Property managers aren't very active on BP forums

General Landlording & Rental Properties
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Property managers aren't very active on BP forums

Kalen Jordan
Austin · Member since 2015 · 149 posts · 80 votes

I could be wrong but it feels like in general PM companies aren't very active on BP. Also one of the biggest pain points for successful rental investing seems to be PM. It seems really weird they aren't more active.

I see horrible reviews about PM companies with no response from them at all.

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Nathan GesnerBusiness Member
Moderator
Real Estate Broker · Cody, WY · Member since 2010 · 28k+ posts · 41k+ votes
6y
Originally posted by @Kalen Jordan:

I could be wrong but it feels like in general PM companies aren't very active on BP. Also one of the biggest pain points for successful rental investing seems to be PM. It seems really weird they aren't more active.

I see horrible reviews about PM companies with no response from them at all.

I'm a property manager with over 7,500 posts and about 80% of those are in the Landlord & Tenant forum. If anything, I've been on here too much. There are several other property managers that are on here regularly.

There are definitely a lot of complaints about PM, and rightly so. However, I believe Landlords have a big role to play in that because they don't educate themselves on what a good PM looks like. They take the guy with the cheapest rates or the prettiest pitch and then let the PM run their property into the ground. It's just like Landlords that complain about bad tenants but never take ownership of their screening process (or lack thereof).

A lot of property managers are amateurs that sucked at sales and decided to collect rent for an "easy" paycheck. They scrape along doing the bare minimum until something blows up and then they slink off. Those of us trying to create a true profession have to live with the results. And you don't see them on BP because they don't really have anything of value to share. Most of the good ones are too busy building their businesses to spend time sharing. I'm one of the rare ones that continues to spend time on the boards when I should be working on my new management agreement, two new employees, new web site, news article, trade show materials, and 57 other things that went neglected while I typed this response. ;)

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  • Dennis M.
    Rental Property Investor · Erie, PA · Member since 2018 · 6k+ posts · 9k+ votes
    6y

    Most property managers are too busy cleaning up trash from apartments and spraying for bed bugs to post on here lol

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  • Calvin OzanickBusiness Member
    Property Manager · Janesville, WI · Member since 2017 · 707 posts · 297 votes
    6y

    I would like to think that I am a pretty active manager on BP. However, I will let you know that the reviews for PM companies are not a good reflection of them. The problem with the reviews for these companies is most of the time the poor reviews are left by angry tenants who are upset with how the situation went. I would say your best bet for getting an actively proper response on the quality of the manager is to ask them for 3 or 4 references. This allows you to speak with competent investors who have worked with the manager. @Nathan Gesner is the most active person on all of BP and I would trust him to manage any of my investments should the time ever come. 

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  • Michael Peters
    Member since 2019 · 215 posts · 122 votes
    6y

    Also a property manager and still relatively new to the BP forum community.  Great post since everyone seems to have some interesting points.  I got into PM so I could learn from the inside what it takes to become a successful investor.  I find the same benefits to participating on the forums as someone managing their own properties.  Regardless of experience or the number of properties under your belt there are always things to learn or utilize from the many perspectives on this site.  I also like to think that good deeds always come back around.  Regardless of how busy I am I always put aside time to improve our practices and procedures and have garnered many lessons from others who have already experienced it.

    I've also seen my fair share of PM shaming on the site and people can be quick to jump on board.  Many of those are justified but the majority seem to come from owners who are relatively new or only have a few properties.  Communication is always the key and there seems to be a large disconnect between what owners and PM both think their responsibilities are.  

    I hear a lot about training your landlord but it goes both ways.  A good PM should also be making sure the owner understands how they operate and more importantly why.  We're in the business of taking care of the property/your investment and making sure the tenants are happy so they stick around.  As pointed out above these two objectives are often at odds with one another.  I've had plenty of owners loose an amazing tenant because they had to get $60 extra on the lease renewal instead of accepting $50 or thought we should help out with the cost of a new furnace because it was unexpected and they already pay us every month.  We've had to drop bad owners and have been dropped by others.  It's just part of the business.

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