June Tay, I recently decided to leave Win Rental in favor of a new manager, Equity Real Estate. So far Equity seems great, but only time will tell (today was their first day, as a matter of fact).
I also use Arbors for one house, and have asked them to manage two more that I hope to purchase. They seem to be just fine. I (fortunately) haven't had a lot of reasons to interact with them. I get my check and that's about it.
Let me know who you end up with, and how it works out. Always good to compare notes.
I have a friend who is looking for a Property Manager for a SFR in Pittsburgh. I see that some of these posts are over a year old, so @Michael D. or @Ian M. how have your experiences been to date with Equity Real Estate, Arbors or MACE? Would you still recommend any of them?
I've been looking at buying a property in pittsburgh and have been researching property managers and I am leaning towards Arbors. I've researched both Equity and MACE and they both had very bad reviews.
Seems like there's quite an exodus from Win Rental. Any feedback as to why?
I've heard many people say, "The only people who manage rental properties are people who can't make money in real estate. If they could make money in real estate, they wouldn't be resorting to managing other people's properties." What's your take on this?
I should also add that my friend has been talking to Crown Real Estate and Management Systems Inc. So if any feedback about them in particular would also be appreciated.
Jerry, I think people manage properties because they enjoy it and like making money doing what they enjoy. I think some people enjoy interacting with others. Collecting the first months rent for placing a tenant is a nice pay day for property managers and if they have good screening criteria the lease term will probably go by without any major headaches. If someone manages and doesn't own the property they also don't carry any risk. Personally I would manage myself if I lived closer to where I invest but since I don't I need a manager.
Most property management companies are going to have bad reviews, tenants who get evicted go online and blast bad things all over the web. Arbors is the largest in the area, Mace is the company we have in house and I know they work hard for people they manage over 600 units in the area and from my experience they do a great job.
You could also look into Craig/Craig Property Management. They manage just about 400 rental units all over the Pittsburgh Metro. If you're interested, feel free to check out there site: http://www.craigcraig.com/ You may message me if interested, and you and I and Gary Craig will talk.
- I agree with @Ian Hoover and @Eddie Werner , bad residents WILL blast management companies. However, there are some bad ones in general too. I think that most of us in property management, do it because we love real estate, and we usually own rentals too. No one person is going to have all of the properties of course, so if we like what we can do and provide that same great service (managing the asset like it were our own), why not make a business out of it right? The best business people are the ones who love and obsess over their industry- we talk about it and read about it in our free time too. We eat, sleep, and breathe income properties :)