All Forum Posts by: Sandy Franklin

They do more than simply booking the property. They do all of the online advertising on the major sites. They are responsible for maintaining the property, recommending repairs and maintenance, and dealing with all tenant issues. However, I pay an additional $100/wk for their guy to go and maintain the property, plus I pay for contractors to maintain the pool, landscaping, and other maintenance and repairs.

This is my first property so its definitely posssible that I could be getting completely ripped off.

I could ask for rental agreements, but they could simply print a fake agreement, forge a signature, and I would never know the difference. I think I should be requiring copies of checks. If everything is being reported honestly, there should be no reason why they can't provide that.

I recently bought a vacation rental property that is managed by an independent Property Manager. I inherited the PM that the previous owner had been using. The property is typically rented by the week for anywhere from $3000-5000/wk depending upon the season. The PM collects deposits, rental payments, and fees from the tenants, and then pays me 80% of the rent (their management fee is 20%).

Recently I have started having doubts that the PM is always being honest with me. The rents vary by week and I give the PM the discretion to lower the rental price if needed to make the sale. So one week it may be rented for $4000, and the following week it may rent for $3700. The rent checks go directly to the PM and are held in the PM's account, and I am only paid after the tenants checkout. My concern is that it would be very easy for PM to be skimming money off the rent (ie: tell me it rented for $3700 when they actually collected $4000.)

My questions are:

1. Does this sound like a typical property management arrangement? Should the upfront rent money be held in the PM's account, or should I be in control of the account?

2. How can I assure myself that I am not being stolen from? Should I ask for cancelled rent checks?