Have an investment property? 5 questions to ask before you choose a property manager
As an investor, renting your property can be one of the most tedious and complicated tasks to take on. To save yourself the headache and time, it makes sense to engage a property manager to handle your rental affairs.
Finding property management is only half the battle. It’s finding a good property manager that will give you the best possible return on money spent. From finding good tenants to chasing rent and managing maintenance tasks, the list of essential duties is a long one.
And, how do you know whether a property manager is good enough?
When looking for a property management provider, you should look into how many specialists they have in their team. Typically, the more specialists there are, the better, as the combined experience and industry knowledge will be to your advantage. It also means that if you ever need a mattr handled urgently, there will always be someone available to tend to it.
The aim is to find a property manager that has simplified the rental process, making it simple and straightforward. The easier it is to understand the process, the less stressful it will be for both you and your tenant.
Equipping yourself with these 5 questions to ask before making your decision to engage a property manager will help make your life a lot easier.
- Do you provide monthly and end of financial year statements?
One of the most straightforward aspects of the financial side of things, receiving monthly and end of financial year statements from your property manager will help you deduce whether the engagement is worth it.
A good property management company will issue monthly and end of financial year statements to keep you up-to-date about the financial happenings of your rental property.
Information in these statements include costs of repairs where applicable, balances brought forward from the previous period, rent paid to-date by the tenant, amounts withheld (i.e. to pay rates, etc.).
- Do you charge to pay utility bills?
An unnecessary excess charge that should be avoided whenever possible, a good property management company should not charge you to pay the utility bills. Many property managers do charge to pay the utility bill, so be sure to check beforehand as this isn’t often made obvious to you until a bill is due.
- Do you focus on preventative maintenance?
While renting out your property, one of the biggest concerns landlords have is the maintenance of their property. Without personally knowing what your tenants are like, renting to tenants is just as if you picked them out of the air. You never know if they’re clean individuals who take care of their home, or if they’re messy hoarders who will just leave things unkempt.
When looking for a property manager, you want one who will focus on preventative maintenance. By doing so, they will help you revamp your property to be more easily maintained by the tenant, thus avoiding the issue of poor maintenance down the line.
The best property managers will help you develop an assist register to protect your property.
- What are you administration and upfront fees?
When engaging a property manager, you want to avoid companies that are not honest with their administration and upfront fees.
Good property management providers should not charge administration and upfront fees, given they are hoping for a long term relationship with you.
- What is your fee structure like?
Transparency is critical in building trust in your property manager - and, it all starts with their fee structure.
The more transparent and honest a property manager is about their fee structure, the better. You will find it more pleasant to deal with someone honest than someone dubious, especially when it comes to your investment.
By asking the above 5 questions when looking for property management, you will be one step closer to sifting out the good ones from the bad
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