What makes a great property manager?

Since purchasing my first investment property, I have had dealings with numerous property managers. Some of which I have engaged and others that I have just conversed with. From my experience, like any other industry, there are great and mediocre companies that offer very different services. Unfortunately, from my experience, the best time to recognise the quality of your PM is when there is something wrong with your property.

Recently, I wrote an article outlining what to look for in a great property manager. To summarise, the three key takeaways were to find someone who is proactive, good at communicating/transparent, and has knowledge of the area they manage. The best way I found to determine this before engaging a PM is through reviews from other investors (such as reading on PC).

Contrary to what some people believe I don't consider the fees or size of the agency as a determining factor of quality. This is because a quality manager can justify their competitive fees or even demand a premium. While the size of an agency can be built on sales and marketing, not quality.

Have I missed anything, what do you think makes a great PM?

Cheers,

 

Unfortunately very few good PMs around. Most are very mediocre, some terrible.

For me a good PM needs to do what is in the best interest for the person paying them . The landlord. This doesn't mean screwing the tenant by any means. What it does mean is when quotes are needed, take the time to get proper competitive quotes, reply in a timely manner and help resolve any LL/tenant disputes FAIRLY. Not see which side yields first and just pass on the message to the other side. Imho most PMs simply don't care. They have too many properties. And it's a stepping stone for many to get into the sales side of the business.

Very few PMs I've had were actually good. Good meaning when crunch time came, they actually advocated for me and fought for my best interests. Most are money collectors. 1 or 2 had to be fired quickly.

It is what it is. Ain't gonna change anytime soon.

 

If you read all the messages previous to yours you will find a treasure trove of posts about PM's, good and bad [mostly bad], no need to begin another diatribe ...

 

You make some great points, a large proportion of their quality is determined by how much they value their clients. If they value you as a landlord they will go above and beyond to assist you. If you are just a means to an end it can be easily identified by an astute investor. I have been fortunate enough to only have to deal with one mediocre PM to which the issues I had were eventually resolved. As you said, when crunch time comes it is clear as day which PM's are worth their weight in gold.

 

The less I hear from them, the better they are.
Unless they call to invite me for lunch

 

Haha, yes, as soon as you get a call from a PM, you know it's bad news. I told one of mine that she never just calls to say 'Hi!" or to tell me that everything is going well. She remembered that, and out of the blue one day, she did call up to say exactly that.

 

One who understands the geography and demographics of a locality 99% are clueless.Many investors are too. One who understands why you bought in the area you did. One who can explain to the applicants the benefits to them of the location and why paying a premium is beneficial to them. Often Excellent tenants who are professionals and trainees who dont know a bar about a place and without rental history who would very happily and easily pay a 30% premium for convience, time are overlooked for scumbags who dont need to be in that location and only got a reference because some-one else wanted them out.

 

Haha, I tend to enjoy hearing from my main PM, we tend to talk about a property for five minutes then end up going off on a tangent for the next half an hour.

 

I high degree of emotional intelligence.

 

The owner himself/herself.

 

The ones that can problem solve and can just fix things without having to call someone all the time. e.g., change a battery in a smoke alarm, fix a broken handle with a screw driver, walk through the trouble shooting process when the hot water doesn’t work anymore… etc.

 

I think a good PM is one who looks after the property as if it belongs to them! And be pro-active enough to alert issues and then resolve them as soon as they can.

 

Passionate about their job (rare) and open line of communication, sounds a bit like an ideal relationship haha.

 

A recurring theme from everyone seems to be that a great PM has a genuine care for their clients and the properties they manage. Moreover, they also need to have a forward-thinking approach when dealing with a range of issues. I suppose at the forefront of any good service would be a client-centric approach with critical thinking skills. Thanks for the responses!

 

A.K.A - Life experience, 100% agree.

 

I think being an investor themselves helps a lot. Having gone through (or currently on) that investment journey means they can share more expertise, better predict what might happen, use market conditions to their advantge etc. As opposed to one whos started as the agency reception and worked their way up - might be friendly and have good customer service but not much context on the property.

It can be quite subjective as well, eg person A loves PM and person B hates them. Sometimes no real fault of anyones but perhaps didnt get the result they wanted. Learning that you cant please everyone is also an important lesson.

 

I completely agree, I have tended to seek after individuals within my own property team that all have some experience within investing themselves. It makes it a lot easier to discuss matters when the other party understands where you are coming from.