I am pretty fed up with paying my property manager 25%. It really cuts into the rental payouts. Between the upkeep and the property manager, I am losing money every month. I have a call with Evolve tomorrow. The 10% sounds incredibly compelling.

Wondering if anyone has advice on who to use? On who not to use? What you would do in this situation?

I have not been impressed when I've stayed at properties managed by vacasa or turnkey, which in my mind are the same as evolve (although I could be wrong on that). Have you ever considered self managing? Most people in this forum seem to do it. Basically, as long as you have a housekeeper and a handy man that can handle your turnovers and maintenance requirements, you can easily manage remotely. I manage my STR from across the country the same way I did when I was in driving distance. Maybe give it a try. If you hate it, you at least know what the job entails and can better question and interview potential companies to take it on.
Best of luck! Melissa 

I can tell you that a good manager can blow Evolve away.  At least that's the case in my market.  You could pay 30% management fee and still come out ahead.

I'd get a revenue estimate from Evolve and then get revenue estimates from local managers (or yourself) and decide from that.  I got a revenue estimate from Evolve for one of my personal cabins and they said they THINK they could hit 120k with it.  I hit 210k.  One of the first owners we took from Evolve saw his revenues go up 30% immediately due to underpricing.

Compare apples to apples as best you can so you can make an educated decision.  My personal vote would be to self manage (and dedicate time to do a good job) or shop hard to get a hungry PM that'll do a better job bringing in money.

i would love to self manage but i live in SF and work around 70hrs a week. i am just losing so much money on property management, especially compared to the upkeep costs for the property itself. i have been hoping that there is a better option.

Originally posted by @Justin Anderson :

I can tell you that a good manager can blow Evolve away.  At least that's the case in my market.  You could pay 30% management fee and still come out ahead.

I'd get a revenue estimate from Evolve and then get revenue estimates from local managers (or yourself) and decide from that.  I got a revenue estimate from Evolve for one of my personal cabins and they said they THINK they could hit 120k with it.  I hit 210k.  One of the first owners we took from Evolve saw his revenues go up 30% immediately due to underpricing.

Compare apples to apples as best you can so you can make an educated decision.  My personal vote would be to self manage (and dedicate time to do a good job) or shop hard to get a hungry PM that'll do a better job bringing in money.

What area are you in? I have never heard PMs charge 25% of the rent. You are better off educating yourself and managing the tenants than giving up part of the profit. Try to use thumbtack to find the PMs in your area, interview them and pick a PM. 

Hey @Becky Kaapuni . I would avoid Evolve. All they do is take 10%, own your listing and are only communication relayers. All that you can do yourself.

Where is your rental at? Is it a vacation rental? Tell us more about it.

You can self manage that property with some good systems in place to handle things. All it takes is a phone and some good people skills.

@Aj Parikh , 25% is about the average for property management of a short term rental. They usually handle everything for you including cleaning turnover and the like. Much more than a LTR PM.

@Aj Parikh It's not unheard of for PMs to charge 40% in some markets.  I've spoken with managers in a touristy part of Texas that do it as well as ski towns.

originally i planned to self manage. maybe i should look into that again. i just worry about things going wrong and no one being around to do anything. it seems like my guests always have issues. 

Originally posted by @Melissa Bovee :

I have not been impressed when I've stayed at properties managed by vacasa or turnkey, which in my mind are the same as evolve (although I could be wrong on that). Have you ever considered self managing? Most people in this forum seem to do it. Basically, as long as you have a housekeeper and a handy man that can handle your turnovers and maintenance requirements, you can easily manage remotely. I manage my STR from across the country the same way I did when I was in driving distance. Maybe give it a try. If you hate it, you at least know what the job entails and can better question and interview potential companies to take it on.
Best of luck! Melissa 

It's not going to be as much work as you think it is.  Take a little while and read over the short term rental forums here, and you'll see lots of tips about software, good cleaners, and handymen.  You'll know better what to do after that. 

