Hi all,
I started looking at local real estate agents but I would like to ask you guys on how to find a good real estate agent that will manage your investment property?
The major ones pretty much have standard fees, so how do I go about looking for someone who will be a good real estate agent?
My first IP.
look @ staff:# properties ratio
Quality & experience of staff
Time with company
Size of rent roll – bigger isn’t necessarily better
This is a job interview after all.Other costs:
Inspections
Letting fee
Postage & statement costs
Discounting for 2nd + property
Advertising rates, locations etcHi Joyce
I'm a stickler for having a good property manager on any of my properties. When my last property needed to be re-let i went down to the local agents and went through what they offered one by one. Yes .. it was about 2 hours worth of sitting and listening to each agent talk about how good his business was. I also picked up their rental lists (its how the property will be presented to tenants) and with one .. even pretended that i was a tenant to see how they would react. One gave me an interview and a brochure (i still have both) but was missing the enthusiasm. I ended up going for the guy who when i walked in said .. the price is X dollars but i'm sure i can get you X dollars more. I want a guy who will inform me on the phone when my rents are too low compared to market, who gets a guy in to fix things, who handles tenants complaints rather than letting them lapse. After all, thats why you have a property manager in the first place, he's just a substitute for yourself !
Tough but honest, presentable but accessable. If you cant deal with the property manager .. how can your tenant?
How do you find out the number of properties managed by an agent? I find that this information is not disclosed by the agents themselves.
Two ways:
Call the office, leave a message for the PM to call you back and see how long it takes (this will give you a good idea of their level of customer service that you will experience and judge it by what you would expect from a PM) – the pretence is to make a meeting to discuss property management.
Visit the office and speak to the PM (see how much time they will devote to you as walk-in or with an appointment to earn new business). Ask them outright: How many Properties do they have on the rent roll, how many staff they have (work out the staff/property ratio yourself – should be between 1:50 – 1:100), ask some difficult questions – how many properties are in arrears (ie how much time do they spend chasing outstanding rent), what reports do you get, how often, obviously what are their fees & charges etc.
(PM me for more).
We have put together a useful guide to selecting a good property manager, inclduing questions to ask etc;
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