Are you interested in multifamily commercial real estate? Then you will doubtless be better off hiring a property manager to deal with the day-to-day management of your units. Frankly; you’ll be too busy with the rest of your real estate portfolio to take on the task.

Luckily, property management is big business, in that there are plenty of them on the market. Here are the steps to making sure you get a good one that doesn’t negatively affect your bottom line.

Interview Tips For Getting a Property Manager

First of all, perform research on property manager companies. You can get most of these questions answered even before the interview by checking their record and the services offered. Find out the types of properties they specialize in. In particular, whether or not these properties had multiple units, etc. You can even wean information from their experience on the parts of town that have low occupancy/vacancy rates.

What Is Their Experience

It is especially important to find out whether the property manager parent company outsources their work. How many managers are on-site and connected directly to the company; as opposed to contracting? The multiple points of contact don’t tend to facilitate interaction, in our experience. There are many things to cover (your tenant screening directives, eviction process, tenant responsibilities, etc). You need to know who will be in charge of managing these – the parent company, or the contracted company.

Business Order and Property Manager Agreement Forms

This points, primarily, to the finances and how they will be managed. You can opt for direct deposit or other forms of payment; you should have already determined whether or not they have a property manager license and from where. Small details matter at this stage. For example, you want to know the tenant-visitation schedule (as in, how frequently will the manager check in on residents?). 

In conclusion, the gist of the property management agreement is to spell out the responsibilities of all parties involved. you, the property management company (their contractor, if any), and the tenants. Rules and regulations, as well as penalties, are also spelled out. For a more in-depth analysis of what you can expect as a property manager, check out 18 Sierra Financial.