Recently, we conducted an in-house questionnaire with our new owners on what makes a good property manager. The answers have provided some insight into some of the factors that they weigh up when building on a property portfolio. In particular, their answers gave insights on how to ensure they find the most appropriate property manager for their investments.
Good Property Managers
One of the most important parts of their financial journey is a property manager. It was important to the property owner to have a good property manager who oversees the operations and maintenance of the properties.
Meaningful conversations with potential managers help assess the role they could play in helping them grow their portfolio.
According to our property investors, some of the questions they ask when choosing a property manager are:
- “How many properties do you manage?”
- “How many years have you been in the industry?”
- “If a tenant is not paying rent, how do you deal that?”
- “How do you deal with insurance claims?”
“Once you talk to them, you will know, roughly, whether you have a property manager with knowledge and experience or not,” they said.
With Regards to Agent Fees
The responses to this question were varied. Here are some of the answers we received:
“While the agent fees are important, it should not be a critical factor when considering which property manager to work with.”
“It doesn’t really matter much because not only can they manage your property well and keep everything in order, they can also keep the tenant happy and paying on time — a week’s lost rent and the saving in agent’s fee is gone.”
“I’m happy to pay the person more. So, there are no problems.”
“At the end of the day, good property managers are worth their weight in gold. This is because they provide quality services and allow the investor to enjoy the benefits of having more time and less stress in their life”
For further information on property management fees, you may wish to read one of our related articles: Property Management Fees – What You Need to Know.
Proactive professionals
Working with your property manager should be a “reciprocal business”. As long as both parties enjoy the benefits of working with each other, this will be a fruitful association.
Good property managers are proactive and consistently seek opportunities to help the investor succeed. They can look at opportunities, whether they can increase rent or not and how the rental market is performing.
Good property managers put the best interests of the investors first and foremost.