Rental Property Owners [not timeshares]

[SteveinHNL]

Hi good morning.

For any folks who are operating rental properties, I would like to get your thoughts on how to handle things that come up. Note we have a property manager but we are quite hands on as well, meaning I visit the property every couple of months to do maintenance and repairs, insect treatment, cleaning.

1. We have a landscape company that takes care of the lawn and shrubs weekly. Apparently the irrigation controller died, they reset it (perhaps not knowing it died), then later replaced it. A few weeks later a tenant texted me pictures, the lawn is dead. Should I be asking for any rebate or credit from the landscaping company, as I believe they are in charge of irrigation and lawn health? From the management company?

2. One unit has been vacant for several months, so the electric for that unit is in my name. Management company does a showing, leaves the A/C on in the vacant unit, resulting in a $260 charge monthly bill. (average $60 before that). Would you charge this back to the management company?

Any thoughts?

 

[DeniseM]

I'd look at the contract for a start.

 

[Carolinian]

We have some rental properties in a nearby town. We handled one without a manager for a few years because the electrician we hired to do some work as we were redoing it asked about renting it for himself, but now all of them are managed. We are a bit over an hour away so it is just more convenient to hire local management. We are hands on for many repairs and bring some workers down from our own town.

The issues you mention are ones that I would certainly raise with those responsible.

 

[moonstone]

Hi good morning.

For any folks who are operating rental properties, I would like to get your thoughts on how to handle things that come up. Note we have a property manager but we are quite hands on as well, meaning I visit the property every couple of months to do maintenance and repairs, insect treatment, cleaning.

1. We have a landscape company that takes care of the lawn and shrubs weekly. Apparently the irrigation controller died, they reset it (perhaps not knowing it died), then later replaced it. A few weeks later a tenant texted me pictures, the lawn is dead. Should I be asking for any rebate or credit from the landscaping company, as I believe they are in charge of irrigation and lawn health? From the management company?

2. One unit has been vacant for several months, so the electric for that unit is in my name. Management company does a showing, leaves the A/C on in the vacant unit, resulting in a $260 charge monthly bill. (average $60 before that). Would you charge this back to the management company?

Any thoughts?

Re;#2, I would, that is negligence on their part leaving the AC set so cold in a vacant unit.

We have had so much trouble with our property management company for our FL condo that we are going to look for a different one when we get down there in November. We heard from a neighbour in our complex that somebody stayed in our condo for a weekend earlier this summer, the same weekend that there was a big concert in town but we had no bookings on the online calendar or rent deposited from the weekend. They denied the unit was used but our neighbour saw people going in and out and has a photo of a car parked in our spot. We have also had so much stuff go missing from our unit and we are pretty sure most of it was taken by the cleaner who we found out is a friend of the head of the rentals program at our property management company. The cleaner also routinely says she needs to throw out our towels, sheets or blankets because they are too stained to come clean (they are all white so they can be bleached), and then we are billed for replacements. When this first started happening I asked for the stained ones to be bagged and kept in the storage room at the rental office for us to pick up when we are in town but that isn't happening. We also know that the cleaner turns the AC a way down, like into the 60's F, while she is in there because we can monitor the thermostat from our phone. Luckily we can turn it back to a reasonable temperature from our phones and make sure it is at the proper setting when it is supposed to be vacant. You might want to look into getting a Smart Thermostat to prevent surprise electric bills in the future. We have the condo blocked off for our use starting Nov.1st and so far it isnt rented for October so DH wants to show up early and see if there is anybody in there if it still isnt rented close to then.


Diane


~Diane

 

[SteveinHNL]

Re;#2, I would, that is negligence on their part leaving the AC set so cold in a vacant unit.

We have had so much trouble with our property management company for our FL condo that we are going to look for a different one when we get down there in November. We heard from a neighbour in our complex that somebody stayed in our condo for a weekend earlier this summer, the same weekend that there was a big concert in town but we had no bookings on the online calendar or rent deposited from the weekend. They denied the unit was used but our neighbour saw people going in and out and has a photo of a car parked in our spot. We have also had so much stuff go missing from our unit and we are pretty sure most of it was taken by the cleaner who we found out is a friend of the head of the rentals program at our property management company. The cleaner also routinely says she needs to throw out our towels, sheets or blankets because they are too stained to come clean (they are all white so they can be bleached), and then we are billed for replacements. When this first started happening I asked for the stained ones to be bagged and kept in the storage room at the rental office for us to pick up when we are in town but that isn't happening. We also know that the cleaner turns the AC a way down, like into the 60's F, while she is in there because we can monitor the thermostat from our phone. Luckily we can turn it back to a reasonable temperature from our phones and make sure it is at the proper setting when it is supposed to be vacant. You might want to look into getting a Smart Thermostat to prevent surprise electric bills in the future. We have the condo blocked off for our use starting Nov.1st and so far it isnt rented for October so DH wants to show up early and see if there is anybody in there if it still isnt rented close to then.


Diane


~Diane

Thank you Diane. It sounds like such a nightmare with your current property manager! Ours isn't a short-term rental but you have brought a lot of really important things to our attention to remember in case we ever think about getting a short-term rental!

 

[moonstone]

Thank you Diane. It sounds like such a nightmare with your current property manager! Ours isn't a short-term rental but you have brought a lot of really important things to our attention to remember in case we ever think about getting a short-term rental!

