All Forum Posts by: Townsend Derick

A good Tenant is hard to come by. Since she has been with you several years I would cut her some slack. If she stays past two days I would deduct from her SD starting after the two day grace period till she leaves.

@Michael, You are not alone. I moved to DFW three years ago and I have been dealing with bad PM's the whole time. I have rentals in Virginia and they think that you won’t come around to challenge them but you know what, you have too. Plus when you travel to tend to your home it’s a write off so you’re not losing all the way around. No matter if your home is in the lowest income area in the world, it is the PM's duty to treat your property equally and professionally. I have fired 6 PM's over a three year period. I had lost hope at one time. Most PM's try to wear too many hats; they manage 300 homes with two assistants. They try to sell homes and manage your properties etc.... You just have to educate yourself on what to look out for and experience will help you also. I am now at the point now that I keep all correspondence that I have with PM's no matter how small it may seem. If I’m paying you every month then you need to do what you are asked within your job description. It’s a sad reality, but know this; no one is going to take care of your own like you. Many mean well but it’s not their property, so you have to stay on top of them. I have tried every approach be nice let them handle things, but if you don’t do things right then it ends up most times costing you money. I got to the point that I began suing PM's and that’s effective but its time consuming and costly but it proves a point. I have a checklist when I interview PM'S and from past experiences with other PM’s, ask them how they would handle different situations. It boils down to that gut feeling if you should use them or not.
Great questions to ask a PM are:
How do you like to communicate? I.e. by phone text e-mail.

How fast do you normally respond to e-mails phone calls etc?

Do you have a template of how my monthly statements will look?

Will you notify me if my tenant is late paying the day it is first late?

There are many more, feel free to message me if you have any questions it’s much more to it than this but I was trying to keep it short...