on property managers

[Kate Szeto]

I have a property manager whom I have some doubts and wanted to ask for opinions on this forum. My property manager is a company who charges a fixed percentage every month. With my last one-year lease tenant managed by this PM, there were way too many breaks/fixes reported by this tenant through the PM - more breaks/fixes than my previous five tenants combined. Once this tenant is gone, the PM pushed for a lot of improvements costing me a five digit number dollar figure. PM is also my broker, so they obviously want a higher rental price with money from me to improve my property the way they think would get them a good price. Their ultimate goal is to get a good rental price, not to save me money. That is understandable. But they are driving what I should do with my property, which I feel is crossing the line. Is this the norm of property managers, that they can have so much power in your property? Where should their responsibilities be?

[Aaron Poling]

Their responsibilities should be whatever is agreed upon. In general your property manager's job should be to help you meet your goals. If those goals are to have top end properties to get the highest rents possible, or middle of the road properties that get middle of the road rents. It is within the property managers rights to only accept properties that fit the critiertia that they want to manage. I suggest having a conversation with your property manager to make sure your goals align with each other. It may be worth speaking with all the property managers in your space, to find the one that lines up with your goals the best. 

Good Luck! Aaron

[Justin Winn]

The property managers I’ve used in the past made me feel like they served me, understanding also that they must serve the tenants as well. 

For the maintenance issues, you could also get a home inspection done. I like to do this every 5-7 years if I can’t go look at a property myself just to make sure nothing absurd has happened with the property. But in your situation that inspection report would also confirm or deny what they are recommending and if those two lists are at odds with one another, I might consider looking for a new PM.

Best of luck

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Kate Szeto:

I have a property manager whom I have some doubts and wanted to ask for opinions on this forum. My property manager is a company who charges a fixed percentage every month. With my last one-year lease tenant managed by this PM, there were way too many breaks/fixes reported by this tenant through the PM - more breaks/fixes than my previous five tenants combined. Once this tenant is gone, the PM pushed for a lot of improvements costing me a five digit number dollar figure. PM is also my broker, so they obviously want a higher rental price with money from me to improve my property the way they think would get them a good price. Their ultimate goal is to get a good rental price, not to save me money. That is understandable. But they are driving what I should do with my property, which I feel is crossing the line. Is this the norm of property managers, that they can have so much power in your property? Where should their responsibilities be?

The Property Management Agreement should spell out what they are allowed to do for maintenance. Most agreements require the PM to get Landlord approval for any repair/improvement costing more than a certain dollar amount, usually around $300 - $500 per maintenance request.

I would demand the PM stop all maintenance without some agreement between the two of you as to what they can/can't do without your permission. Talk to them about your goals and their responsibility to look out for your interests, not their own. You may even consider finding a different Broker to sell the property.

[Mohammed Rahman]

Hey @Kate Szeto - sorry to hear about your experience with your PM. Have you tried speaking with them about this? 

If this PM is also your broker, then I'm guessing you already have a working relationship with them and it may just be that the PM is projecting their standards/perspectives onto your property (e.g. you might be ok with not needing the appliances replaced, whereas your PM might have replaced the appliances if it was her investment property). The lines between opinions and job responsibilities get blurred whenever a landlord doesn't draw the line clearly.  

Ultimately the PM works for you and you're managing them as their boss. If an employee doesn't perform well it's one of 2 reasons: (1) They don't know what's expected of them (most of the time this is the case and it's the boss's responsibility) or (2) they just don't care. 

I doubt it's #2 since you've used this PM as a broker before as well, so it may be time for you to have frank conversation with the PM about what your goals/expectations are. 

[Drew Sygit]

@Kate Szeto it appears to be a lack of CLEAR communication.

Not uncommon in this business!

We can share many "tales of woe" where we thought we were communicating effectively with an owner, but later found out:

1) Language barrier led them to NOT clearly understand us
2) They never responded, so we didn't know what they were expecting
3) They never read any of our messages, so didn't know what was going on.

DON'T ASSUME AND CONFIRM IN WRITING!