What does a property manager do and what five important questions should you ask when hiring a property management company? Find out from an experienced Utah property manager.
What does a property manager do? How do I know if I am hiring a good property management company? These are questions I get asked a lot. As a Utah Property Manager, we understand that not all property managers are the same, so it’s important you ask a lot of questions because big expenses can come from mismanagement. A good management company should be able to prevent a lot of problems before they even happen. They should be proactive, prepared, and organized. Here are five important questions you need to ask when hiring a property manager and their answers.
1) How often do you perform inspections?
Properties should be inspected two to three times a year. If properties are not regularly inspected, problems may go undetected and cost the owner a lot of money. A sad example is from a property owner who called us because their current management company had failed to perform inspections. They had tenants that had been living in the home for years and had recently moved out. They found that the home had had a flood that was never reported. The lawn was completely neglected and dead, and animals had been living downstairs and were never cleaned up after. These issues should have been discovered during regular inspections and taken care of immediately. The owners were hoping to salvage the situation by switching management companies, but soon determined they couldn’t afford to repair the damage to the home and had to sell it at a big loss.
2) How do you handle maintenance issues and maintenance emergencies?
We have an easy and consistent system that allows tenants to report their maintenance needs online. We also have an emergency line to handle urgent matters that come up after regular business hours. A property owner that was not a client of mine at the time was hit with a bill that was over ten thousand dollars because a reported water issue was not taken care of until after it had been running for several days. However, now that they had switched to Kasteel Property Management, they feel confident that maintenance emergencies are handled right away. Property management is now saving them money.
3) What legal resources do you have to protect me as an owner, and my property?
You can’t assume things will always be smooth sailing even with the best tenants and a solid lease agreement. Some situations can’t be predicted or avoided. You need to feel confident that your management company has the legal resources needed. At Kasteel Property Management, we have a law firm on retainer that specializes in landlord-tenant law. They provide us with trainings, updates when the laws change, forms, and guidance for our procedures and policies. One example of when legal services were critical was when COVID hit. Our industry was suddenly restricted by both federal and state regulations on what we could and could not do with regard to collecting rent and charging fees. There was a lot of misinformation floating around, and people had a lot of questions. We sailed through that storm with very little interruption because we were able to quickly get accurate and reliable information. A more common legal matter for landlords is evictions. A management company should always know the proper legal eviction process and the ever-changing laws surrounding it. Our attorney consulting services ensures that we can take swift and legal action to get your property back on track. This leads us to the next question.
4) How do you handle late rent and evictions?
This should be handled swiftly and with consistency. It only takes a few short weeks before rent is due again, and the amount doubles. You don’t have time to wait around and hope it will sort itself out. When a tenant does not respond to late fees, a management company needs to act quickly to notify tenants regarding a pending eviction. Oftentimes this swift action gets tenants back on track, and the eviction becomes unnecessary. When an eviction is necessary, it needs to be handled right away in order to get the tenant out, and someone new back in, so the cost of lost rent is minimized. One of my clients used to manage their rental properties by themselves until they had a tenant that stopped paying rent. The owner didn’t know what to do. The tenant broke multiple promises regarding getting caught up and didn’t pay rent for six months. After the owner signed up with Kasteel Property Management, it only took us three weeks to get the tenant out of the property and have new rent coming in from a great new tenant. Eventually, we were even able to collect the money from the past tenant.
5) What do you do to fill vacancies and how long does it usually take?
A property manager should understand a vacancy is a huge expense for the owner. Their goal should be to have a new tenant moving in within a few short days after the old tenant moves out. Advertising should start several weeks before the property is even vacant, and vacancies should be listed on dozens of websites, getting refreshed weekly. One of my clients used to use another management company, but after their condo sat empty for four months they were frustrated and mad. They switched and hired Kasteel Property Management, and after only two weeks, we had it filled with a great tenant, so our secret strategy for filling vacancies fast? We answer our phone, texts, and emails quickly. That may sound like an obvious thing to do, but it’s not practiced as often as you might think. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say that they’ve had a hard time getting people to respond back to them and then thanked us for answering our phone. To be clear a manager should not put the need to fill a vacancy fast above the need to get a quality tenant. See our other video about screening applications at the address below, and also in the comments of this video. Another secret weapon we have to fill vacancies fast is that our software is awesome. After we write a detailed ad, with a lot of pictures, we can send it to all the top listing websites with a single click. Anyone looking for a home to rent will easily come across our listings. For additional information regarding what a property manager does and what you can expect from Kasteel Property Management, you can check-out our FAQ page at the link below.
Additional useful links that are mentioned in the video:
How to pick the right property management company?
