For landlords who’ve considered hiring a PM…

Property Manager · Rome, GA · Member since 2025 · 14 posts · 19 votes

For owners who have thought about hiring a property manager at some point — what ultimately pushed you toward it, or what made you decide to keep self-managing?

Was it a specific issue (tenant, maintenance, time, compliance), or just a slow build of small things?

I’m genuinely curious how that decision point looks for different landlords, especially in Georgia.

Always helpful to hear what actually matters to owners when they’re weighing the pros and cons.

— Melanie

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Melanie ThomasBusiness Member

Real Estate Broker · San Antonio · Member since 2022 · 1k+ posts · 489 votes

9mo

Before I became a professional property manager myself, the biggest factor for me was actually what I didn’t know. I could handle the basics, but the legal and compliance side was where things started to feel risky.

Property code requirements, fair housing, notice timelines, lease language, and all the small technical details that can turn into big problems if you miss them. That’s ultimately what pushed me to stop self-managing. One mistake can easily cost more than a year of management fees.

It wasn’t one dramatic tenant issue. It was the realization that the exposure was real, the rules change, and I didn’t want to learn those lessons the hard way. Good luck & happy investing!

[email protected]

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Rick Albert
Real Estate Agent · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2018 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9mo
I've struggled with the concept of property managers. It gets very expensive with the add on costs, the lack of detail when it comes to repairs, etc. With that said I've had very good PMs as well.
So far the biggest reason to go with a property manager is it is a good test at the buying phase. For example I was going to submit an offer on an out of state property. I sent it to my PM to get their thoughts and they said they would NOT manage that property because of X, Y, and Z. If they aren't willing to manage it, then I'm not buying it. If I didn't have the property manager, I never would have known that I could be buying into a bad part of town.
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David PeschioBusiness Member
Richmond, VA · Member since 2019 · 357 posts · 180 votes
9mo
We get most owners when they get tired of handling the tenant interactions. They either want to free up time for themselves or want to focus on growing their investment portfolio instead of the day to day operations.
[email protected]804-909-1929
PMI Richmond4.4297 Reviews
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Allison Park
Member since 2024 · 158 posts · 87 votes
9mo
Self managing due to cost of PM and background in management. Small number of A/B properties. No drama.
0 Reply
Melanie ThomasBusiness Member
Real Estate Broker · San Antonio · Member since 2022 · 1k+ posts · 489 votes
9mo
Before I became a professional property manager myself, the biggest factor for me was actually what I didn’t know. I could handle the basics, but the legal and compliance side was where things started to feel risky.

Property code requirements, fair housing, notice timelines, lease language, and all the small technical details that can turn into big problems if you miss them. That’s ultimately what pushed me to stop self-managing. One mistake can easily cost more than a year of management fees.
It wasn’t one dramatic tenant issue. It was the realization that the exposure was real, the rules change, and I didn’t want to learn those lessons the hard way. Good luck & happy investing!
[email protected]
RentWerx Property Management4.73296 Reviews
Website View Page
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Lydia Winn
Member since 2025 · 91 posts · 55 votes
9mo
@Melanie Thomas makes an excellent point about fair housing, code requirements, notice timelines and technical details. Especially in tenant-friendly states, these can make or break an eviction and cost a landlord thousands.
1 Reply
Colleen F.Pro Member
Investor · Narragansett, RI · Member since 2013 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
9mo
@Melanie Thomas why not- small choice of managers, large relative cost, and lousy performance of the hired manager. I think the last is the single most influential for most people who have used PMs and then decide not to. If I go back to a PM it will be due to co-ordinating repairs mostly. Finding good tenants is the easier part at the moment.
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James JonesPro Member
Investor · Collierville, TN 38017 · Member since 2017 · 589 posts · 445 votes
9mo
For me, it was never one big blow-up. It was death by a thousand paper cuts.

I self-managed early on and it worked fine at small scale. The breaking point came when the time cost started creeping past the management fee math. Vendor coordination, follow-ups, compliance details, tenant communication, late-night issues. None of it was hard individually, but together it pulled me out of acquisition and asset management.

That said, hiring a PM didn’t magically fix things either.

The real decision point wasn’t “PM or no PM.” It was systems or chaos.

A good PM made sense once:

I had standardized properties and expectations

I knew my numbers well enough to audit their work

I was managing remotely and needed leverage, not babysitting

A bad PM is worse than self-managing. You lose time and control.

Today, I look at PMs as an extension of my operating system, not a replacement for ownership responsibility. If an owner doesn’t have clear processes, thresholds, and reporting expectations, a PM won’t solve that. They’ll expose it.

So the shift wasn’t emotional. It was operational.

Once the portfolio reached a point where my highest-value work was no longer day-to-day execution, outsourcing made sense.

Until then, self-managing is often the better teacher.
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