional liability.

Hello William,

This is an extremely hot topic.

As a landlord I would not want any access to be able to view or log into the cameras.

The last thing you need is the tenant saying you are spying on their teenage daughter or wife sunbathing in the backyard.

Before installing any system I would suggest you consult with the real state attorney about any possible liabilities.

It is one thing if a tenant installed a camera for themselves and then deactivated it or took it with them when they left.

It is a whole another ballgame when the owner or the property manager is installing cameras in or around the rental property.

Seek out good advice use caution in this area.

Kevin

Hello Anish Tolia,  I would agree you would think complaints from owners would be valid and I am sure in some cases they are.

We actually run into more than our fair share of owners that should not own rental property.

We try to figure out up front where were signing up a property if an owner's and us are going to be a good fit.

Many times when were signing up a property the owner putting this best foot forward and it is hard to tell how they will be in the long run. Of course, we do have lots of great owners that we appreciate.

I have many cases we have had owners had did not wanted to abide by the property code or the lease agreement or repair health and safety items in a timely manner.

One of the things that we try to do with owners and tenants is set correct expectations upfront. I find the better that we can educate owners and tenants usually the better relationship that we have.

We will still have some owners that no matter what we do they are not happy.

We actually have some of the strongest guarantees in the business.

One guarantee we have: If an owner is not happy for any reason, we will waive that months management fee.

We had an owner recently take advantage of this because, three of their fence boards on their fence that was replaced three years ago warped.

Another guarantee that we have is if any time an owner is unhappy and wants to leave our property management company they can do so without any penalties. We like to ask them to provide a reason, but one is not necessary.

In one of the weirdest things I see is owners that would rather complain on Google or the BBB and not use our guarantees.

I have two owners that filed completely ridiculous complaints with the BBB, but they do not want to leave our management company. I will not be renewing their management agreement when it comes up.

The best place to go to search for good property manager National Association of Residential Property Managers. www.NARPM.org

You are able to search for members in your local area and then look for members with designations like Residential Management Professional (RMP) or Master Property Manager (MPM). These are property managers that are cut above the rest, and the ones that can be trusted to provide quality service and care for your investment property.

Also another designation to look for if you can find it is a company that has there CRMC designation. There are only about 50 management companies that are Certified Residential Management Companies. (CRMC).

These are companies that have been audited by the National Association of Residential Property Managers and have demonstrated a high standard for both procedures and customer service.

Google, yelp, and even the Better Business Bureau is not necessarily an indication whether a company is good or bad.

I have 12 complaints with the Better Business Bureau and I have even met and talked with one of the managers for the Better Business Bureau and show them how ridiculous the complaints are.

I had two tenants file complaints because I charge them for clogging the commode. I would not have been doing my job if I did not charge the tenants for clogging the commode.

I had one tenant file a complaint because we did not approve his application even though he was currently going through an eviction.

Just had one applicant the other day place a bad review on yelp saying how she has this great rental history, when she is not on the lease agreement and the property management company will not give us any rental history on her because she is an unauthorized occupant.

It is probably wise look at the BBB and Google reviews but you have to take it with a grain of salt because, it is usually owners or tenants that are unhappy that take the time to post negative reviews even though the management company has performed flawlessly under the agreement.

I know one top property management company as an F rating on the BBB even though they are a good management company.

We currently have an A+ rating but that can drop at any time is the BBB does not look at the validity of the complaints they just go by the number of complaints.

Again, I believe the best way to find a good property manager is to seek a property manager out and has invested in advanced training and education and has attained designations, usually they also have years of experience.

If you will be managing single-family properties and duplexes, you should join your local NARPM chapter.   As @Kayman Khaloughi stated above check out the www.NARPM.org website.

You will gain valuable insight and experience for your PM company.