Originally posted by @Becky Kaapuni :

originally i planned to self manage. maybe i should look into that again. i just worry about things going wrong and no one being around to do anything. it seems like my guests always have issues. 

Originally posted by @Melissa Bovee:

I have not been impressed when I've stayed at properties managed by vacasa or turnkey, which in my mind are the same as evolve (although I could be wrong on that). Have you ever considered self managing? Most people in this forum seem to do it. Basically, as long as you have a housekeeper and a handy man that can handle your turnovers and maintenance requirements, you can easily manage remotely. I manage my STR from across the country the same way I did when I was in driving distance. Maybe give it a try. If you hate it, you at least know what the job entails and can better question and interview potential companies to take it on.
Best of luck! Melissa 

 

It is located in the Russiann River in Monte Rio, which is a rather secluded area. I live about 2 hours away and work a 70+ hour job. I have had the property for about 1.5 years. My biggest concern are the random things that come up and having someone available to help. Getting cleaners in that area can be tough, as well as any good maintenance people.

Originally posted by @Michael Baum :

Hey @Becky Kaapuni. I would avoid Evolve. All they do is take 10%, own your listing and are only communication relayers. All that you can do yourself.

Where is your rental at? Is it a vacation rental? Tell us more about it.

You can self manage that property with some good systems in place to handle things. All it takes is a phone and some good people skills.

@Aj Parikh , 25% is about the average for property management of a short term rental. They usually handle everything for you including cleaning turnover and the like. Much more than a LTR PM.

How much time do you spend every week on this? My biggesst concern is finding reliable people to do the cleaning and be on call.

Originally posted by @Melissa Bovee :

I have not been impressed when I've stayed at properties managed by vacasa or turnkey, which in my mind are the same as evolve (although I could be wrong on that). Have you ever considered self managing? Most people in this forum seem to do it. Basically, as long as you have a housekeeper and a handy man that can handle your turnovers and maintenance requirements, you can easily manage remotely. I manage my STR from across the country the same way I did when I was in driving distance. Maybe give it a try. If you hate it, you at least know what the job entails and can better question and interview potential companies to take it on.
Best of luck! Melissa 

@Becky Kaapuni the key for STR's our finding a great manager it's more important than the market even. None of the national STR companies are any good at optimizing the revenue in my market we make 3 times as much for comp properties as the big brands and they are all in my market. There are very few good managers and the value add of a management company should be that they make you more revenue and save you time and most importantly energy. My wife and I started our management company because we couldn't find a management company in my market that was any good and we wanted to be big enough to hire out the parts we were still doing on our own properties because it's a ton of energy to be always on call. We decided that despite having the top property in one of the top STR markets in the country and makes crazy returns like CoC over 100% that unless you paid someone else to do it, it wouldn't be worth it for us any more.

I would say once I had all my people and systems up I'm now spending one hour per week on my STR. I'm basically just routing things to the right person. Maintenance issues and general stuff goes to my maintenance person who is my main boots in the ground person, I check in with my housekeeper 1-2 times per week depending on the number of turnovers to confirm the schedule and hear how each guest left the unit. Communication with guests is variable, but I have 90% of it automated because the same questions come up over and over.

Here are thee tools I use:

• IGMS for communication with guests and automation of communication (free for 1 property)
• PriceLabs for organizing min stays on what days and for far out bookings as well as dynamic pricing ($20/ mo)
• Remote lock for my automated keyless entry front door ($6/ mo). This connects with Airbnb so each guests gets a personalized door code active for the duration of their stay

That’s about it. The main work as you mentioned is finding the boots on the ground people. My first housekeeper was the vacasa housekeeper who was cleaning it before I bought it. I asked her for a quote and she was happy to work with me directly. Maybe show up during a turnover and see if you can chat up the housekeeper. Ask for referrals for a maintenance person. 

1. 
   
