Who has used a management company before to lease their property? (apartment, tenant)

[antiquesmountainapache]

Who has used a management company before to lease their property? What were the pros and cons?
Did you change from one company to another?

[bentlebee]

I own a property management company and a brokerage and can only comment on what you need to look for and what you need to stay away from;

- make sure that the company you deal with or the agent is doing this full time and not just on the side to add some additional money....since we get a lot of clients who complaint about agents who want their business for the monthly fees but don't want to deal with the calls and all the showings...

- get proof at they will conduct a background check by asking the right questions...due to the privacy laws we are not able to. Show a copy of the report to any owner but we are allowed to share what is on it.

- make sure you get pictures of almost all before and after repairs so they won't take you for a ride on repairs, which to me is one of the biggest scams and ask for copies of repair bills.

- careful if they will lower the fees just to get you as a client...cheap comes usually with a prize but that doesn't mean you have to pay too much.

- ask to have the property management to put in writing what they will do for you!

[beb0p]

99 out of 100 management company are useless. They don't give a crap about your property, they just want to rent it out to any yahoo who can pay rent so they can collect their fees. I've had a management company called and told me that my property is dirty, is old, is ugly and that I should rent it out to this recently bankrupted dude for 40% less and I should be grateful someone even pay that much. When I asked, "Did you see my property?" The answer, "No, but that recently bankrupted dude told me it's old, ugly, and dirty and he's only going to pay 60% of the asking rent...."

My friend's experience is even worse. He has an apartment in a college town - meaning rentals are red hot in the summer and ice cold after school started. So guess what, the management company sat on their heels and "forgot" to rent out his unit during the summer. "They just forgot to rent it out?" I asked. He shrugged, "Screw 'em, I'm taking over now." A wise decision.

And once the tenant is in, management company has no incentive to help you save money. Another of my friend has to do repair on his rental every month! The tenant, wise to the fact that the management company say yes to everything, has all the windows changed (because the street is too noisy so must have double pane windows), the toilet changed (because it flushed too slowly), the carpet changed, the door changed... basically updated the whole place. Why should the management care? It's YOUR money.

Management company doesn't know how to fix things, they work with contractors to do that. A garbage disposal was stuck once. Now, when the darn thing is stuck, a normal person would use an allen wrench to turn it until it is unsuck right? We're talking a 5 min job right? Nope. Management wanted to replace the disposal and hire their contractor to do it.

The following article tells of a tenant wanted fix one kitchen drawer, one bathroom drawer, and some minor things. The management went to the landlord with a $70,000 tab. Funny isn't it. Or not so funny if you're the landlord. It's an article about tenant issue but read further and note how the management company is trying to scam the landlord in the process.

Tenant Troubles: Is My Rent Being Raised In Retaliation For My Repair Complaints (And Is That Legal?): News: SFAppeal

My two cents - rental is a hands-on business. If you can't manage your own properties, don't bother.