You’ve got two choices as a real estate investor: manage your own properties or hire out the service to a property management company. Both options are valid, but the option that’s correct for you will depend on various circumstances.
By managing your own properties, you’ll avoid paying property management fees.
If you’re an experienced property manager with a handful of tenants, saving money through self-management might make sense for you. However, if you’re not an experienced property manager, you’ll be saving money at the expense of potentially making mistakes.
Saving money is important for every investor, but sometimes fees are well spent. Before deciding to self-manage your Houston properties, consider the benefits of professional property management.
By hiring a property management company, you’ll have more free time. Responding to tenant requests and performing repairs is time-consuming. Even when you hire out the work, you still need to contact a professional and arrange for them to perform the work when the tenant is available to let them in.
If you absolutely love helping tenants with their needs, then you may not be too concerned with lost time. If you enjoy managing your properties, it’s time well spent. If you find yourself exhausted from fielding maintenance and repair calls at 3am, then hiring a property management company will free up your time.
If you’re particular about how you manage your properties, then self-management makes sense. For instance, you might feel better being in control of the tenant acquisition and screening process, or you might prefer a specific company perform all repairs.
With a property management company, you’ll need to rely on their expertise in screening tenants, filling vacancies, and performing repairs. Usually, a property management company will have a special deal with local contractors to perform repairs and maintenance at a lower cost. However, reputable property management companies don’t just look for low-cost contractors. They seek out the A-players in the industry and negotiate better rates since they will provide them with plenty of business in return.
Whether you self-manage or hire out the property management process depends on your priorities. Sometimes it makes sense to self-manage to maintain control, but other times it’s better to put full trust in a reputable property management company so you don’t need to do so much work.
When you’re new to investing, or you just haven’t experienced certain breakdowns, you’re going to learn things the hard way. There are some lessons you don’t want to learn the hard way – lessons that deal with evictions and other things that can land you in hot water if you do something wrong.
Hiring a property management company will prevent you from making certain costly legal mistakes. Property managers know state and local laws, and are diligent in making sure they don’t cross those lines.
By managing your own properties, you have an incentive to fill vacancies fast. If you don’t fill vacancies, your income suffers. A property management company, on the other hand, might not work as hard to fill your vacancies. Low-rated companies tend to focus only on their profits.
A good property management company, like Green Residential, will be focused on all five aspects of management: their business, your properties, your tenants, their profits, and their clients.
You don’t need to self-manage your properties to ensure vacancies are filled quickly. A reputable property management company will work hard to fill vacancies for you.
CNN Money reports that 88% of apartment managers say their job is stressful. However, many of them love the job because of the flexibility and discounted rent.
Managing a single-family home might be easy, but when you’re managing multi-family buildings or multiple homes, that’s when stress will hit you the hardest. The easiest thing to do is hire a professional property management company and let them take over the responsibilities.
Long-term stress takes a huge toll on the human body. If managing properties and dealing with problems is a source of stress for you, then a property management company will reduce the stress in your life.
Paying a property management company often requires paying for services you may not want to outsource. Some companies allow landlords to select their services, while others charge one fee for everything and don’t give a discount for services a landlord doesn’t want.
The best property management companies will provide you with a custom property management package tailored to suit your specific needs and goals.
Since Houston property managers deal with the local market daily, they’re usually in the know before anyone else. They have to keep up with laws, regulations, and changes to the market. It’s their area of expertise.
If you don’t have the time, energy, or desire to get to know the Houston market, hiring a property management company will be beneficial.
If you’ve been self-managing your Houston properties, and you’re curious about the benefits of hiring a professional property management company, contact Green Residential for a free analysis. Whether you’ve got one property or twenty, we can help.
We have decades of experience in the industry, and we’re fully licensed by the Texas Real Estate commission. Our team members have a unique set of skills and professional backgrounds in real estate and finances.
We exist to make your job as a landlord easier. We provide services like rental rate market analysis, MLS listings, professional photography for listing photos, contract preparation, tenant screening, and maintenance. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you manage your properties.
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