   
   Originally posted by @Becky Kaapuni :
   

   How much time do you spend every week on this? My biggesst concern is finding reliable people to do the cleaning and be on call.
   
   Originally posted by @Melissa Bovee:
   

   I have not been impressed when I've stayed at properties managed by vacasa or turnkey, which in my mind are the same as evolve (although I could be wrong on that). Have you ever considered self managing? Most people in this forum seem to do it. Basically, as long as you have a housekeeper and a handy man that can handle your turnovers and maintenance requirements, you can easily manage remotely. I manage my STR from across the country the same way I did when I was in driving distance. Maybe give it a try. If you hate it, you at least know what the job entails and can better question and interview potential companies to take it on.
   Best of luck! Melissa 

    

Hi Becky, we live in SF and have a property in Sonoma county too. We self manage and it's not too much work (maybe a couple of hours a week).

However, the key thing is finding a really good house cleaner that can also be your local point of contact on the permit (and if you need local feet on the ground of the occasional issue).

If you want to consider self managing, you have to be willing to knock down a few doors and spend some time getting that cleaner / local point of contact. If you're not able to find someone or don't have the time to find one, they property management is the way to go for sure. 

been with evolve for 2 years now.. there are pros and cons... make sure you are extracting their full worth by having them contact a strong on the ground support.  If you are listed as one of the contacts.. you will end up doing a lot more co-ordination than you expect,  there is also a huge problem with their pricing algorithm... they had my lake front priced at mid 200s when ideally it should have been around 500s .per night.. took some convincing to rectify and now its priced at around 1700 per night.. which is again preposterous considering that its PA not Lake Tahoe....

@Becky Kaapuni I can sense the frustration in your post so at the risk of being possibly the only PM commenting on your post here goes:

Yes... you should certainly look to self manage your own properties if your numbers do not allow you to cash flow with a PM. The reaction most owners have is to attack the very same service that is keeping it all together for them - the PM. A property manager is really no different than any other service provider for your investment property... if your were cash flow negative this month because the plumber charged you $X.XX for the repair you wouldn’t all of the sudden turn to them and expect them to lower their rate for their service or provide that service for free just so that you cash flow. A PM is great and will save you time if you vet them properly AND if you build that fee into the numbers BEFORE you buy your ‘investment’ property. If the cash flow is so tight that you can’t cash flow with a PM or if you errored on due diligence than it may not be a good choose to hire a PM - because then it doesn’t really matter if they are the best PM under the sun because at the end of the day you will always reason not cash flowing with the PM because the numbers were to tight to begin with.

You should be okay with self managing it’s not hard; it is just simply a time and systems trade off.

Hey @Becky Kaapuni . I just did a search for vacation rental in Monte Rio and there are quite a few. 141 on VRBO. If there are that many in that area, there will be cleaning services available there.

Santa Rosa is 30 minutes away and has a ton of cleaning services. I bet you can find what you need in the area.

I know this can be a stressful thing to get rolling. You start thinking of each and every thing that can go wrong. Each and every one of us has gone through this thinking process. Just take a breath, make some calls, get some cleaners out there to see the place and get bids.

You can do it!

@Becky Kaapuni I live in Santa Rosa and am trying to move in the direction of investing, but before I do I was hoping to get some experience managing/maintaining properties. Maybe I could help you out and get your expenses closer to the 10% you're looking for? 

Running a solid property management is hard.  If your PM is doing a great job, it's probably worth 25% to someone that is busy with a successful high paying job.  If they are not doing a good job, find someone that will, even if you pay them 30%.  If they increase revenue by 50% but take a larger cut, it's worth it.

Also if you choose to go the self-management route, consider over-paying significantly for a great cleaner.  It will still save you money vs. a PM.  You may also look for a local person you pay $100-150 or so per turn to do inspections post clean, communicate with guests after they checkin, coordinate vendors, do in-person checkins for guests you may be concerned about, etc.