Awhile back, someone asked about just hiring a property management company to find them tenants.

The house I just closed on has tenants in place and those tenants were put there by a property management company.

The tenants have two cats. He smokes. They both had good paying jobs in California, but moved to Idaho with no jobs, and believe me, there are no jobs in Idaho that pay what they were getting paid for doing what they were doing. The male tent told me he is working at a place where he is doing 4Xs the amount of work and getting paid 1/3 of what he was paid in California.

It is a no smoking property and he lied on his application about smoking but she put it on her application that he smokes, so the management company knew he was a smoker and they knew the property owner didn't want a smoker.

They are already in, so I will keep them as long as it is working out, but suspect I will have to get them out.

Your contract with the property management company should provide for you to have final approval of potential tenants. Unfortunately, you don't get to meet the tenants first-hand beforehand, but you should get applications, results of credit and other checks, plus reference reports. You need to develop techniques for evaluating manager-acquired applicants. If you are lucky enough to find a GOOD manager, maybe he/she will learn what you want in a tenant and he/she can help.

I am terminating my 3rd manager in 2 years, after 1 year. Having had to suffer an uncooperative tenant supplied by my 2nd manager, I took over the task of finding a new tenant myself, instead of relying on manager #3, and they are working out fine.

My new manager (#4) is starting December 1 and I am expecting great things. His qualifications include the fact that he actually has an office (instead of just a mail drop or out of his home), he has a 5 star rating with YELP, he has bookkeepers and direct managers and his own maintenance men, so I am hopeful that he will do better. He seems very organized and professional. At my age, I am needing to be able to turn my properties over to a manager completely and be able to receive what the new manager has called "mailbox money".

I manage my own properties directly

to my thinking, managers primary function is to be a buffer between tenant and owner.

the reality is most 'managers' earn their money first,from keeping clients units rented and the rents collected and secondly from mark up on repairs / maintainence

managers are inclined to put warm bodies into units as fast as possible.

most management contracts with property owners are written by and to protect the management company

far too many owners hire managers thinking or because they want to move into more of a hands off role

" far too many owners hire managers thinking or because they want to move into more of a hands off role

that attitude comes at a price."

Ah, but can a LL get that attitude at a decent price?

I managed my properties for 40 years, but now I'm too old and I NEED a full-service manager. Is it possible to find one who can/will do the job I need done? I'm on manager #4 in 2 years, because of unsatisfactory performance. The best I can do is to report on my efforts.

Moshe, what info did you collect to select the managers?

What contract changes did you make?

I have been looking for a PM for 2 years. When I think I have one I discover some bad information. In California a landlord or their employee must physically test all smoke detectors. My last PM tried to tell me 10 year smoke detectors don’t need to tested. NEXT.

Coplin:

I didn't "select" a manager. I just picked one that I found on the internet with a 5 star rating from YELP.

I was impressed by a large number of YELP recommendations giving 5 stars (OK, I know those are often self-recommended), also with zero other-than-5 stars. Then, I called up and invited myself over for an interview (it worked both ways). I was able to observe that they actually had an office (not a mail drop, not a work-from-home situation) small office space, but actually well set up to work: small telephone bank, bookkeepers at work, head manager with good management style, good use of computers, got introduced to managers, maintenance supervisor, got to ask all of my questions about how do they work, all answers, I thought, honestly and frankly, very professionally. They work exclusively in a small area of L.A. Westside. Previous manager lived in San Gabriel (Chinese), worked out of his home and would go anywhere for a buck.

Contract was simple and straightforward, I didn't need any changes. I give them rights to manage, I get right to approve tenants, I get approval of repair costs above some amount (I made it zero to start), with a minimum amount as draw account, I can use my own lease, no CAR agreements necessary. [Manager #2 had contract calling for CAR (CA Association of Realtors) forms and I should have known: one of them says, manager represents both sides, and of course, I had to fire him when he tried to use that].

I chose this guy because I hope to get good service, but it turns out that he charges 1 percent less. His website says, he charges 5-6%, so I may get a raise in the future.

Hi! We are in small town in mid TN, so there's not lots of choices. A couple of Realty companies also do property management. 1 PM was routinely charging the out of state LL over $800 for every repair! No thanks.

We talked to another realtor/PM that would contact the LL if repairs were to be over $150, but they had a clause that if we had any contact with the tenants, text, calls, face to face, etc. we would forfeit the security deposit. Not good. And we had no selection in the tenant, nor could we see their contract between the PM and tenant.

Also they said it would be a 5 year contract between us, but we could end it with a written notice in 30 days. However, as my wife read the small print, even if you notify them in writing 30 days before you want to end the contract, you continue to pay them their percentage as long as the tenant they found remains.

And the last red flag was that if you wanted to sell the rental property, the LL had to wait 2 months after the last tenant left or you paid the PM 3% of the sales price!!

to be effective you need to have more knowledge then the tenants about LL/tenant law. Management is more then tenants much more.

Owning and managing rentals has been a project in work since 1986. I'M STILL LEARNING! 1st thing--- you must be in control and have the knowledge to be in that roll. The 1980's we had no support groups to call on or WEB SITES to get info from.

We have self-managed our rentals, starting with the first property in 1976. (Oh my, you wanna talk about a learning experience!) Have considered going with local PM Cos. occasionally but never was impressed with their reputations.

I am aware of prop mgmt company that got out of all mgmt except for finding tenants.

I believe they check out everyone and select best 3 and pass them on to owner who can use owner's lease and make decision.

Of course it always comes down to integrity of prop mgmt company which is usually somewhat sleazy. There are exceptions though and you might come to get to know them through a apartment owner association through occasional conversations at meetings. Of course be sure to have your BS detector on at full power during those conversations!!!

Anyone here try the virtual property management companies like Rentmarble dot com or Mynd? Per Marble: Marble's virtual rental management system will take care of your rental for just a $50 flat fee per month per unit, period.

No Annual Contracts! We keep it simple for you and know that you want to pay for services when you use them. You can expect to pay $50/month per unit and can cancel at any time . . .

Tenants will be able to easily request maintenance in the Marble app and you'll be able to review and approve them in the app too. See how maintenance works in detail here . . .

Most of the time the property owner doesn't provide a job description or a list of duties that they want completed to the property manager.

Then the owner gets mad at the property manager for not performing. I have to wonder though, how many owners try to help train the manager to do what they want done.

Its not necessarily a criticism of Rentmarble or other such companies, but if they are charging so little, there may be reason to expect that they will make it up, somehow.