Property Management: What to Services to Expect

Owning homes and business suites that are available for rent is a great way to bring in some money. Matter-of-fact, if you have enough of these types of buildings you can make an entire living off of it. But making sure all of the sites have responsible tenants and collecting the fees and money each month can be cumbersome for a single person, even if you do own the buildings. When that happens hiring a property management company to look after your holdings can be the best choice you make.
There are three main things that your property management company should do for you. The first is fully screen potential tenants. This means that they take the applicant's entire information and check it. What they should be checking for are things like background (for criminal history), credit, ability to pay the rent, and their rental history. You don't want to have someone in one of your buildings that have a history of getting evicted for non-payment, have a violent past with a history of being arrested or someone who simply can't pay their rent. Whether or not you want their credit history to be a denial point is up to you, and you establish this limit with your managers.
Another thing your property management company will do for you is lease contracting and/or accepting rent on your behalf. The whole purpose of hiring someone to screen tenants and deal with your real estate holdings is to have them do all of it. You might not be in a position to make it to every lease signing or go door to door collecting the rent money. They will handle all of this stuff for you. There might be legal documents that need to be in place for them to do this on your behalf so you might want to check with your state to make sure all the documents are filed correctly.
Finally, especially if you are in another state from your houses or buildings the property management company will need to be able to remedy any maintenance issues that the tenants may have. Again this will require some limited legal documentation, such as a limited power of attorney, but they will be in a position to handle these types of calls better than you can. You can have it set up that they can do only so much without your consent if you want to keep it within a strict budget, which will make the minor repairs less of a hassle for you.
When you are considering hiring a property management company to handle your real estate ventures you need to do a little homework. Sure it sounds like a lot of work just to find someone to handle your real estate ventures but this company is going to be acting as the buffer between you and your tenants. They are not only going to be handling any complaints that come up but they are going to be the group that makes sure the tenants that rent from you are good, solid people. You can feel confident that your real estate is in good hands.