Help With Turning Apartments
In the past I have done almost all of the work on my properties myself. I know this falls far short of the creativity expected of a creative investor, but I was generally satisfied with the work done, and the price was fair.
I have now aquired enough units that it is difficult to do the work myself. If several tenants vacate at once, I can no longer turn the apartments quickly enough to be effective.
Does anyone have any suggestions for this. Is it best to hire a handyman, or are their companies that specialize in this area. I would like to have one person or company I could count on for all the painting, small repairs, cleaning, etc.
If there is a better way to do it, I would enjoy hearing feedback.
The best thing I ever did was to pick some excellent PM's to manage my properties. They can get stuff fixed at a price that is not only better than what I can find, it is also so good that it is generally not worth my time to bother with doing it myself in many cases. Of course, many people choose to manage properties themselves to supposedly save money. However, if you make a few calls you will be amazed at how many people who work at real estate companies once did property management and decided it wasn't worth their time! That should be a clue to you. If you really start adding up all of the things they do, not even including the fact that you can go about your business or pleasure without thinking about your properties most of the time, I think they are one of the best deals going. Of course, if you simply like to manage yourself, or didn't buy your properties at a good enough price to allow you to hire a PM, that changes things.
Sounds like your caught in the "Landlord Trap"
This is simple "time value of money" Where will your time make the most money?
[addsig]
Dear Dave,
How much should I expect to pay for the services of a property manager? Also, do some property management services allow you to choose what services you wish to obtain. We do a good job selecting and managing tenants, so rent collection has never been any more difficult than opening the mail. Turning apartments, however, is our challenge. Do you think a property management company would be interested in just turning our properties and performing the maintenace that occasionally comes up during the year?
Curt,
What is your strategy for selecting tenants?
Curt,
For some unknown reason to me, the rates that PM's charge in different cities, even within the same state, can vary widely. I pay 6% to 7% but there are PM's in the same town that want 10% and others in towns that aren't very far away that charge a staggering 15%. My experience has been that PM's will work with you and they will give you a choice of options with different prices. I'm sure if you call several you will be able to find one who agrees to do what you are asking. The bottomline is, it has to be worth their time. I would just get out a phone book and start calling PM's and asking. You never no what you'll find.
Dear Quietstorm,
Our strategy for finding tenants depends upon the property. One of our properties we do nothing more than put a sign out front. We have rented this property several times before we even put a sign out. Once we were going to do some major remodeling, so we did not put a sign out. People began knocking on the door of the other side of the duplex asking the tenants for our number. They said things like "we looked through the window and noticed that their was no furniture in the next apartment. Is it for rent? Last time we rented it our the prospective tenants engaged in a bidding war. You can see why I don't feel we need a property management company to help us find tenants.
As far as choosing which tenants, we talk with them for a while and use our intuition. If they talk about how great the property looks, that is a good sign. We also take a peek in their car if the opportunity presents itself. A car piled full of crap and old McDonald's bags is a bad sign. Then we back this up with a very complete and thorough background check through a company called FABCO. This costs 25$. Finally, and most important, we call past landlords and employers. In ten years of landlording we have not had a destructive tenant, and the single eviction necessary in this time was a tenant inherited when we purchased a new property.
For the rest of the rentals we use signs, these generate the most valuable calls. We also advertise in the local papers, and may consider the local university website that offers a service where they list your property for a fee.
Those are some good tips, Curt. Thank you.[ Edited by QuietStorm on Date 05/13/2004 ]