PM maintenance team overcharging hours?
Investor · SC · Member since 2023 · 17 posts · 8 votes
I own a single family rental in SC, just south of Charlotte, NC. Our property management company is based in central Charlotte, about 30 minutes north. My tenants recently submitted two separate maintenance requests to replace the doorbell and replace the kitchen faucet sprayer head (just the head). Anyone who’s performed these tasks knows each one takes about 5 minutes. And our property is 5 minutes from Lowe’s, so parts aren’t an issue.
The PM’s maintenance team charged 3 hours for each separate job, stating that they include drive time from their office. When I asked about the job times, they agreed to reduce the doorbell charge but held firm on 3 hours for the faucet because they claimed it took time to troubleshoot.
So I have three questions: 1) is it standard to charge owners for drive time from the prior job site or office; 2) am I crazy to think these are egregious overcharges; and 3) what actions can I take beyond requesting that they review and lower the charges?
Melanie, I appreciate the input. I agree and we’ve been weighing the possibility of managing the property ourselves. If we could use the PM solely for sourcing tenants, payment processing, and any eviction issues, then I think we’d be comfortable acting as the primary point for maintenance.
Joe, I recommend self-managing. You can easily learn to source tenants yourself. If needed pay for someone to show the property. There are plenty of free payment processors like Baselane and Innago. I use TenantCloud for around 30 properties and it's $50 per month. For eviction issues just hire an attorney. For majority of people I actually think self-management is the best route. We pay a LOT of money for a property, and management is the key to ensuring it's success. I think it's good for owner's to be a little bit hands on in the management until they build the right systems and process to be more passive, or better yet hire an internal manager yourself once your portfolio gets to the right size.
Each PM company is different. I'm a co-host for medium term rentals and I pay my employees per hour for tasks like driving from one of the homes to the store, shopping for parts, etc. so I could see where the PM gets the charges. But as others mentioned this is one of the drawbacks with working with property managers as opposed to self managing. I personally use Baselane to manage my properties because as a full time investor it's important to keep every dollar I can. Self managing ends up saving a ton of time. Baselane includes all the tools you need to manage with their property management tools.
Melanie, I appreciate the input. I agree and we’ve been weighing the possibility of managing the property ourselves. If we could use the PM solely for sourcing tenants, payment processing, and any eviction issues, then I think we’d be comfortable acting as the primary point for maintenance.
Joe, I recommend self-managing. You can easily learn to source tenants yourself. If needed pay for someone to show the property. There are plenty of free payment processors like Baselane and Innago. I use TenantCloud for around 30 properties and it's $50 per month. For eviction issues just hire an attorney. For majority of people I actually think self-management is the best route. We pay a LOT of money for a property, and management is the key to ensuring it's success. I think it's good for owner's to be a little bit hands on in the management until they build the right systems and process to be more passive, or better yet hire an internal manager yourself once your portfolio gets to the right size.
I second this! We've gone the full property manager route and didn't regret it because we've been lucky enough to have decent PM companies; however, we have found we can do this ourselves and it isn't time consuming or difficult. The part that's hardest for me with remote properties is showing the units, but you'll find that you can pay someone to either handle the tenant acquisition process (about $250). Sometimes the PM company or even your Realtor will be willing to do it for you for a fee. Other than the showings (which are batched on a certain day/time), the rest I'm able to do myself. I use Baselane for most tenant-related features including tenant vetting, developing the lease, collecting deposits, collecting rents and for all my bookkeeping related features. I DO outsource maintenance. The hardest part about this is initially establishing the relationships with your handyperson and other trades like plumbers so they can be your go-to source when you call. Arguably, a PM company is going to have these trades available at a cheaper rate (theoretically) due to scale, but the PM company is also probably going to mark it up, so it ends up costing about the same. It just comes down to how much of this you want to do yourself vs. outsourcing. But I agree with Grace that self-management is totally do-able and you can decide how much or how little of it you want to do yourself.
Oh boy. I’m feeling more confident with every response like this. I’m thinking we might make the leap this Spring. Thanks for the reply and encouragement!
Melanie, I appreciate the input. I agree and we’ve been weighing the possibility of managing the property ourselves. If we could use the PM solely for sourcing tenants, payment processing, and any eviction issues, then I think we’d be comfortable acting as the primary point for maintenance.
Joe, I recommend self-managing. You can easily learn to source tenants yourself. If needed pay for someone to show the property. There are plenty of free payment processors like Baselane and Innago. I use TenantCloud for around 30 properties and it's $50 per month. For eviction issues just hire an attorney. For majority of people I actually think self-management is the best route. We pay a LOT of money for a property, and management is the key to ensuring it's success. I think it's good for owner's to be a little bit hands on in the management until they build the right systems and process to be more passive, or better yet hire an internal manager yourself once your portfolio gets to the right size.
