Advantages of Hiring a Professional Property Manager: TIME COMMITMENT

Most of our clients have careers outside of investing. If that describes you, you may have a limited amount of time available to deal with your rental home.

How much time are we talking about? That varies. When the property is vacant, you will need to advertise it and respond to the leads that result. You will need to show the property to prospective tenants and process applications as they come in. You will need to handle any disapproval and write a lease for your new tenants, make sure the property is ship-shape and handle the turnover. This is a time consuming process, but only has to be done once per tenant. There is a learning curve and you will want to build systems so that you don’t have to continually reinvent the wheel. For the first ten years or so, you will learn new things every turnover. Eventually you will have it down pat.

I would estimate a total time investment of 6-8 hours weekly during vacancy for answering leads and showing the home. Processing applications will take 1-6 hours depending on sources of income and availability of previous landlords. Move-in day will take 2+ hours. Writing the lease will take 1-2 hours. Unless you live next door, add travel time back and forth for showings and move in day.

Of course when you first start you have to learn how to do these things and many of them are heavily regulated. It is vitally important that you learn the applicable law before you begin advertising. Mistakes in your advertising can run you afoul of the Federal Fair Housing Act and a HUD lawsuit will snuff out your business pretty quickly unless you have deep pockets and a high tolerance for stress. Offering housing is considered a form of credit, so be sure to study the Fair Credit Reporting Act before you accept an application. Another important priority should be to understand the laws surrounding homes containing lead paint if your property was built prior to 1978.

Once your tenants move in, you need a system for collecting the rent. Collecting and processing the rent could take a few minutes or several hours each month depending on the tenant and your systems.

When I started managing properties, my system revolved around checks. I collected rent checks from tenants, deposited the checks into my company escrow account, and issued checks to the owners. Then, as a convenience that set me apart from other managers, I drove to each owner’s bank and deposited the check for them. Every month. I hope you will design a better system. Now we collect 99% of the rent electronically and all of our owners receive their funds that way.

You need to inspect your property regularly. What does that entail? Inspections take time to coordinate and execute. Your tenants will have questions and requests. They will have maintenance issues which you must deal with. Who do you call when a tree falls on the fence? Who is in your rolodex under “leaky window?” It will take less and less time as these questions are answered, but for the first few tenants, you are going to be hoppin’.

What do you do when something goes wrong?

Property management is very easy until something goes wrong. Then it isn’t. Then it keeps you up at night.

Fires, flooding, fallen trees, unpaid rent, tenant deaths, unauthorized residents, neighbor disputes, lightning strikes, misbehavior by vendors, accusations of discrimination, squatters, unauthorized use of the property, HOA violations, HOA violating your rights or the rights of your tenants, and on and on and on it goes.

When these things happen, just understanding the situation can take hours. Solving the problem can often require skills and knowledge that is difficult to find without help. You may be tempted to try it yourself with the intention of calling in a professional if you run into a roadblock, but ask yourself this: “How many professionals are interested in stepping into your problem? What will they charge to clean up the mess?” Does it make more sense to hire someone to help you avoid the problems in the first place?

How much time will you spend on your rental home? That is impossible to predict, but if you plan to master the craft, expect to invest most of your free time for the first decade split between education, system design, and hands-on landlording.

When you hire an Agent like OMYRA INC, your time commitment shrinks to “not much,” freeing you to do what you are good at, and turning your rental property into a money printer. At OMYRA, we do it all and we have decades of experience and the knowledge that comes with it, so you can rest assured that we are making the decisions you would make if you knew what we know.

Only you can put a value on your time.

In my next article, I will discuss “Economies of Scale” and explain how a professional manager can save you money on everything from advertising to credit checks to paint.

Have fun today!

Chris Compton - Broker