Hi, there! Joe White here from Grow Property Management, your trusted property management company in Philadelphia.
Rental properties that get a lot of evictions often share the characteristics of looking like a property that will get an eviction.
I was recently contacted by a property owner who has seven rental properties. He’s looking to switch to my company, Grow Property Management, making us his third property management company. His main complaint is that his properties are constantly going through evictions, and he believes that by upgrading to a better management company, he can stop this pattern. While I haven’t yet had an in-depth conversation with him to fully understand the situation, I have some thoughts based on experience.
There are certainly bad property management companies out there, ones that don’t screen tenants carefully or that rush to fill vacancies just to collect commissions. Real estate agents, too, sometimes operate this way, focusing on getting a tenant in place, good or bad, just to close the deal. A good property management company should be much more careful, since it will ultimately have to deal with the tenant’s behavior long after the lease is signed. However, even within property management companies, there can be problems if leasing agents are paid per signed lease. The incentive to earn a commission can outweigh the motivation to screen tenants properly, leading to future evictions.
But while it’s easy to blame property management companies, that may not be the entire story. Just as there are bad managers, there are also bad property owners, those who fail to maintain their properties properly, and in doing so, attract problem tenants. In my experience, the condition of a property often determines the type of tenant it attracts.
For example, my company once took over management of a property in a decent Philadelphia neighbourhood, what I’d call a B or B-minus area. When we first inspected it, there was a hole punched through the door of the first-floor powder room. Clearly, that’s not something you’d consider “tenant-ready.” We told the owner it needed to be fixed, and he agreed. But imagine if the owner had refused, insisting it wasn’t a big deal and that tenants wouldn’t care. What kind of tenant would be comfortable renting a place where someone had punched a hole in the door? Likely, one with similar disregard for property, and possibly the same kind of temperament that leads to eviction.
That’s the point I keep coming back to. Some owners unintentionally create conditions that invite eviction after eviction. If your property isn’t well maintained, or if it signals neglect or tolerance for damage, you’re going to attract tenants who are comfortable living that way. And those tenants are more likely to cause problems, damage property, or fail to pay rent.
So while I don’t yet know this particular owner’s properties or the truth about his previous management companies, I can’t help but suspect that he might be contributing to the problem. A property’s presentation has a direct impact on the type of tenant it attracts. If you want stable, responsible renters, your property has to reflect that. As a humble property management company owner here in Philadelphia, I always remind investors that success starts with the condition and care of the property itself.
As always, happy rental property investing.
