Do You Need a Property Manager?
There are many decisions that you will need to make when investing in real estate. One of those decisions, for those handling rental properties is whether or not you need a property manager. Property managers have many uses and are a great idea for those who have many properties to handle and wish to have a life away from their real estate investing businesses. A property manager is your buffer between your tenants and your family.
The benefits of a good property management service are quite numerous. To begin with you will find that they eliminate the need for tenants to have your phone number. If you’ve dealt with rental properties before without the buffer of a property manager you are surely aware that it doesn’t matter what time of night or the morning things go wrong, you are the first person your tenants call to fix those things. A property management service is able to handle many things for you while letting you sleep through the night. It’s no small favor when you consider the multiples of tenants as you purchase more properties. A few late night phone calls and many rental property owners are almost ready to get out of the business of renting properties.
Property management services also often happen to have a qualified staff of maintenance people that can handle many of the things that go wrong with rental properties. The fee for these services may be included in your fees for the using the property management service in general or certain services may charge additional fees. Regardless your property manager or property management team is often the best source to find contractors to handle the repairs they cannot make for you as well as the repairs that they can. It’s nice to know that you won’t be getting up bleary eyed in the morning calling around for a plumber on the first exceptionally cold day of winter. Moreover it’s nice to know that someone else can deal with some of the negative things about owning rental properties.
My personal favorite reason to seek the services of a property management service is that they are qualified to handle the legalities of taking care of tenants who cannot make the rent for months on end. This is after all a business and while you can relate to the circumstances that leave some people unable to pay their rent you need the income from their property in order to make your bills. It’s much easier to leave some of the less pleasant tasks to someone else, especially if you are a softy for sob stories.
Property managers also handle the advertising for your property and the cleaning up and retouches that are necessary between tenants. They also allow you to take vacations and such filled with the knowledge that your properties and tenants are in good hands even when you aren’t there to oversee everything. Everyone needs to take a break sometimes it’s nice to know that with a reliable property manager you can actually sit back and relax while taking those breaks without worrying about all the particulars of the properties you own so far away.
If you are going to invest in real estate, this is one of the most worry free ways you can do it. The more properties you have, the more sense it makes to utilize the services of a reliable property management team.
