Have you been thinking about hiring a property management company to manage your portfolio of rental properties but you don’t know if this is the right decision for you to make or not? If so, you’re not alone!

Every year, many owners across the United States come to the realization that they need to hire a property manager because, more often than not, the typical owner will be overworked, stressed out, and ready to sell their rental properties because owning an investment property has become like a second job to them.

The truth when it comes to hiring a property manager though is that it’s the best decision that any owner can ever make but, it’s going to be a “business decision” that they make after asking themselves these questions and reading the tips in this article.

Questions To Ask Yourself Before Hiring A Property Management Company

Question #1 – How far is your rental property from your primary residence?

This question is important to ask because, if you’re traveling more than one hour, one way, every time you have to visit your rental property, it’s taking up more time out of your day than what it may be worth.

Distance is important because there may be times when you have an emergency at your rental property and if you have to travel one hour just to get there you may arrive at your rental property after it’s too late.

This is one primary reason why you should consider hiring a property management company.

The property manager will have a “presence” in the city or town where your rental property is located and they will have the ability to be there quickly to deal with problems, emergencies, or repairs when they occur so you don’t have to.

Question #2 – Does your rental property stress you out?

Although you may be telling yourself that you’re a “master at handling stress”, the reality is that stress can have an adverse effect on the human body and it can do serious damage to your health.

If your answer to this question is yes, this is another excellent reason to hire a Portland property manager because having somebody be the “middle-man” will take the burden off your shoulders when it comes to property management and give you the opportunity to go back to living your normal life.

Question #3 – Are you overwhelmed with managing your rental properties?

Another honest question that you should ask yourself is are you already overwhelmed with managing your rental properties?

Let’s say that you are able to answer yes to this question as well, when you combine this answer, with answers to questions number one and two, these are all reasons why you should seriously consider hiring a property manager to professionally manage your rental properties versus continuing to self-manage those properties yourself.

Question #4 – Has your rental sat vacant for a long period of time?

We’ve given you a lot of “food for thought” so far in this article but another important question to ask yourself before hiring a property manager is has your rental property sat for a long period of time?

If this is the case, this is another excellent reason to hire a property management company because of the obvious fact that when your rental property sits vacant, you’re going to be the one responsible for paying the mortgage so it’s in your best interest to get it rented as soon as possible.

What Services Does A Property Management Company Offer?

Now that you know that it’s going to be a smart choice for you to hire a property manager based upon your answers to the questions above, the next thing that you should know is all of the services that a professional property management company can perform for you on a monthly basis.

The following services are a breakdown of what you can expect when you hire Property Management Systems to manage your portfolio of rental properties for you:

Prepare Your Property For Rent

Before we can market your rental property online, the very first step that we take when we first start managing a rental property is to prepare that property for rent.

This means that our team will visit the rental property, conduct a thorough inspection and make recommendations for things within the rental property that need to be changed or updated before we can start marking the property online.

Professional Property Marketing

From the moment that you choose us to professionally manage your rental property for you, you can expect us to take charge of the property marking so that you no longer have to market your rental property online yourself.

Unlike other property management companies, you can expect us to offer you a comprehensive online marketing plan which includes marking your rental property on our website and every major website on the internet where rental properties can be found.

Tenant Screening And Placement

After your rental property listing starts receiving interest from prospective tenants, our staff will start answering questions, conducting tours of your rental property, taking applications, doing background checks on potential tenants, and choosing the most qualified individuals(s) to live in your rental property.

Besides choosing the most qualified tenant to live in your rental property you can also count on us to handle the signing of the lease agreement, pre-inspection moves in, tenant questions and a wide variety of other issues that may pop up during the process of renting the property for a brand-new tenant.

Security Deposit Collection

Once we’ve screened the right tenant to live in your rental property, you can also count on us to professionally collect the security deposit for your rental property, hand over the keys to the rental and you can count on your new tenant to pay the rent on time for the next 12 months. 

Rent Collection

One of the most beneficial services that we can offer you as a property management company is rent collection. Our rent collection service will save you the time, money, and hassle of having to collect the rent from your tenants yourself.

What’s even better is that you can rest assured that the tenants that we place in your rental property will pay their rent on time on a monthly basis and we will deposit the funds into your account without you having to do any work to collect the rent.

Rent collection is one of the primary reasons why most owners choose a property manager to manage their rentals for them because it takes them out of the equation and ensures that the tenant will pay their rent on time and they will receive their rent payments like clockwork.

Customer Service

Another benefit that you will enjoy when you hire a property management company is customer service that will be available to your tenants 24-7 whenever they have a maintenance issue, question, or another reason for them contact us regarding the rental property.

This means that you no longer will have to take calls from tenants during all hours of the day or night, (especially on weekends or holidays).

You will actually have the opportunity to regain your life while still continuing to enjoy the benefits of owning real estate, passively.

Rent Portland Homes – Professionals Will Reduce The Cost Of Maintenance Management

Yes, it’s true that you may have thought you can manage your rental properties yourself in the past but the BIG question is will you actually have time to manage your rental property?

Most owners already have full time jobs, families and other investments, this is why hiring a property manager makes sense because you’re going to work with someone who specializes in property management so you don’t have to do any of it yourself.

