Your property should not be a revolving door of bad tenants coming in and going out. The number one cost you cannot ever recover from a property, is a vacancy. When you are not collecting rent you cannot cover your debt for the property. You cannot pay your contractors; you cannot pay your mortgage taxes and insurance. The worst of all is that you cannot make repairs and your property accumulates deferred maintenance issues. This is the slow death of a great property all the way down the scale to a poorly performing D property.
Well listen closely.
I am going to let you in on a dirty little secret that no property manager will ever tell you. Even when your property is completely empty, and the property manager has to evict a bad tenant, they are still making money. A property manager who is in and out of housing court managing someone else’s property is making a ton of money.
They are getting paid when they go to court for you, they are getting paid for the make ready of your apartment for the next tenant, they are getting paid for leasing up the next tenant (usually a full month rent), and then they are right back to getting paid every month their management fee without skipping a beat. Your property manager will continue collecting their monthly fee until the new tenant fouls up and they start getting paid all of the additional fees all over again. It is a vicious cycle and guess who gets to foot the bill? You do.
Take a deep breath.
Relax. Let that knot in your stomach loosen up just a bit. I have some good news. Just like you can screen a tenant for an eviction history, you can also screen your property manager for their eviction history. You can find out how frequent, they frequent the steps of your local housing court. It’s really not that hard to do at all. The irony is that if they used this same process, you would probably end up with better residents in the first place.
When you screen a resident for a rental there is a background check consent form that allows you to do a complete and thorough background check on the candidate. Well, all you have to do is have the property manager sign the same form and allow you to do them the same courtesy you would do for a rental candidate. Viola’! There you have it. Now you have full consent to perform a background check on your potential property manager. Check them out, check their credit, check their criminal record, and absolutely check how often they have been the plaintiff, or even the defendant. Now you are back in control of your situation and calling the shots. Which is where you should be, because you own the property and have put all of your capital at risk.
Find Yourself a Better Property Manager.
A good property manager realizes that their job is much less stressful by putting in a great tenant from the start. They can focus on getting great residents. They can minimize the risk of empty units for the property and the owner. They can focus more of their tie making the operations of the property better. A good property manager is constantly looking for ways to increase the profitability of the property to make money for the landlord and enhance the living experience of the residents. They are responsive to maintenance requests, which are less of a burden to the owner because there is actually rent coming in to pay the mortgage, the bills, the contractors, and the maintenance calls. A property running well keeps good residents, keeps generating cash flow, and makes the property managers job much more sustainable for the long term. Unlike the not so good property manager who has devised a way to keep collecting hidden fees until ultimately the owner catches on and fires them.
You want a property manager who will put the best possible resident in your building who will pay on time, obey the rules, and stay for a long time paying rents, keeping you happy cashing checks, and out of housing court.
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Warmest regards,
Brian Lucier
Belaire Property Management
Regional Property Manager
(978) 448-0669
info@belaire.co
www.belaire.co
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