I second this! We've gone the full property manager route and didn't regret it because we've been lucky enough to have decent PM companies; however, we have found we can do this ourselves and it isn't time consuming or difficult. The part that's hardest for me with remote properties is showing the units, but you'll find that you can pay someone to either handle the tenant acquisition process (about $250). Sometimes the PM company or even your Realtor will be willing to do it for you for a fee. Other than the showings (which are batched on a certain day/time), the rest I'm able to do myself. I use Baselane for most tenant-related features including tenant vetting, developing the lease, collecting deposits, collecting rents and for all my bookkeeping related features. I DO outsource maintenance. The hardest part about this is initially establishing the relationships with your handyperson and other trades like plumbers so they can be your go-to source when you call. Arguably, a PM company is going to have these trades available at a cheaper rate (theoretically) due to scale, but the PM company is also probably going to mark it up, so it ends up costing about the same. It just comes down to how much of this you want to do yourself vs. outsourcing. But I agree with Grace that self-management is totally do-able and you can decide how much or how little of it you want to do yourself.
I am not a third party property manager but have dealt with them in the past. I am also coming from some experience here. Things are fine when all is good. However, when sh!t hits the fan, you will be wishing you had that property management company assisting you with things.
I know property managers and they tell me their stories. Most issues; flooding and plumbing at all hours of the night. One had a client's cold water line crack in the middle of the night and flood the basement. Another had a main sewer line backup into a basement. Another had a waste line crack for all four apartments; with one apartment still using the toilet even though they were told not to use it.
You may save some money on the fees in the beginning. But trust when I say, you will eventually have one of these calls and it's going to be sleepless nights and $$$$$. Not trying to rain on your parade, just stating 40+ years of facts. We have our own maintenance crew, but in the '70s and early 80s, I was a one-man shop. Albeit, materials were made better then.
Melanie, I appreciate the input. I agree and we’ve been weighing the possibility of managing the property ourselves. If we could use the PM solely for sourcing tenants, payment processing, and any eviction issues, then I think we’d be comfortable acting as the primary point for maintenance.
Joe, I recommend self-managing. You can easily learn to source tenants yourself. If needed pay for someone to show the property. There are plenty of free payment processors like Baselane and Innago. I use TenantCloud for around 30 properties and it's $50 per month. For eviction issues just hire an attorney. For majority of people I actually think self-management is the best route. We pay a LOT of money for a property, and management is the key to ensuring it's success. I think it's good for owner's to be a little bit hands on in the management until they build the right systems and process to be more passive, or better yet hire an internal manager yourself once your portfolio gets to the right size.
I second this! We've gone the full property manager route and didn't regret it because we've been lucky enough to have decent PM companies; however, we have found we can do this ourselves and it isn't time consuming or difficult. The part that's hardest for me with remote properties is showing the units, but you'll find that you can pay someone to either handle the tenant acquisition process (about $250). Sometimes the PM company or even your Realtor will be willing to do it for you for a fee. Other than the showings (which are batched on a certain day/time), the rest I'm able to do myself. I use Baselane for most tenant-related features including tenant vetting, developing the lease, collecting deposits, collecting rents and for all my bookkeeping related features. I DO outsource maintenance. The hardest part about this is initially establishing the relationships with your handyperson and other trades like plumbers so they can be your go-to source when you call. Arguably, a PM company is going to have these trades available at a cheaper rate (theoretically) due to scale, but the PM company is also probably going to mark it up, so it ends up costing about the same. It just comes down to how much of this you want to do yourself vs. outsourcing. But I agree with Grace that self-management is totally do-able and you can decide how much or how little of it you want to do yourself.
I am not a third party property manager but have dealt with them in the past. I am also coming from some experience here. Things are fine when all is good. However, when sh!t hits the fan, you will be wishing you had that property management company assisting you with things.
I know property managers and they tell me their stories. Most issues; flooding and plumbing at all hours of the night. One had a client's cold water line crack in the middle of the night and flood the basement. Another had a main sewer line backup into a basement. Another had a waste line crack for all four apartments; with one apartment still using the toilet even though they were told not to use it.
You may save some money on the fees in the beginning. But trust when I say, you will eventually have one of these calls and it's going to be sleepless nights and $$$$$. Not trying to rain on your parade, just stating 40+ years of facts. We have our own maintenance crew, but in the '70s and early 80s, I was a one-man shop. Albeit, materials were made better then.
I don't disagree that things are going to happen over time but people always point out the extremes. And while they DO happen, smaller items are far more common and those should be easily handled if you have the systems and team in place. So you have to weigh whether you want to pay for PM all the time in order to handle the more difficult scenarios or if you're willing to work through those issues if and when they happen. You're going to pay for the repairs anyway - and that is the most substantial part of the cost and the biggest part of the effort when something big happens - not the property management itself. If you own older or sub-standard properties, the odds of this happening are exponentially higher. And some investors just don't want to be that in-the-weeds, which is ok. Sounds like the OP is very knowledgeable and capable so I'm suggesting he take on PM himself but that all depends on how he feels his time is best spent.