I think long term rentals are a lot less trouble than short term, I'd stick with long term!
We did rent the condo unfurnished, long term, for 12 years after we bought it while we paid down the mortgage. We had the same couple for the first 9 years and no property manager. The woman was a co-worker of our real estate agent's wife who was re-locating from another branch office out of state. They were great tenants, always paying their rent a few days early, never causing any trouble, inviting us over to see the place or go for a swim when we were in town and they even replaced a couple of light fixtures (with permission) when they saw some nice ones on sale. They refused re-imbursement for them so then we bought a new kitchen light and set of taps and had them installed. We probably undercharged in rent but we were so glad to have nice folks in there. They moved out because they bought a new house north of town. Then we had 3 different tenants, one from hell, in 3 years before we took it over and furnished it for our winter use and summer rentals 2 years ago.

Since we live so far away we absolutely need a property management company and we thought we had a good one until there was a change in management at the office. Our oldest DS just moved with a job transfer to the Tampa area last summer and wants us to sell up and buy something closer to him. We would probably have money leftover if we did that as our place as more than doubled in value since we bought, then we wouldnt need to rent it out at all. We might have a look around when we are over visiting him at Christmas.

~Diane

 

[emeryjre]

Finding a property manager meeting expectations can be a problem
We had out of state rentals
Went through 3 property managers in first year
Lost money on the properties
The 4th had a many owners wanting their units handled by the management company
They took our properties on because they had no other units like ours
The units had sat for 6 weeks with no renters
New property managers has tenants in 3 days
We had a great relationship and things worked out very well
We disposed of the units 18 months ago because we did not want to invest further in the properties to handle deferred maintenance
It is not easy, but sometimes change is the best thing

 

[ScoopKona]

Any thoughts?

Yes!

I have yet to meet a property manager who is willing to lift anything heavier than money. It's a case of "you spending your money when shopping for appliances and contractors" versus "someone who truly doesn't give a [excrement] how much it costs because you're paying for it."

I've been a landlord for decades. The only thing property managers give you is a false sense of security.

 

[Stayls181]

Yeah, I'd ask the landscaper for a rebate. They're responsible for lawn health, so they should own up to the damage.
That electric bill is crazy! I'd definitely charge it back to the management company. They should've been more responsible with the showing.

 

[ScoopKona]

Yeah, I'd ask the landscaper for a rebate. They're responsible for lawn health, so they should own up to the damage.
That electric bill is crazy! I'd definitely charge it back to the management company. They should've been more responsible with the showing.

I just sold my property on the mainland. Had to go through an agent because reasons. They set the AC to "hang meat" temperature. Thankfully the house sold in a matter of days. I just got the highest electric bill I've ever received in my life. Just part of the cost of doing business.

 

[Hindsite]

I just can't get to the point where I can find a property manager who does the job worth the fees, for what we want. So we manage them ourselves, build the network of contractors and do quarterly visits and the documentation ourselves. I am starting to tire of that, but it isn't actually as much work as it feels like when I have to do work on them, and I haven't worked out what to do with the money that will be "better".
This experience was one of the reasons we went with braded timeshare companies, as we were looking at buying a second home but didn't want to grief of managing the property managers.
It all depends on what reason you have for owning the property. If its a vacation home that you want to recover some costs for and use, then answer is different from if it is a long-term way to tie up cash and build equity.
Be clear about your reason for owning and then set yourself up to deliver that, and if it doesn't, get rid. No different to TS in that way really....

 

[JohnPaul]

If you are close enough to visit frequently, why don't you manage it yourself. For a variety of reasons, I have been a landlord for over 40 years. The only time we used a management company was for our house in Seattle when we lived in California.

My experience is that you can often handle things inexpensively that a management company will need to call a plumber or electrician at a much higher cost. In all my time, we've had a couple of not great tenants but never any horror stories.

Good luck.

 

[WinniWoman]

Re;#2, I would, that is negligence on their part leaving the AC set so cold in a vacant unit.

We have had so much trouble with our property management company for our FL condo that we are going to look for a different one when we get down there in November. We heard from a neighbour in our complex that somebody stayed in our condo for a weekend earlier this summer, the same weekend that there was a big concert in town but we had no bookings on the online calendar or rent deposited from the weekend. They denied the unit was used but our neighbour saw people going in and out and has a photo of a car parked in our spot. We have also had so much stuff go missing from our unit and we are pretty sure most of it was taken by the cleaner who we found out is a friend of the head of the rentals program at our property management company. The cleaner also routinely says she needs to throw out our towels, sheets or blankets because they are too stained to come clean (they are all white so they can be bleached), and then we are billed for replacements. When this first started happening I asked for the stained ones to be bagged and kept in the storage room at the rental office for us to pick up when we are in town but that isn't happening. We also know that the cleaner turns the AC a way down, like into the 60's F, while she is in there because we can monitor the thermostat from our phone. Luckily we can turn it back to a reasonable temperature from our phones and make sure it is at the proper setting when it is supposed to be vacant. You might want to look into getting a Smart Thermostat to prevent surprise electric bills in the future. We have the condo blocked off for our use starting Nov.1st and so far it isnt rented for October so DH wants to show up early and see if there is anybody in there if it still isnt rented close to then.


Diane


~Diane

Jeez- who needs that headache!? I hated being a landlord and I’m glad I no longer am. Not to mention I couldn’t rent out a place I used myself. I trust no one.

My brother used to own a condo for their use in Florida ( he lived in NY). They tried the management company thing for rentals for when they weren’t using it and decided they didn’t like either. They only rented it once and never again.