Property Management Question
Hi just another question. I currently own a 4 unit building in Niagara Falls that I collect 1500 a month rent . My question is, if I pay a property mgr 10% of the rents collected, should I be paying him extra for anything else such as time spent showing the place when a unit is vacant?? Or time spent for picking up materials at home depot?? Would all this be included in the 10% of the rents I am paying him?? Thanks so much for all your help
I have a professional manager for 2 single family homes in Va. She charges me 8% per month to manage(max 100. per property). In addition, any repairs are charged to me and she charges 500. to get a tenant. If I land the tenant, I pay 50% amount. This is the best I found for a good manager.
Hi thanks for your response, so you pay her 500 dollars just for finding a tenant?? and I dont understand what you pay 50% for if you land the tenant?? Please clarify
She charges flat 500.00 to get a tenant. Consist of: listing in the MLS, working w/other Realtors. For that low fee, I don't get a tenant fast enough for my liking, so I post an ad, take calls, pre-qualify and either show or send to her to be shown. So, I did half of the work so I pay 1/2 of the 500. fee -- Around here, many agents charge the first months rent to procure the tenant. I do manage most of my own properties, even the ones that are several hours away, and have had no problems.
** I finally got to Niagra Falls last October, very nice **
If I owned a 4 unit, I would look for a local Res. Mngr. or Prop. Mngr. who could moonlight OR a self employed prop manager who loves the business and/or invests.
Wow, thats great. Thanks so much for your helpful response. My property mgr is actually someone whose retired who lives 5 blocks away. Hes a great guy but wasnt sure exactly how to pay him because I certainly dont want to overpay or lowball him. If possible , could you PM or email me, would love to hear about your Niagara Falls experience. Thanks again
If you're paying him 10%, that's it. There shouldn't be any additional payments other than for the actual materials and repair services done by outside contractors. Now you could of course sweeten the pot a bit by offer some sort of annual performance bonus. But if you do that, make sure it takes two things into consideration: operating efficiency (i.e. how much money was taken in from the property and were expenses kept down), and the condition of the property itself. You don't want this guy showing great income and super low expenses because he just didn't bother to fix or maintain anything. I wouldn't pay anything special just for filling a vacancy. It's in his interest to have those apartments filled. That's where he gets paid. But ceinvests pays a slightly lower salary to his PM, so that may make the find a tenant payment okay.
Good luck.
I know that property management companies vary some, from one to the other. What we do is offer a menu of property management services and the property owner can pick and choose what level of management they choose.
Depending on what services are desired and the size of the property being managed, it can vary from 3% to 10% of the monthly rental income. For tenant placement which includes all the showings, screenings, and lease execution, I typically charge anywhere from 50% to 100% of one months rent. This number is determined by my estimate of how tough I think it will be to successfully rent the unit.
Mark
Thank you so much for all your help and advice. Hopefully my experience in being a landlord will pay off