All Forum Posts by: Anna Sagatelova

Whether to provide appliances is dependent on your market. Is your rental in NYC? Or in a suburb of Cleveland? If you are competing with apartments, most will be providing stove/fridge. Dishwasher and laundry appliances are expected at the higher end, but really just research comparable rentals in your area/neighborhoods.

Don't charge "extra" for them, you are just trying to stay competitive and price your property as "like". If you see that other comparable properties in your area don't provide appliances, you could choose to include them to set yourself apart, which should result in way faster vacancy turnaround time. If you go this route, just make sure your lease has a clause that you don't warranty the appliances.

For washer/dryer, it is common to just ensure there is access and hookups, but again, if it's really a higher end rental, you should usually provide the appliances themselves.

I would imagine it will be hard to conceal that for long if you are sharing living space with your tenants. I'd disclose if asked and keep it simple, say it is still a business, and move forward. Don't dwell on it, and just try to foster an environment of mutual respect.

It really just depends on your market. And I mean on the micro-level, as close as possible. With B class rentals and up, it's a no brainer. But sometimes you can do black appliances or a mix of black and stainless. Used appliance stores have more stainless these days, worth a look. You can get great deals on scratch and dent. We don't notice much difference between brands.

I agree with @Nathan Gesner to increase incrementally. Tenants don't like moving, and as long as you still provide them value and don't blindside them with a steep increase, it should be ok. Give them plenty of advance notice that rent will be going up (about $50 as mentioned), like 90 days notice or so. And then build it into the renewal.

This sounds fairly straightforward. As a matter of procedure, I would always recommend doing an interior and yard inspection before allowing any additional pets, mostly for documentation purposes. Keep your charges consistent with what they were when they had the 3 dogs before, especially since it's not a puppy that they're getting.

That sounds like a really frustrating position to be in. If you truly can't find another professional management company to work with, you could also try calling some real estate agents in the area to see if someone would manage your SFR for you as a one-off. I normally would not recommend this, but I recognize there are small markets with a total dearth of professional management options, unfortunately. Note, you'd probably have to negotiate your own contract terms instead of signing a form PMA.

It sounds like the percentage they are charging is a regular markup... after all, they sourced the vendors (likely have already worked with them for years, in fact, and so the vendor is more trustworthy and fair with them), coordinated the repair between vendor and property/tenant, and took care of the payments. 

The markup percentage itself may vary by job type, how many quotes they have to source, and the overall level of coordination and oversight they have to provide depending on the scope of the work.

The deadline should be in your lease. MTM is going to be 30 days notice, some jurisdictions allow you to ask for longer than that for a longer term lease.

A great incentive for your tenants to let you know more timely is to let them know not following the deadline will automatically make the lease go MTM and that there will be a corresponding rent hike.

Do you have a lease?

Do you have screening criteria and a procedure you can apply uniformly?

Are you well-educated in your state's Fair Housing laws?

Do you know what service you would use to run credit and background checks?

Do you know what verbiage you would use to approve or deny an application?

Are you prepared to possibly sour the relationship with your neighbors if you end up personally processing their friends' application and rejecting it?

I highly recommend not handling it yourself unless you are prepared to answer "yes" to the above.

A lot goes into vetting PMs. Reach out to several. You should evaluate not only their responses about your basic questions like fees, maintenance, evictions, renewals, etc, but how they respond. Does their presentation seem polished? Do they take a long time to get back to you?

If they're not putting in effort to bring you on board, there could be one of two issues: you don't have properties yet/your properties are not in good areas, or they don't have an organized and efficient process, and their communications with your tenants won't be any better.

When you do evaluate on the terms, it's also not as simple as picking the lowest cost. Evaluate the cost in terms of value they bring, their experience and expertise, how many doors do they manage, are they all in one area or spread out? Is their average property like yours, or not? If you own a 50 unit apartment and your PM only manages SFRs, that's probably not the best fit, and vice versa. 

A good PM will be evaluating you as much as you are evaluating them. A good PM has spent years honing their processes, and don't want to spend time on owners who will disrupt those processes due to unrealistic expectations or a lack of understanding of their business. A good PM will be transparent and forthright.