I’m not too thrilled with my property manager on the 2 houses I bought in Indiana. Since I did such a lousy job the first time around, I guess I need to pull out the old books and see how to choose a better one. Who better to find a good property manager than Adiel Gorel who promotes distance investing. I flipped through his book Remoted Controlled Real Estate Riches: The Busy Person’s Guide to Real Estate Investing.
Adiel calls himself a facilitator and helps newbie investors invest in different states and of course charges a commission. While I may not fully agree with his choice of location for investments, his advice is rock-solid.
Here’s some questions to ask a potential property manager:
- How long have you been in the business?
- Are you a member of any professional associations?
- Do you specialize in residential properties?
- Do you work weekends?
- How many properties do you currently manage? Whats the total number you’ve ever managed?
- Are these properties in the same area as my property?
- Can you supply references?
- which services do you offer?
- What is your fee?
- Do you charge a leasing fee?
- Do you have additional fee for lease renewals?
- How do you advertise and market the properties you manage?
- Whats the average time for renting a new property?
- Whats the average turn-around time for a property(cleaning, repairs, move-in)?
- How often do you check on a property?
- How do you handle late payments?
- Have you ever evicted a tenant? Whats the procedure? How much do you charge the owner?
- Do you issue annual and monthly statements?
This list is quite comprehensive and I failed to ask my property manager most of them. I should know better by now!