Tips on How to Choose the Best Property Management Company

There are various factors to consider when hiring a property management company. Look for qualities like organization, experience, and honesty.A property management company will reduce the level of stress and save your time when taking care of your properties. Since several companies can offer management services, do thorough research to get the best.

Price

When choosing your preferred property management company, don’t make decisions basing on the cost of their services. Most property owners opt for those companies that have the lowest rates. However, apart from price, consider other determining factors that will be crucial in ensuring the proper and management of your property.

Ask Some Specific Questions

When you approach your property management company, be sure to ask the more than obvious questions to understand their quality and experience in that field. Strike them with questions like how they plan to advertise the vacancies, how long they have been in the business, and the number of properties they manage and how they will deal with emergencies effectively.

In addition to that, be bold to ask on how they are prepared to control maintenance costs and the type of insurance they will take for the protection of two parties involved.

Get Referrals from Other Sources

References are significant in choosing the best property management company. Get referral s from other property owners or agents within your area. From these sources, you are assured of getting a list of property management managers or companies that have flawlessly worked for them.

However, to avoid frustrations and disappointments, when you get a reference from someone, ensure the other property has the same features as yours regarding its size and the scope.

Interview Several Property Managers

Finding the best property management company that will provide professional and high-quality services is not an easy job and may take some time. On that note, consider interviewing various property management companies to make a comparison of their services and find the best and the most ideal to manage your property.

Do an Online Search

To get the best property management company, utilize the existing online technology and do a thorough search. There are websites such as T-Rex Global that will allow you to enter the size of your property and location and come up with a list of property management companies within your locality. In addition to that, before you set yourself on interviewing a company, check for reviews on sites like Facebook.

With the excellent utilization of these tips, you are assured of getting the best, professional and quality services from your property management company.

Why You Should Use a Property Manager

If you want to maximize the profits from your investments and also surge the value of your properties, then you should consider seeking the services of a property manager.

Since property managers are experienced in this business, they can deal with naughty tenants and ensure necessary repairs are done promptly.

Benefits of a Property Manager

Setting the Right Rental Rates

While the landlord can get the overview of what other homeowners are charging their properties, a good property management company will make thorough market research to determine the suitable price for your property. It will ensure you maximize your monthly incomes and also maintain a low vacancy rate.

Saving Time and Headaches

There are various tasks to ensure they run well after the completion of your property. Being the landlord, you can take the responsibility of tracking your rent payments, deal with tenant complaints and repairs, prepare the property for new tenants and deal with those naughty tenants.

Doing all this can be a constant source of stress. You can assign these tedious responsibilities to a good property manager and have the opportunity of benefiting from your property without wasting time and being stress-free.

Collecting and Depositing Monthly Rent Payments on Time

A property manager is the best professional to ensure all your rent payments are paid and deposited into your bank account in time. Take, for instance, if you have limited number of properties in different cities, it can be a challenge to take the responsibility of collecting the rent by yourself.

Property management companies have the best and efficient systems in place to collect your rent and maintain on-time payments.

Marketing and Advertising

Through experience, property management companies understand where to market your properties and how to come up with interesting advertising materials. Choosing the best property manager will ensure that your property will be filled quickly and avoid many vacancies that can affect your monthly income.

 

 

Maintenance

If you own a property, be assured of many repairs. With the services of a property manager, you won’t have to be “Jack of all trades” being a gardener, pool boy, and other responsibilities. A property manager will perform routine maintenance and prevent those small issues from getting out of control.

In the case of any repairs, the property manager will show up on the property at the first site of trouble. Because they regularly deal with these issues, they also have a database that has vendors and contractors who can offer repair services at favorable prices.

 

Trends in Property Management

There is a theme I am witnessing in the industry that follows what is happening in society on a larger scale – Technology.  Prior to the smart phone, which is, only 10 years old I carried with me excel spreadsheets with all my Owners, Tenants and Vendor contact info. There were limited options for property managers when it came to technology or software.In fact, advertising in the newspaper was the only option and it was very expensive. Now, I doubt anyone uses the newspaper anymore to advertise rentals.

Technology has changed every facet of the property management industry. It has changed the way we market our businesses, get new business, interact with our clients and tenants, screen and process applicants, and manage the paperwork in our office from lease signings to our accounting. It used to take two full days to do my monthly owner statements now it takes a couple hours.

With technology, we save money and time – think postage and paper but the trade off is we pay for the software monthly. So what is the shift that is happening in our industry?

  • It is easier than ever to scale our businesses and grow portfolios
  • Social media is now an integral part of marketing not only our services but our properties
  • Mobile ready websites – from start to finish a prospect can view, apply, and sign a lease all on their mobile device.
  • Property Management Software and plug and play apps now streamline how the property management office functions. This includes posting property ads to Craig’s List, providing tenants the ability to pay rent and report maintenance on line. Then there are apps that provide property inspections and move in/move out reports with photos attached; scheduling software and single entry lock box codes so prospects can view a property on their own and the property manager knows exactly who and when they were in the unit.
  • Virtual Assistants are becoming a viable resource to help with administrative and repetitive tasks. This increases profits, saves on payroll expenses, and in turn frees up the office staff to perform higher skilled tasks and to manage more properties.
  • There are now niche specific vendors to support the property manager. Some examples are:
    • Call centers to handle maintenance emergencies
    • Social media marketing companies that can help you promote your business
    • Lead generation and CRM companies to help manage your sales team and close more leads
    • Companies that screen and process your applications
    • Virtual assistants to support the labor needed to scale an office
    • Property management specific documents and manuals to create the foundation needed for a company to run effectively and the systems in place to support the staff to be more efficient
    • Attorney’s that specialize in landlord/tenant issues

Technology allows property managers to be more efficient with their time but there is also the learning curve and the expectation that we need to be immediately responsive which can raise the level of stress to constantly being available to our tenants, owners, and vendors. As business owners and property managers it is up to us to decide how best to use technology to support us. Property Management is a people business and people do business with people they like. 

Maximum inc has sourced this blog from: http://landlordsource.com