For real estate investors, hiring a quality-minded property manager is often a grueling task. Many real estate investors find this critical step similar to pulling teeth. After all, finding a professional property manager is time-consuming and attention-demanding.

But finding a true professional can be the difference between making sure your monthly cash-flow remains stable and a mismanaged property that is helping drive you toward bankruptcy. Below we cover a few questions for consideration so that you can hire a truly professional property manager, retain your renting clientele, and keep your bottom line robust.

Questions to Ask When Searching for a Property Manager

Here are a few questions to ask a candidate for managing your property holdings:
What do other real estate investment professionals have to say about them? Property managers who will truly take care of your real estate portfolio will have had positive experiences with other real estate investors. Monthly or annual property owner association meetings, local real estate association gatherings, real estate professional networking events, and other related meetings are excellent places to gather recommendations for quality candidates. Once you have identified some candidates, ask them for other references and then follow up with the references. Key qualities to look out for include swift attentiveness to renter needs, clearly being neat and organized, keeping to spelled-out deadlines and other requirements, and other indicators of quality performance.

What sort of experience do they have? This question is clearly one of the most important ones to ask. Key sub-questions to ask include:

• How many years have they been involved in property management?
• How long have they managed properties in your state and in the area(s) where your real estate holdings are located?
• What efforts do they take to stay up-to-date on laws, regulations, and best practices relating to their field?
• What is their property management philosophy?
• How do they deal with unpleasant situations such as difficult tenants or collecting rent on time?
• What are some examples of when they made poor decisions or dealt poorly with a difficult situation? What did they learn from it and how did they alleviate the situation?
• How do they address maintenance issues?
• What do they use for reporting about a property portfolio and what is going on there?
• What software do they use for reporting? (Make sure to set up a test to gauge their comfort level and ability with the software.)
• What do they base their management fees on?

The more probing questions you can ask and get answers to, the better you will be.

How many properties are they managing? Experts recommend that you ask your candidates about the number of properties they are currently managing. This will help you gauge their experience at present, as well as how much time and attention they will be able to devote to your own property holdings. Make sure to follow up by asking how many employees are managing these units as well. If they are already managing a rather extensive amount—say 40 properties or more—and they do not have any employees working for them, they will probably not be likely to devote the optimal time or energy needed for ensuring your portfolio delivers strong value.

Do they perform regular on-site inspections of the properties they are managing? Naturally, a big part of effective property management and strong manager-tenant relationships is making formal inspections of the property itself. When your manager is in touch with what is going on at a particular holding, he or she will be quick to adapt to unpleasant situations or conditions that need to be improved. He or she will also be more empowered to deliver stronger cash-flow per month to you as well. If a candidate signifies that he or she is not willing to conduct ongoing formal inspections, it may be best to move on. Likewise, property managers who want to treat formal inspections as an additional service instead of their usual service offerings may not be the best fit for your needs, either.

Are they real estate investors themselves? While this may seem counterproductive, it actually makes sense to seek out a property management professional who also has a real estate investing background. He or she will bring the same mentality, concerns, and overall perspective of a real estate investor to the position. That means that you will likely share the same concerns and be aware of the things that are noteworthy. Some experts recommend using this as a dealbreaker for hiring a property manager.

Closing Thoughts

Other things to consider include the property manager’s attitude when you are speaking to the property manager candidate. Does he or she remain calm and non-interruptive? Is he or she accommodating or appear to be so based on his or her answers? Attitude and perspective are key factors for gauging how easy a property manager will be to work with, among other things. Above all— the more information you can gather, the better.