Washington, DC · Member since 2015 · 12 posts · 3 votes
My family owns two houses in Brown Springs, Birmingham, AL. They were passed down in the family so no mortgage. Over the years it has been hard to find honest and reliable assistance managing the properties. Any suggestions for managing properties from afar? Or company/freelance suggestions?
My husband and I are in the same boat of feeling disenchanted with what we are paying for in a management company.
My hope is to self manage our next property and I have started brainstorming what that would look like if our next property is afar .
Here are the main hurdles & potential solutions I have brainstormed:
Listing: This is an area I feel confident could be achievable from afar since we keep several images of our long distance property in the cloud.
Showing: this may be the most logistically challenging; but pending how far the property is, I would try to set aside time to get a lockbox / codebox on the door.
Background check: perform ourselves.
Lease: Digital.
Maintenance / cleaning: I have built some connections with contractors in the area of our property already; I am sure building those relationships would be an ongoing effort.
Communication: I feel confident handling this from anywhere! I would be willing to communicate with tenants via email or phone.
I am sure this just scrapes the surface of what all self managing will entail, and I am confident there will be lessons learned along the way that I haven't thought of yet.
Also, with the above in mind, all the markets we are targeting are either within a 3 hour radius of where we live, so getting there and back in a day would be feasible. The other markets that we are exploring, we have a connection to already, such as our hometowns where we still have a lot of family that would be willing to help out with logistics.
I hope this helps & best of luck in your next steps!
Hello and thanks for your question Adrienne! That is different in what I expected you were going to ask but I will attempt to give you a good answer. I would try to find an acceptacle property manager or company that has experience in the same area I would try to ask for referrals of property managers in that area from real estate Brokers. If I feel the need to go farther I would also call local House and Apartment Managers Associations and try to get there referrals. You might ask a Turnkey management Company in that subject area that has experience and availability. Whoever you find I would tell you to tell them the things you expected like financial reports each month and will they care of the minor maintenance or push for a quick turnaround plus keep your travel expenses down and the communication that you expect and as often as you need. I would check out any locally managed property owners that may have someone worth referring.
That is all I can think of right now but one of the things that is mandatory is depending on a local manager or Property Management Company. From what you said I would believe that those properties have full equity and you can afford an "expensive" property manager that will do what you expect and that you would still make a good profit and will keep your travel expense to a minimum.. I hope any of this helps you.
Rent them to a Section 8 tenant & use an app like buildium or rent cafe. Tenants can upload photos if there is an issue. You can submit maintenance requests to a local contractor. The housing authority does direct deposit to your account to pay the rent. If there is an issue with the tenant call their case worker & have them address it with the tenant. No sense in paying a management company to collect rent where these are located. They should easily rent to a tenant receiving assistance. If you decide to go with a management company remember they don't make money by the management fee. They stay in business by the markup of repairs & renovations. That doesn't make them dishonest but it's how they keep their doors open for the services they provide.
Alabama is still a place where people know how to Macgyver things & build a house from bubble gum & rubber bands. I'm exaggerating that but there are plenty of handymen on craigslist or homeadvisor that will fix things for you if you need it.
@Adrienne McCloud, unfortunately, some property management companies do not make money by marking up repairs, they make money by charging a 10% management fee and then basically doing nothing. There are good ones out there. I can provide you some names if you like, of people I would use. A good management company will have all the current lease forms and related documents that are up to date, legally enforceable, and that have the clauses you need to protect you. That, all by itself, is really hard to do on your own. The mgt company will find tenants, screen them, manage payments, work the past dues, provide routine maintenance inspection services that can reveal problems in the process of occurring, and give tenants the clear impression there is "a sheriff in town" rather than the impression of 16 years olds at home alone while their parents are on vacation. Mgt companies have a pipeline of tenant prospects, rather than waiting until a lease is about to expire and THEN starting to look for a tenant. A good mgt company is worth every penny. Unfortunately, the bad ones can ruin you. That's the problem.
My family owns two houses in Brown Springs, Birmingham, AL. They were passed down in the family so no mortgage. Over the years it has been hard to find honest and reliable assistance managing the properties. Any suggestions for managing properties from afar? Or company/freelance suggestions?
My husband and I are in the same boat of feeling disenchanted with what we are paying for in a management company.
My hope is to self manage our next property and I have started brainstorming what that would look like if our next property is afar .
Here are the main hurdles & potential solutions I have brainstormed:
Listing: This is an area I feel confident could be achievable from afar since we keep several images of our long distance property in the cloud.
Showing: this may be the most logistically challenging; but pending how far the property is, I would try to set aside time to get a lockbox / codebox on the door.
Background check: perform ourselves.
Lease: Digital.
Maintenance / cleaning: I have built some connections with contractors in the area of our property already; I am sure building those relationships would be an ongoing effort.
Communication: I feel confident handling this from anywhere! I would be willing to communicate with tenants via email or phone.
I am sure this just scrapes the surface of what all self managing will entail, and I am confident there will be lessons learned along the way that I haven't thought of yet.
Also, with the above in mind, all the markets we are targeting are either within a 3 hour radius of where we live, so getting there and back in a day would be feasible. The other markets that we are exploring, we have a connection to already, such as our hometowns where we still have a lot of family that would be willing to help out with logistics.
I hope this helps & best of luck in your next steps!
@Adrienne McCloud If you're just looking for help with upkeep and don't want to go with a property manager then you may want to consider a 24/7 maintenance solution like Latchel. We help landlords that self manage by coordinating maintenance.
We give you a dedicated line for your tenants to call
We diagnose if the issue is an emergency or not
We troubleshoot the issue with our own team to try and get a fix done over the phone
We will get a contractor out to the home asap if we can't fix the emergency on the phone
If it is a standard request, we'll email you and see if you want us to send someone out to fix it
If you think a service like ours would save you time and hassle please reach out. DM me or you can book a time to speak with me here: http://latchel.as.me/ethan