Property Management: Eleven Questions to Ask When Looking for a Property Manager Part 2

In this second part to our "Eleven Questions to Ask When Looking for a Property Manager," we review more of how a property manager would handle your account and day-to-day needs. You can read Part One of this Property Management series here.

5. How do you find and handle tenants?
Find out how the individual or company plans to advertise your property to attract tenants. Will they just put a “For Rent” sign out on the yard in front of the property? Do they advertise in the local paper? Flyers around the neighborhood? Are they internet savvy and put ads online where prospective tenants are most likely to look? How are their HTML skills for putting together a professional looking ad with photos? There are so many ways to advertise properties for free online and elsewhere that effective advertising of a vacant property doesn’t necessitate an additional fee. 

Do they charge any fees to fill vacancies? Some companies may charge to get people into a property, upwards of 1/2 of the set rent rate to find tenants. This is not a necessary fee and should cause some hesitancy in retaining a company that charges it. 

A good property management company has good relationships with their tenants. See if you can get references from tenants of clients as well as the clients themselves. Doing a good job managing your property includes retention of desirable tenants by prompt maintenance, considerate interactions with tenants and a level of customer service that sets your property apart and raises its value. 

6. How do you and/or your staff handle the responsibilities of property management?
A property manager needs to care for your investment in addition to finding tenants. Maintenance, yard work and grounds care may be included in the monthly charges or tacked on as an additional cost. Find out how much they bill for all routine maintenance and who they contract to do the work. Will they maintain landscaping as well as mow the lawn? Is snow removal included? Ask to see properties already maintained and see if the work looks sloppy or professional. 

The inside of the property is just important if not more important than the maintenance of the lawn. What kind of routine repairs are included in the maintenance fees and what triggers additional costs? Is maintenance available 24 hours a day for tenants? If a water leak gets out of control because a tenant can’t reach maintenance personnel at 2:00am, that can mean thousands of dollars of damage that will either come out of your pocket or from the property management’s insurance. Be sure to specify the level of service you want and expect for your rental property. 

7. How do you communicate with your clients?
It’s important to know how effective a company or individual is at communicating with their clients. How often do they check in voluntarily with their clients? Do they take initiative to tell clients about issues with the property or tenants, ask permission for large repairs and anything that’s going on in the area that may affect the property? How are finances and receipts accounted for? Are they available by phone and email and can they be reached before and after usual working hours for emergencies? Someone may say it’s fine to call anytime and send email inquiries and then fail to respond in a timely manner. A good property manager will have an office and cell phone number as well as a quick turn around for emails. 

8. If a problem crops up, how will you deal with it?
Even the best managers cannot prevent all problems. Occasionally a tenant needs to be evicted, legal problems appear or something breaks in the unit that triggers a large repair bill. What sets the best apart from the rest is how they handle an emergency or unpleasant situation. 

Evictions are never fun for anyone involved. Emotional, ugly and often dangerous, it helps to have a manger with some experience in dismissing problem tenants. Have they dealt with an eviction before and if so, how did they handle it? Was the tenant given fair warning and all required legal documentation before the eviction? Listen carefully to see if this drastic measure was handled with attention to detail and with paperwork properly distributed and filed. 

Do they retain an attorney or lawyer for legal advice? An unforeseen issue with the property may cause bodily harm to a tenant or damage their property. While most of this should be covered by the tenant’s insurance, some people don’t purchase renter’s insurance and may file suit. Find out who the company works with for legal proceedings and if they’ve ever had a client taken to court by a tenant. The situation might not have been the property manager’s fault but it never hurts to get all the details. 

Emergency repairs can be pricey. Calling a plumber for a broken water heater and flooded basement at 2:00am is never cheap but it’s necessary to act quickly in some situations to prevent even more damage to the property. Prompt communication with you and proper record keeping of receipts and finances should be mandatory when dealing with emergency maintenance. How soon would you be alerted in the case of an emergency? Will the manager wait for your go ahead or use their own judgement in spending money on repairs? All of these details will help measure a manager’s competence. 

9. What sets you apart from your competition?
Everyone thinks they’re better than the next guy. It’s more difficult to put specifics on why you’re better than the rest. Ask for success stories, special experience they got from an exceptional opportunity previously and why you should pick them instead of the management company down the street. Someone who is truly competent and confident in their skills and abilities to provide you top notch service will have no problem answering this question. 

10. How do you handle all related finances?
Keeping accurate and detailed financial records are a difficult task. Attention to detail is extremely important and a property manager that has highly organized accounting skills is worth looking for. When tax time arrives, all of your income and cash flows should be at your fingertips to make your tax paying easy. Ask to see generic example of how they’ll track your revenue and expenses related to the property. Do they do monthly statements? That prevents a shock of getting an account of three months worth of cash flow and finding your expenses are regularly exceeding your revenue. 

Property management usually collect rent from tenants between the first and fourth of each month, allowing for a small cushion for tenants to get 1st of the month paychecks cashed and processed. It should take no longer than eight days to collect rents and prepare all monthly statements for each property. It’s your money and should be in your bank account as soon as possible. Any manager that fails to deposit funds in client accounts or mail checks by mid month should not be considered. 

11. What are your fees?
Fees are an important factor in deciding on a property manager but should not be the primary reason in deciding in favor of one company over another. This question should be last so that you already have a good feel for the level of service that will be provided and can judge accurately if the cost matches the value of those services. Ask to see a detailed breakdown of all fees, monthly and otherwise, that you’d need to pay for your property. Expensive fees are well worth the cost if the service will be exceptional. Also ask if there will be any additional costs if the relationship doesn’t work out. It would not be a good situation to be stuck in a contract with high severance fees because breaking the contract would cost more than it’s worth. 


If you do your homework and thoroughly research all potential managers and management companies. Then, once you’ve made your decision, you can trust that they will care for your investment as if it was their own.