All Forum Posts by: Steve Rozenberg

Does anyone know of the top energy providers located in Houston?

Do you take rent electronically?

You may want to check other parts of the contract and see if there is a Termination fee, for example we charge a termination fee if the client wants to cancel during the first one year term. If they want to cancel after that there is no fee and just a 30 day notice. 

We use a Standard TREC management agreement so if they are using a state created and sponsored agreement there should be an out clause in there I would imagine.

All of those things are high useful load things, if this is something you are not responsible for (meaning its their own stuff) you are much better off. I agree that you should have something in the addendum that they are responsible for any damage and also the removal of the units at the end of tenancy.

When you supply these items, no matter what we have put in the lease that says they fix it they call us to repair. These are costly items to fix and now you are in the appliance repair business. 

Best thing they can do for you is bring their own.

Questions to Ask prospective management companies

• What are your average days on market for vacant homes?
• What is your average rent amount for all properties managed?
• What is your average work order cost for the owner?
• What is your average make ready cost for the owner?
• Are all my invoices uploaded to my owner portal?
• How do you advertise your vacant units?
• Do I receive video of my pre and post make ready?
• Do you have a setup fee?
• Do you upcharge on maintenance?
• When do you make owner payments? How often?
• Are you a Certified Property Manager?
• Are you a member of NARPM?
• What is your Guarantee?

Here are some things that we feel set us apart from our competitors:

Investor

Operation

Tenant

We have a 24 hour maintenance hotline with a professional always answering the phone • 24 / 7 Online portal access

Leasing

@Peter Logan I have a few very good and reliable insurance companies here in Houston, I would be happy to make an email intro with you and them. If you would like send me a PM an I would be happy to help you out.

I can tell you when I first started out I thought paying a management fee was a complete rip off. I did not see the value in anything that they offered. Then about 2 years later and owning over 20 SF homes I saw the error of my ways big time!! So much so that I actually created a management company here in Houston and now manage over 400 homes

The main thing that a management company brings to the table is systems and policy and procedures. This is the difference in my opinion of success and failure. The way I look at it is can you get in a plane after a few lessons and fly yourself to Hawaii? You could, you could make it or you could crash.. you would have to learn along the way things that are and are not important. Or you can plan your vacation to buy an airline ticket and have a professional fly you there.

Same rule with investing and management companies, you are paying for their experience and procedures to get you to your financial destination safe and sound.

Here are some good questions to ask a property manager, this is what I give people that are comparing my management company to others.

Questions to Ask prospective management companies

• What are your average days on market for vacant homes?
• What is your average rent amount for all properties managed?
• What is your average work order cost for the owner?
• What is your average make ready cost for the owner?
• Are all my invoices uploaded to my owner portal?
• How do you advertise your vacant units?
• Do I receive video of my pre and post make ready?
• Do you have a setup fee?
• Do you upcharge on maintenance?
• When do you make owner payments? How often?
• Are you a Certified Property Manager?
• Are you a member of NARPM?

What is your Guarantee

Thanks Nancy,

I wish I could say I was smart enough to create this idea without the pain of learning why it's sooo importnant. When my business partner and I had 35 homes we had a 30% eviction rate. Basically not doing things correctly and the worst part is we knew it.

Not until we started our management company and hired our Certified Property Manager did we all sit down and design this. We evicted and kicked out about 70% of our deadbeat tenants and moving forward we always tweak it. I have learned that when managing on a larger scale anything that can be automated and systemized must be. We constantly are reviewing and revising our P & P manual. I will say that our residents seem to like and appreciate how we operate. We have more positive reviews in Google then any company in Houston and many are from our residents.

Very nice policy and procedure @Account Closed  .. We do something similar to that. When it comes time for them to sign the lease we have them come to our office. We do this for several reasons.

1. To show them we are a real company with a real office with staff members and infrastructure to support their needs while renting from us.

2. We do it to humanize ourselves so they can put names to faces. When they arrive we give them a "Welcome Home Gift Basket" (Toilet paper, spaghetti sauce, Company logo pens, a few bottles of water) , we are thinking of adding a plunger and a calendar which has the days tent is due and is late pre-printed on it. 

3. Then we get to the main reason they are there. To review the lease and go over "the rules of the game" what they can expect of us and what we expect of them. What is and is not maintenance they are responsible for and what he owner is responsible for, what day rent is due , what day it's late and the name of the collection company that will go after them if we evict them. Again we want to make sure they realize we want to take care of them but what we expect in return. 

4. We show them how to log into their tenant portal and then show them how to set up their online ACH rent payment or monthly auto draft right then. Part of our 8 page added addendum is that we charge a surcharge if they do not pay online. It takes staff time to process a payment that is not online. We have found that given the choice of an added fee or setting up auto pay they choose the auto pay. Even the low end $500 per month rental clientele can do it. We feel if they don't have a bank that can do it or don'thave  a bank account that is a red flag to us.

When the tenant moves in we take 150-200 pictures of the interior and exterior of the property along with a full video. When the tenant gives notice we send them this video link to "remind them" of how the property looked When they moved in and the condition we expect it upon move out. During lease signing one of the documents they sign is a 2 pge itemization sheet of the fees we can charge at a minimum for damages that will come from the deposit.

We found that by doing this process and making it our strict policy we are able to keep our eviction rate below 2% for over 400 homes. It's almost like we evict them before they even sign to rent from us. We have had tenants say they don't think they can follow these rules and left.. We feel we saved our owners a lot of lost revenue and headache by doing these things.

How do you review your lease with the tenant?