1st Rental Property Use A Property Management Company-
Monica's question: Apparently she's converting her home into a rental property. Congratulations, Monica. She wants to know if she should manage her own property or hire a property management company. This is kind of a tough question. Let me see. I'm not sure how best to answer it.
I want to say that a lot of experience will come for you if you actually manage the property yourself and see firsthand some of the following: get contractors, the problems that arise, you would probably get a trial by fire hopefully a good trial by fire and not a horrible body scorched trial by fire doing it yourself. There's something to be said to know a bit about cars before you take your car to a mechanic to at least have an understanding.
There's something to be said about knowing about managing a rental property. As assumed, you've owned houses before, so you understand about repairs and you probably understand about dealing with contractors, which is something that the property management company's going to do.
The problem here is that property management company is going to do a far better job at managing contractors than you are. They just have those relationships. Usually, by the time we send a plumber in your house, that plumber has been in several of our other properties that we have. In the case of our company, we have an incredible plumber that we use all the time and he's been in hundreds of properties. He's been well-tested, well-vetted, and we're not just sending a plumber in that we've got through the phone book or an internet search. This plumber has actually been tested, and so that's an advantage property management company is going to have.
A property management company, they should make you far more money than are costing you, but this depends on the property management company, you can certainly get some less than great out there. But here in Philadelphia, in my marketplace where I own a property management company, I can tell you that we're not the only property management company worth doing business with.
You can get good property management companies here in Philadelphia, however, a good property management company should make you more money than they are costing you. Would it be beneficial to know some of the things that property management company is going to be speaking to you about? Yes. I don't think it's a huge crime, and it might be a nice little advantage if you take a year or two in experiencing firsthand your own property management.
Do I think there's advantages to using a property management company? Yes, absolutely. I'm trying to give my unbiased opinion due to the fact that I own a property management company. Overall, property management companies are great, but I don't think it would be bad for you to manage the property for yourself for a little while. I think it might be an advantage, and I think you could use that advantage if you decide to later go and switch to using a property management company. I don't think it's bad for you to use a property management company as long as you do your due diligence. And I would definitely go through online reviews and that would be the best place to find property management companies. Go through the reviews to see what people are actually saying. Just don't look at the rating. We're actually the top rated company here in Philadelphia, but also I think our reviews actually speak pretty well for us.
So yeah, I think either way, if I had to choose, I would say go for it. Manage it yourself for a year or two and get your feet wet and get some knowledge under your belt and then you can start scouting property management company to your liking based on what they have to offer. This is Joe White answering your real estate questions as well as I can. Good luck!!!
