I work with Haven Group Property Management here in Cleveland, and one of the reasons I joined BiggerPockets was to better understand what investors are actually experiencing—not just what we see from the management side.
Would love to hear what’s working, what isn’t, and what you wish your property manager did better.
Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes
3w
Biggest thing out of town investors have touble with is figuring out what's what in the Cleveland market.
You can really get yourself in trouble just looking at the best priced properties on Zillow. There are reasons why properties are priced the way they are and if you don't understand those going into it, you'll get smoked.
Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes
3w
Biggest thing out of town investors have touble with is figuring out what's what in the Cleveland market.
You can really get yourself in trouble just looking at the best priced properties on Zillow. There are reasons why properties are priced the way they are and if you don't understand those going into it, you'll get smoked.
Property Manager · Cleveland, OH · Member since 2026 · 28 posts · 11 votes
3w
That’s a great point. Cleveland can vary a lot from one neighborhood to the next, so understanding the area before buying is huge. I appreciate you sharing the guide — definitely a good resource for out-of-state investors.
I actually used RE/MAX Haven for about five years before eventually moving to a different property manager.
Overall, there were some things I liked about RE/MAX, but ultimately the maintenance costs and lack of flexibility became too much for me.
One recurring issue I had was the amount of time it could take to complete tenant-turnover repairs. At one point, relatively minor turnover work took around four months, although I will say this seemed to improve later on.
I also felt they hit tenants pretty hard with fees and fines. My concern was that this could create unnecessary friction with otherwise decent tenants and contribute to turnover.
The biggest reason I left, though, was rent-ready maintenance costs. On my final turnover with them, I received a quote of roughly $11,000 for what I considered fairly straightforward work. After switching property managers, I was able to get the work completed for around $4,000.
What frustrated me was that RE/MAX didn't seem very open to lower-cost or creative alternatives. For example, I suggested touch-up painting where appropriate rather than completely repainting rooms, but I was told they wouldn't do touch-ups and that I would need to spend around $4,500 for a full repaint. I had a similar experience with repainting cabinets.
Another example: a previous tenant took the garage-door opener, and because the garage couldn't easily be accessed, the proposed solution was to spend roughly $800 on a garage-door specialist. I suggested a couple of inexpensive ways to gain access and open the door manually, but they weren't interested in trying them. Situations like that made me feel as though the default solution was often to hire someone and pass the expense along rather than look for the most economical solution for the owner.
I also found that they generally preferred not to discuss property issues over the phone. I avoid unnecessary calls myself, but occasionally a five- or ten-minute conversation is much more efficient than a long chain of messages when you're trying to work through an unusual problem.
That said, there are definitely things I miss about RE/MAX:
- The Gold and Green teams were generally pretty responsive.
- I liked the owner portal. They were switching to a new system around the time I left, and from the limited amount I saw, it seemed pretty good.
- They handled water and sewer utilities, which I appreciated. My current PM refuses to handle them.
- For an out-of-state investor, RE/MAX was relatively hands-off most of the time. My main involvement came when I received a very large turnover quote or when repairs were taking an unusually long time.
- They also handled LAIC matters for me. My current PM provided essentially no help with that.
Unfortunately, my experience with my new PM, Progressive Urban Property Management, hasn't been great either. While some of their repair costs have been much more reasonable, communication with both me and my tenants has been poor. I've also had maintenance tasks assigned to people who, in my experience, didn't seem to understand what needed to be done.
Since switching, I feel like I've had to become much more actively involved in managing the properties myself. At this point I'm giving them some additional time to see whether things improve because the maintenance pricing has been better, but I don't currently have the confidence that my properties are being well managed.
That's probably the biggest thing I'm looking for now: a PM that can balance reasonable maintenance costs with good communication and enough competence that I don't have to constantly monitor everything from out of state.
Property Manager · Cleveland, OH · Member since 2026 · 28 posts · 11 votes
1d
@Danny DeBruin Danny, I really appreciate you taking the time to share all of this. That kind of honest feedback is extremely valuable, especially coming from someone who was with us for five years. With that said, I’d love to revisit the conversation and see if there’s an opportunity to work together again. A lot has changed since you were last with us, including our move to AppFolio. I’d be happy to get a call set up with our Business Development Manager to discuss what’s changed, your current concerns, and what it would take to earn your business back.
Englewood, NJ · Member since 2018 · 464 posts · 88 votes
2d
Danny that $11k vs $4k turnover quote tells you everything. when your pm defaults to the most expensive option every time without even discussing alternatives, that's not property management that's just spending your money. and the garage door thing is wild — $800 for a specialist when you could have manually accessed it in five minutes.
i'm out of state too (florida) and the phone call thing is huge. some of the best resolutions i've had with contractors or tenants came from a quick 5 minute call rather than going back and forth on messages for days. if your pm won't even pick up the phone for an unusual situation you're basically managing it yourself anyway except slower.
the tricky part from out of state is you can't just drive over and check on things. so you really need someone who actually thinks like an owner and not just someone following a script. that touch-up paint vs full repaint thing is a perfect example — one person sees a $200 solution and the other sees a $4500 solution. same wall completely different mindset.
hope you find something that actually works. sounds like you know what you want you just need the right person delivering it.
Property Manager · Cleveland, OH · Member since 2026 · 28 posts · 11 votes
1d
Igor, you make a fair point about the importance of having someone local who thinks through situations from an owner’s perspective, especially for out-of-state investors. I actually reached out to Danny directly because feedback like this is valuable and worth bringing back to our team. A lot has changed on our end, but there’s always room to listen, improve, and make sure we’re delivering the level of communication and problem-solving owners expect.
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