The level of management needed will depend on the age of the property and what type of repairs have been completed along the way.If you buy a property with deferred maintenance getting it turned around the first 6 months will take a ton of time.A manager should be compensated for the extra work in that case.A 10% fee simply will not cover or make worthwhile all the work involved.There will be eviction,court dates,trash outs,re-conditioning,advertising,tenant apps with criminal and credit check,ongoing repairs with tenants that are staying,etc.For all of you that want to manage other people's properties you need to check with your state's real estate commission.In many states including mine you will have to hold a license with a brokerage or be a broker.Some exceptions is if you are an employee of the company etc.I think often times investors have a high expectancy of PM work.Simply it's like owning a restaurant and having an 8 hr worker.To expect that worker to be just as excited and diligent about the business when they get nothing but a small check is a pipe dream.If I pay 100 for a steak then I demand service.If I go through the drive in at Taco Bell I expect the food to be correct and nothing else.Managing 100 properties yourself without help is the exception and not the rule.This is based on my experience dealing with apartment owners.One had about 210 units over 10 buildings all within a few miles of each other.Vintage stock and unit mix was all different ages.They ran it themselves BUT had a full time leasing manager,bookkeeper,and about 3 maintenance guys.There is no way without the help they could run them selves.I have seen basically one person locally could handle up to about a 20 to 30 unit by themselves.After that it becomes really difficult.Many investors buying in this range are not purchasing a new building.These are older buildings that need constant upkeep and have problems.Typically the mechanicals,plumbing,electrical all start failing at different intervals.I have a 20 unit and have a live in PM.It lets me focus on my real estate deals and I check in with them every 2 days or so to see how things are going.I don't want to do 10 hr work when I can make hundreds per hour selling real estate for my clients.If you want to invest out of state you could do triple net leases for mail box money.The CAP is about 7 to 8% where I am at right now.If you want higher returns then usually you have to take on more problems and risk.

One demonstration of this is the concept of ‘barriers to entry.’ I remember when I was back in school and this was just some business vocab word, but coming through the real estate battery and seeing many of our members struggle with it, it seems to have its place.All the time i see investors get hung up on a certain aspect of investing, some buy courses and never put together a deal while other investors buy a course and slingshot themselves into a deal.

I used to have trouble with drunk college kids stealing or beating up my metal signs.Then I designed this neat setup with a long wire and a hidden car battery......

Furthermore, have the addendum say that it's the tenant's responsibility to test them monthly and install new batteries.

that can be anything from cars without tags to domestic battery to murder. and 1 arrest in 5 years is pretty low.

Most of you may already know this but if your power source is not locked they will turn off the breaker then wait for your battery to die to your alarm and enter your home.

unfortunately, you can never control what a tenant puts down a drain....whether you're on septic or city sewer, grease, diapers, batteries, etc. will always cause problems for youi always mess that damn quote button up

Thanks Kevin, definitely looking forward to recharging my batteries.

Your fire point is actually valid and I didn't really think of that (but I did think of invisible mouse traps and I am pretty sure no one else would have thought of that).With that being said I would send a couple guys from your crew over to screw some plywood up over the easiest opens to break in with.You may even want to get some cheap battery operated motion sensor lights that may scare them if they see the lights turn on.

The charger on my Craftsman just died; it was a crappy drill where the batteries never could hold a charge for long anyway.