Many of us have chosen to utilize property managers for our rentals. Its a pretty big industry that has a surprisingly low barrier to entry. This means that just about anyone can be a property manager. So how do you find them and pick the best one. Here is a small list my agent and I came up with. Its certainly not exhaustive.

Finding a new Property Manager

There are two main and very obvious ways. Google and word of mouth.
Google can be very useful when finding information on property managers. I took 15-30 minutes per firm researching before I even called them.
-check out their Better Business Bureau rating and see if there are any logged complaints.
-do a search for reviews on the company. While this is all subject to reading another persons opinion, check for complaints stemming from the same problem.
-check out their website.   Some smaller companies may not have a website, I actually hold this against them. In this day in age, there is no excuse for a customer oriented company to not have a place for their client owner and tenants to gather information. Read all you can. Many of the questions you can ask are already listed. Many companies will go as far as putting their contracts online for you to read.
-Check rental listings and see who has the best approach in your area.

Word of mouth is by far the best way to find a good pm. While many have web pages, their SEO (search engine optimization) could use some help. Hence, you may not find them in a standard search.
-Ask your realtor
-Ask your local REI club
-Ask other landlords you know. Specifically those that have been around for awhile and have several properties.
-As your driving your target neighborhoods (you better be doing this at least weekly), look at the for rent signs and who the PM firm is.
-ask on forums you use. Meetup.com or biggerpockets.com as an example.

Honestly when your looking, you should be doing all these things. Remember your 100K + investments are at stake, are you really going forward on a whim?

Next post, I’ll talk about what you should be looking for in a manager.
Till then, I leave you with this quote “Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error. ” Andrew Jackson