A Huge Mistake I Made During My First Year in Real Estate
Last year I bought a duplex as my first transaction as an agent.
A friend helped answer a few questions when I wrote my first contract, and I was genuinely grateful. Since I travel out of the country frequently and didn’t know any other property management companies, I decided to use his company to manage the duplex.
That decision turned into a nightmare.
They rented out one side pretty quickly, but the tenant soon stopped paying full rent and started sending partial payments. The PM kept accepting them. By the time I realized how bad it was, the tenant was already 4 months behind.
The property manager assigned to me almost never responded unless I involved the owner directly. I kept telling them to start the eviction process, but they continued accepting partial payments and listening to empty promises.
Recently, a charity rent assistance check came in and covered around $4,000 of the balance. At that point, if we had evicted the tenant and applied the deposit, my loss probably would’ve been manageable. But again, my friend believed more promises, waited longer, and the tenant stopped paying again.
The other side of the duplex had issues too, although not as bad. In the beginning they listed it way too high, which caused it to sit vacant for 2–3 months. It only rented after I did my own market research and lowered the price by a few hundred dollars.
What’s crazy is that this is an area with maybe a 1–2% eviction rate, and somehow I ended up with two tenants that may both need to be evicted.
This morning I woke up from a dream where I was literally screaming at my friend over all of this. I finally texted him and asked if we could mutually agree to terminate the management contract.
The contract has a $1,000 early termination fee. Honestly, I don’t even know if he’ll try to hold me to it. Happy to take any advice if he does.
Big lesson learned:
Never hire a property manager just because of friendship or convenience. Interview multiple companies, understand their eviction policies, ask how they handle partial payments, and verify communication expectations upfront.
I learned this the hard way.