Maintenance

Have you changed toilets, or taken care of minor maintenance issues at your rental property in the past? If so, when you hire a property management company, maintenance will become a thing of the past for you.

You will have the assurance that all maintenance issues will be taken care of by true professionals while you focus on continuing to enjoy passive income from your rental property.

Besides the services that we’ve already listed in this article, you can also count on us to handle every other conceivable Property Management Service that you may have a need for including evictions, tenant move-ins/move-outs, remodeling and more!

Yes, Property Management in Portland offers you a wide variety of benefits and if you currently are performing any of these services that we mentioned above at your rental property yourself.

It’s important for you to take yourself “out of the loop” and hire a property management company like Property Management Systems to start professionally managing your rental properties for you on a monthly basis.

We Will Control Maintenance Costs

Let’s face it, maintenance isn’t easy if you’re managing your rental properties in Portland yourself and maintenance costs can quickly get out of hand.

Thankfully, when you have a property manager serving your best interests you can also count on us to control maintenance costs because we work with an in house maintenance team and we’re not going to charge you crazy prices to repair your PDX rental property. 

Your Landlord-Tenant Experts

In today’s world it’s more important for landlords and real estate investors to hire property managers because we’re also landlord-tenant experts who will save you the time, money and hassle of potentially getting entangled in a landlord-tenant dispute with one of you tenants.

Provide You With Complete Financial Reporting 

Hiring a property manager is great because we will save you time and money but another important benefit of having someone to manage your rentals is the benefit of complete financial reporting.

Our company will provide you with complete accounting of all the property management services that we perform for you including cash flow statements, documentation of expenses and advice you on the best steps to take with your rental property that will preserve it’s value and earn you the highest ROI possible each month.

A Property Manager Will Help You To Invest In Rentals Without Geographic Barriers

Let’s say that you live in Hawaii, but you want to own rentals in Portland, another great thing about hiring a property manager like Rent Portland Homes – Professionals is that you don’t actually have to live in the PDX area to own rentals here.

With our property management team serving your best interests you can have confidence that we’re going to be your “eyes and ears” in Portland so you can rest easily and enjoy the passive income that comes from owning investment properties.

What To Look For In A Property Management Company

Now that we’ve covered the reasons why you should consider a property management company, and the services that they offer you, the next thing that we want to talk about is what you should look for in a property management company before you hire them.

• Thanks to the internet, searching for a property management company in this day in age is easy because all you have to do is start with your favorite search engine like Google and type in the keywords “Portland Oregon property manager” or the name of the city, and the property manager/town in order to find a local company that manages properties in your area.
• Before just using any property manager that you found online, it’s important for you to take the time to verify a company before calling them.
• This should be done by searching for that property management company to see if they have profiles on more than one website. Some of the websites that you should consider searching for a property manager on include: Facebook, Google my business, Manta, or even the Better Business Bureau website.
• Once you decide upon a property management company that you would like to talk with further about their services, there are a variety of specific questions that you should ask them when you contact them including:

Questions To Ask A Property Management Company

How much is their property management fee? A typical property management company will charge between 4% and 12% of the monthly rent so it’s important for you to verify their monthly fee before moving forward with choosing to hire them.

Besides monthly fees, you should also ask a property management company if they have any additional fees that you will be required to pay on a regular basis like a vacancy fee, setup fee, or leasing fee because these fees are common in the property management world and they can add up.

How many properties are they managing? After confirming the fees that you can expect to pay when hiring a property management company you should next ask them about how many properties they currently are managing, if they actually own rental properties themselves, and how long they will expect it to take for your property to be rented.

What is their vacancy rate? A professional property management company won’t hesitate to provide you with their vacancy rate because if they are able to fill vacant properties fast they will want to share that information with more owners in the area who are looking for property managers.

Do they have strong policies in place? Another common trait that a professional property management company will have is strong policies in place for every situation from routine maintenance to past due rent collection. It’s a good idea to confirm what these policies are before you choose to hire a property management company.

Will they provide you with a written contract? In today’s world a written contract is important because you shouldn’t be kept in the dark about their terms, conditions, fees. Once both parties are on the same page, you can have confidence in the duties that your manager will be performing for you and you’re not going to waste your property managers time with needles calls about their pricing, fees and or additional services that they offer. 

How their company handle tenant funds? You should have a complete understanding of how your property management company will handle the security deposit and monthly rent payments from your tenants. There should also be a streamlined process for how thy are going to pay you as well just so there’s never a question concerning funds from your rental property.

Will There Be A Contract? If you’re required to sign a contract will you be able to cancel it at any time? Or will you be required to produce cause or the reason for informing your property management company that you plan on canceling your contract within 30-90 days. 

How are repairs and maintenance handled? Does the property management company have a set system in place for dealing with repairs and maintenance? If so, how are they handled? Does the company have their own in house maintenance staff or are repairs farmed out to companies in the local area?

Contact Rent Portland Homes – Professionals

After reading this article, it’s our sincere hope that we provided you with all the information that you needed to make that decision to hire a property management company. To learn more about the services that Rent Portland Homes – Professionals can offer you, contact us today by calling (503) 516-2648 or connect with us online.