You won't know until you suck it and see.
I got recommended one a while ago and she was a total dud.
But whoever you choose, make sure you change the Management Contract clause for time frame for terminating the Contract from whatever is written, down to 2 weeks and get them to sign off on that.
And also look for the clause that states they can be paid any unpaid commission for the remainder of the Management Contract; delete that too.
Also a good idea to change the amount of money you allow them to spend on repairs without your consent from whatever they have printed, down to $100 - someone here posted a while ago that they changed that figure with their PM down to zero dollars.
These changes are simply a matter of putting a big bold line through what is printed, and writing in your changes. The agents will not like it, as it is not in their best interests, but it IS in yours, and they will comply if you are firm on it.
They will begrudgingly accept it, as I have found from experience.
Otherwise; find another PM.
LA I agree, especially with forwarding unpaid commission for the reminder of the contract, that's esentially saying that they deserve a commission although they did a bad job at managing the property. One or 2 weeks should also be ample time to cancel a contract and we always tell our clients that if they are not happy then we do not want to lock them in, I dont understand agencies that lock in unhappy clients just because!!!!
Be careful with the amount of money that they are allowed to spend on properties, reducing this amount actually impedes on the successful management of your property. I personally would not accept anything below $300 and definately would not take on a client that has written zero! The reason why is because that is setting the pm up for failiure from the begining. The other side of the story is if you do not trust your pm to make necessary repairs they cannot successfully manage your property, you might as well do it yourself. We had a case recently where the landlord's were on holidays and so were the tenants, we recieved a call from neighbours saying that the property was broken into and when we attended there were broken windows and glass everywhere. We were able to quickly get everything repaired because we had a $500 authority from the landlord. Without this in place we would have had to leave the property as it is for 3 weeks until the landlord came back!
The tenants were gone overseas for 5 months and had paid rent in advance for the time, how angry would they have been if on their return nothing was done to rectify the problem for 3 weeks because we could not get hold of the landlord?
In our office we have a pile of maintenance issues ranging from non-working ovens to tears in fly screens, to loose steps on stair cases..... The reason why they are piling up and not done is because the landlord has put in a minimal amount with a "call me first" instruction. Our property managers set aside a time every day for maintenance and with these instructions they cannot send our maintenance people out on the jobs without the landlords approval first. Sometimes it takes 3 to 4 days for the approval from the landlord, sometimes a week sometimes a month! In the mean time, the tenant keeps ringing and we cannot legally do anything about it until the landlord has given us the go ahead according to the agreement. Most of these tenants are not happy then for lease renewals or putting the rent up and the landlord loses business for the sake of saving $300!!!
And do you think that the landlords take the responsibility???? NO, the PM gets blamed!!!
New contracts with landlords coming into our office have a large amount and no "ring me" instructions we no longer take on clients who are not going to let us do our job!
I agree be fair to all clients and not demand fees that have not been warrented nor lock clients into contracts although they are not happy with the service. But let us do what we do best that is "manage the property" and ringing landlords every time a minor repair comes up is not managing a property correctly.
In my agreements with my property managers I have a $1000 limit with an instruction to not call me just get it fixed. I have never had a problem in putting rent up or with disgruntled tenants and that's the way the business of property investing should be run!
