How much do I pay my first employee of Property Mangement Co.

Question

I have a small but growing Property Management Company. We (my wife and I) currently manage 50 homes but want to grow to a couple hundred. I am thinking about hiring an employee (and family member) to help grow the company. I was thinking of paying a small base salary and then some commission for every new property they get for the company through cold calls, mail outs, door knocking, and networking etc.. On an avg property we charge about $400 the first month for finding a tenant, then about $125/month for managing it afterwards.

Any ideas on how I should pay them, and what all duties they should be responsible for?

Steve Olafson · Answer

I pay my managers around 30K.  I also usually hire eager and hard working people rather than experienced.

With 50 homes under your management, you should be able to define the duties.

Since you want profits and growth, you should tie your commissions and bonuses to that.

Brandon M. · Answer

Ah yes, those 40 hour a week jobs do get in the way.....

I probably would start out by giving her admin tasks to do, as much as she can handle. That will free you to spend most of your non work time going to REIAs and other networking meetings.

In regards to your other question we are sort of in the same dilemma as well, we have built up a nice infrastructure and are now looking to leverage that to partner with other PMs elsewhere. I would say the split depends on what that amount provides them. If you have set everything up and are paying an admin out of that split, then I think 70/30 or 75/25 sounds fair. Do you also maintain your broker license as well? I believe you would have to bring that person's RE license over to your brokerage unless you are going to be paying them every month as a referral fee (if their current broker will allow that). Just something to keep in mind.

Jesse Stephenson · Answer

Yeah you are right I should be the one out building the business.  Unfortunately right now I am still holding a 40 hour week day job too.  Trying to do too much right now.  I suppose I should pay her a flat rate and have her do admin stuff and show available homes to prospective tenants.

But what if a self starter wanted to be a property manager under my company's umbrella because they have never done it before and would like the experience and systems we already have in place?  What kind of split should I offer them? 70/30?

Brandon M. · Answer

so this employee will mainly focused on expansion of the business and not managing the existing properties? If you don't utilize a 24/7 hotline already to take all tenant maintenance requests you could use this person as your assistant/secretary/bookkeeper/inbound call request person (if they can handle those sorts of tasks) while you focus on expanding the business.

I prefer to have a full time admin who can send emails, mail letters, answer calls, make calls, etc, allowing me to focus on building the relationships with potential owners. I guess I trust myself to be the face of the business more than someone else. Having someone do these tasks allow me to make it to all sorts of networking meetings while having confidence any issues are being handled in a timely manner. In their downtime you could always have your employee searching Craigslist and any other methods, reaching out to them and trying to set up appointments with you to try and close the deal.

For someone like that I would pay them a flat rate, $2500 a month or so if you will be using them full time, or something lower than that plus a small bonus for any new relationships they find you.

Peter MacKercher · Answer

This ties in to exactly what im trying to do. Does South Carolina require your broker's license like mo does to have a property management co?

I want to hire someone part time to do property managment and then allow them to be an agent the rest of the time. What do you guy think of this plan?

Jesse Stephenson · Answer

How many homes do your managers manage for that pay?

How much do I pay my first employee of Property Mangement Co.

Most Popular Reply