Me vs. my Property Manager
I have come to the fork in the road with my property manager....and I need perspective.
To give the background my wife and I relocated and turned our home into a rental, a common move. We then rented to the first applicants willing to pay, a common mistake. After the first year they began to slip on payments and instead of evicting we tried to be nice and give them a chance... 3 months later of no rent and we faced a crisis.
In comes the property manager. He was referred to us by a coworker and we knew we needed a pro. We met and right away noticed his bull dog tendencies, the type you want arguing on your behalf. Perfect for a couple like us.
He had the eviction process rolling and even got the former tenants to settle. And finally when we got back into our house we saw the destruction left behind. Rotting food, burnt counters, destroyed toilets... my wife and I were in our mid 20s and this was our first home so we were a bit emotional. Right away he knew what needed to be done, who to call, how to get this house to rent worthy status again.
After the 4 months of missing rent and the time it will take to make repairs we were looking at paycheck to paycheck. We were able to take a loan from family to help pay for the repairs but it was still short of what was needed. The PM knowing we were in a tight spot offered to find financing for the rest of the repairs.
Now to the present. He has had the property rented out consistently without a single month of vacancy for the past two years. Haven’t had any issues or maintenance concerns, and what we were renting for 1750 he is renting for 2300. Everything is running smooth... kinda. He says the debt was paid off and he would like to use that same monthly debt payment to create a savings for us for future cap ex. Now up until this point it was my wife doing all the dealings with the property and the PM
In the past 3 months I’ve had a change of heart to rental properties. I was against it but after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad I say give me all the properties I can buy. I knew that first I had to better understand the properties I already had ... and to question him about this idea of a savings to be managed by him.
Time to manage the manager! So I contacted the PM and created a spreadsheet stating what numbers I wanted to see, bank information, essentially a monthly statement. I feel he has been a great PM outside of paperwork to this point and I figured I’d show exactly what I want. He had oral surgery done so I gave some leeway to complete the task. Today I finally asked for any progress to which he answered “I’ll get to it this week”....
I have sent him an email stating new expectations moving forward, refusing to do it in a text or phone call, and that any concerns shall be emailed to me. He of course texted and called, which I did not respond to. He finally sent an email late saying he cannot complete the paperwork this week(which he has had a month to do), that I should call him if I have any concerns, that he will perform any emergency action but does not consider the requested paperwork as such.
Am I delusional or is this absolutely no way to conduct business? Any guidance would be amazing cause it’s 4 am and I’ve been up for 2 hours stewing over this.