A property management company can save you stress, time, and money, making it worth it to hire one to manage your property.
You may be thinking, "Why should I pay $60 a month for a company to collect my rent?"
That is because a property management company, or a landlord, does much more than that. Today, I'm going to go over three things one needs to consider before committing to managing their property them self.
In specific, they can be beneficial to you in the following three areas: availability, finding tenants, and evicting bad tenants.
Availability
Property management companies sole purpose of existence is to manage properties. As someone who does not do property management, yours is not. That means they know what they are doing, because that's all they do (generally).
They have (hopefully) been in the business for years and have a full trained staff to make sure things are running smoothly. Does a landlord have these things? Nope.
You may be thinking, "Why should I pay $60 a month for a company to collect my rent?"
That is because a property management company, or a landlord, does much more than that. Today, I'm going to go over three things one needs to consider before committing to managing their property them self.
In specific, they can be beneficial to you in the following three areas: availability, finding tenants, and evicting bad tenants.
Availability
Property management companies sole purpose of existence is to manage properties. As someone who does not do property management, yours is not. That means they know what they are doing, because that's all they do (generally).
They have (hopefully) been in the business for years and have a full trained staff to make sure things are running smoothly. Does a landlord have these things? Nope.
A property management company is available 5 days a week and some offer 24/7 support to mange their client's properties. They spend the time marketing your property thoroughly, screening tenants thoroughly, handing maintenance thoroughly, evict bad tenants thoroughly (and legally), and handle emergencies faster than you probably can.
Before deciding to mange your property yourself, you should consider how much time you have to do these things. Finding a good tenant is more difficult than one would think. Usually, companies know how and where to market properties best and how much to charge for rent in that area.
Finding Tenants
Anyone can put an ad up for rent on Craigslist and get some responses. It is how to decipher those responses and pick the quality tenants that is difficult. Today, haggling over price is gaining popularity in America and bad credit is everywhere.
Property Management companies know what to look for in credit reports and how to adjust the security deposit depending on credit scores. Plus, they have a "following" of willful people looking to find their new home. These people could be previous tenants in properties managed by the company or simply following them waiting for the right property to come up. This is called reach.
To do this on your own, you can find various resources online that will give you generic credit applications and you can find tips on how to interpret credit reports. Unless you have been doing this for a while, they can still look like Greek to the unfamiliar. You may not know what the red flags are or how to contact a potential tenant's previous landlord as a reference.
Finding good tenants quick is important, because every day your property is vacant you are missing out on a ton of money Putting in bad tenants is even worse for your bottom line.
Evicting Bad Tenants
How is having a bad tenant in your property worse than having it vacant? If you are really asking this question in your head, then you seriously need to search for a good property management company near you.
Having a bad tenant can mean a variety of things: they don't pay their full rent, they don't pay rent at all, or they thrash the place.
To prevent these things, a good tenant screening can help significantly along with calling their previous landlord as a reference.
Evicting a tenant is not that simple and involve many legal steps that one needs to follow or they could have a bad tenant who doesn't pay for MONTHS. If you have a mortgage this is especially bad.
Put simply, if a tenant does not pay their rent, you need to send them a 3 day notice to pay or leave. If they don't pay, you can evict them. It sounds simple, but there are many legal steps to take in between that vary by state.
As you can see, a property management company will worry about your property for you, spend the time necessary to find good tenants, and be quick to get the bad tenants out. All keeping your property in good shape and earning you money at the same time.
If you really want to sit back and collect a check every month, just hire a company to do it for you and let the professionals handle it.