How many units is too many for one person?

Question

I want to know what most property managers have in place to handle large amounts of units. I currently run 150 lower end SFR’s, 5 Complexes less than 15 units per and a mobile home park totaling 230 units in two cities with myself, another worker and a maintenance guy, This is done for another person, I’m consistently on the phone from the moment I get into the office in the morning until when I get out clocking 200+ phone calls a day on some days and with general office work, and a pest control company run out of the same location taking an hour to two out of my day. Given the same structure and amount of units, what kind of staff would you have? I’m deeply overwhelmed sometimes by the job and want to see if it’s so difficult because of past mismanagement and disorganization or because we don’t have enough staff. Feel free to share your personal setups and make me feel like a wimp if necessary, I’m really looking to see the capacity of a well run property management company on average. Thank You.

Dennis M. · Answer

@Caleb Heimsoth

I know of a guy who supposedly managed 320 sfh . If your doing over 100 that’s awesome  , if your doing over 200 low income houses/ units then that is incredible ! My hats off to you . That can’t be an easy task for anybody even with a handyman/helper . I get a kick out of people on here who buy local to them but  still hire a pm to manage a duplex because they work a 40 hr job lol

Caleb Heimsoth · Answer

@Joseph Baron Fuller. You said lower income so I bet you’re understaffed for sure.  Probably need at least another assistant/office person.

For an Individual property manager around 50 units or so is probably what you’re looking at before you start to get overwhelmed.

I don’t have an exact answer for you, but I’ll give you a couple different situations.  I know one local PM who runs 120 nice single family homes, by basically herself.  They’re easy to manage.

I know another investor who owns around 200 units who has at least two “assistants” plus himself plus maintenance/rehab crews just for his stuff (it’s mostly lower Income).  So that sounds closer to your scenario, which means you’re likely at least one person short.

I know another property management company with around 2000 units under management and they have at least 3-4 office staff plus idk how many maintenance staff.