The tenants were on time at first, but then slowly fell behind. The PM is a decent sized company with three offices in CT. I saw the bank statements from the original owner, so I do not think that was the issue. He sent over 12 months of bank statements from Chase front to back hundreds of pages. Over the last two years, we had to redo the roofs of each building, some of the siding, installed new lights. The biggest issue is the turn overs. Since the tenants leave their crap in their units, it's costing 1200 - 3k in turn overs to throw their crap out, repaint the place and bring it back to rentable condition. I can send my guys to fix it, but CT dump fees are high (500 - 1000 per load), so I am not sure if that is why they are so high in terms of the turn over. We only use them on these two buildings in Ansonia, we handle the ones in Hartford ourselves, and a different company handles Bridgeport. They do nickel and dime us and they add additional fees on to the work they do from contractors; as stated in the operation agreement. They charged us 88.94 to change a florescent lightbulb in the hallway on June 2nd. There reviews on yelp and Google are stellar, so I just do not know if it is them or the two buildings. They are located a few blocks away from each other, in not the greatest areas, but we've had a lot of issues. I re-read the contract the other day, and they have first right of refusal to repair units to CT standards. If I cancel the contract, I have to give them 60 days times management fees. In addition, since the rents are between 500 - 650 a month, even though we agreed on a 5% management fee, since it's under 85.00 a month per unit, they charge us 85.00. If you read the contract, it doesn't say 85.00 per unit, it just says 85.00 per month. I've called other places to manage the building, but since it's in a run down part of the city, they were not interested in taking over the management. There are about 30 units total, and over 100 people living in the buildings. They have about 14 people as employees, so they handle the calls better than me and my few guys could. Plus, we're not local, so that makes a big difference.
If I was able to get rid of them, I would, as I have 28 other units, and they are running fine with no issues and profitable. Would you believe, they allowed 6 tenants to go 5 months with just paying part of their rent. Since they are slow payers, we didn't notice this we did an internal audit. They claimed that they were under the impression to give the tenants as much time as possible to pay the units. I ordered them to evict all of them immediately. All in all, they were past due 12k. The owner apologized, but they still received their monthly fee regardless if we received rent from them. They turned the units over and filled them within six weeks. Either myself or my partner now sit on them twice a month to get updates on past due tenants. They also charge 150 to serve the eviction to the tenants. 1k to actually evict them, which includes court costs and sheriff fees. They charge $145.75 to rekey the locks within the apts as well. It takes around 6 weeks to evict a tenant.
Since they refuse to give me original bills from the contractor they use, I really have no idea on what it costs to turn over the unit. In my other units 400 - 800 per unit. We do take 2 months security deposit, where as since these were the previous owners' tenants, he took one month or no security deposit.
I know I may sound a bit naive on this building, but again, all my other buildings are running fine in two other major cities in CT. Since they are 3 and 4 families, I do not know if that's why it's cheaper, but these large buildings are just a headache. We just pay them their turn over fees as we fear if we send our guys to do it, they will cancel the agreement and we'd be up the river w/o a paddle in terms of management. If it wasn't for the turnover fees and the new lease fees (1 month's rent, but the new people they bring in hardly stay for more than a year), and eviction fees, the buildings would be profitable. It seems as they grow, the fees have increased. They opened and additional office in Nov. 17, and hired more staff. That's great that they are growing, but if I showed you the fees they charge for simple things, it's just crazy.
We drew the line on them purchasing supplies. When we bought the building, we need 6 new boilers over the first year. We pay around 350 for a boiler. Do you know what they charge? 1200 for a 40 gallon boiler! To come out and diagnose a faulty appliance, $200.00. When we've been told an appliance is not working correctly, we just replace it for 300 - 350 as it's not worth having them diagnose it. Anywhere else we have an appliance diagnosed, at most 50 bucks, however, it's usually no cost if we use their service to repair. Not here. Again, we feel we're being nickel and dimed to death. This wasn't the case when we first started with them.
We're more than willing to keep the buildings, as we've put so much money and time into making sure the buildings are in good condition and the tenants have a good place to live, but I cannot find a decent property manager in New Haven County to take it over. Thus, we're trying to sell the unit.
Sometimes, I feel they are doing this so we cancel the contract, pay them the two months' fee on 30 units and go our merry way. There was an emergency call Saturday for no hot water on an old boiler. They told us Monday that a new boiler was needed ASAP. Yet, they have both my, my partner's and our main supply technician's e-mail and cell phone.
Again, if anyone knows of a good property management company in New Haven CT, I am open to it. If not, I need a recommendation for a good commercial realtor in New Haven County CT so we can 1031 out of these buildings and just stick to Bridgeport and Hartford areas where we run the buildings ourselves or have a good team running them. We already asked the Bridgeport team to take over Ansonia. They do not work in that area.
