One of the most important attributes needed for a investment property owner is management skills. Being a good manager of a single or multiple properties can be decisive in the success or failure of the investment. Having to manage a property requires time, organization, social skills, and attention to details. However, what if an owner can’t manage to achieve this because of too many properties or too little time? The answer is: professional property management.
Professional property management is a service provided by companies or individuals who have major experience in managing properties. A professional property management expert’s main tasks consist of dealing with tenants, marketing your property, rent collection, repairs and maintenance, and dealing with evictions. They perform all the tasks that would keep property owners up at night worrying about the responsibilities ahead. Thus, hiring an experienced property management company will only yield positive prospects for your property and for you as a real estate investor. However, working with a professional property manager instead of on your own comes at a price. Then the question that you should be asking yourself is if hiring professional property management is worth the money or not. Using professional help to manage your property isn’t cheap because of the many services they provide. The average property manager gets paid around one month of rent per year, while others get paid a percentage of the monthly rental income. As an owner you should analyze the income generated from your investments to make a decision about hiring a property manager.
Related: 5 Skills Needed for Real Estate Investing
There are a range of reasons that could make a real estate investor and/or a landlord turn to professional property management to handle his/her income property. These factors vary from financial to managerial depending on the situation and the skills of the owner. Let’s have a look at the most popular reasons why you should use property management instead of doing all the work on your own:
Reasons to Hire Professional Property Management
1. Airbnb Investment Ownership
Airbnb rentals can be quite exhausting for many hosts. Owners that have a high turnover of tenants have a hard time managing and cleaning the property themselves, sometimes multiple times in a month. An Airbnb property requires a lot of attention and services to be laid out for every new guest coming to your property, and ideally you will have a lot of guests. When there is high demand and guests coming in every couple of days, it becomes exhausting. Cleaning, taking care of amenities, and providing fresh sheets & towels are the minimum standard of a successful Airbnb property.
Having a successful Airbnb investment means a high turnover and eventually extra profit. Hiring a professional property management company would be the right step in this case as its employees will handle the pressure of tenant turnover and the services needed. For real estate investors with multiple Airbnb properties, then this because an absolute necessity. Nowadays, in face of the growing Airbnb business in the US market, there are property management companies that deal exclusively with Airbnb rental properties. They provide luxury services that will make your property unique compared to competitors.
Related: What Are the Challenges of Owning an Airbnb Investment Property?
2. Owning Property in a Different City
Owners who have purchased properties in a different city or even more so out of state have no other option but to hire a professional property management company. Buying and owning a property remotely is easy, but managing and maintaining the property is almost impossible because of the commute, especially in case of longer distances. Property management services will get paid to do the job for the owner without making them feeling worried about their property. So, that’s one case when it’s definitely worth the money to hire professional services.
3. Working a Full-Time Job
Property owners that invest in real estate while having another full-time job to worry about usually might require the services of a professional property management company. The management of properties is demanding for owners and it usually takes up a good amount of their time and effort. If you are working a full-time job for 8 hours per day (which you totally should be doing, at least at the beginning of your real estate investing career), you will find it hard to manage viewings, listings, tenants, and maintenance at the same time. A property management company will take care of all these things for an owner and keep them his/her up to date on everything without having to lose unnecessary effort or time.
Related: How to Become a Real Estate Investor: Going From Part-Time to Full-Time
4. owning multiple properties
Another case in which it is worth hiring professional management is the ownership of multiple investment properties. From a real estate investor’s point of view, it is crucially important to be able to buy and own several income properties, which requires lots of time and energy. Thus, if you’ve already reached that point in your real estate investing business, you will need to use a property manager. The cost will be covered from the opportunity (in terms of time) to buy yet another property.
5. Not Cut Out for Management
Some real estate investors purchase properties, but they are not fond of the frameworks of managing that investment. Management of properties is a day-to-day operation that could have you deal with tenants, real estate agents, buyers, and more. An owner who wants to avoid all this hassle for an extra cost should hire a property manager that will take care of all these tasks to the highest level.
Hiring a professional property management is worth the money for Airbnb owners who can afford it. A property owner might be more enthusiastic about making their investment become profitable; however, a property manager’s experience in the business is invaluable. The managerial tasks that they will face come naturally to them and they can perform them on multiple properties with ease. For traditional property owners, property management being worth the money is solely dependent on their ability to do a similar or a better job than the experts.