Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #42-02: Renee Wittenauer: Questions to ask a property manager

Welcome back to Ready Set Sold I’m your host Bryan Vogt. Thanks so much for joining us this Saturday and happy St. Patty’s Day I hope you’re celebrating it with a lot of fun with friends but also be safe just a different world out there we want to make sure everybody’s safe so whatever you’re doing enjoy but have fun at the same time and yes you can do that with that said I’ve been talking now the first segment we talked was Renee Witnaur from Cecil Property Management we talked about the fact of the matter of buying versus renting those factors.
And now we’re going to get a little bit deeper into of the importance of really asking questions and hopefully the property manager is asking maybe even more questions to you if you’re looking to lease or if you’re a landlord looking to lease your property out and that’s really important the questions that I know the property manager asks but what you ask Renee and I think that’s probably maybe the maybe the most important thing that people should be looking for yeah.
Definitely I like to talk about what to look for in a property manager from the homeowner standpoint of somebody of hiring a property manager but also from the tenants standpoint so somebody that’s looking for a property to rent to because you are running from a homeowner but you’re dealing with the property manager so both have some good questions to ask from each standpoint and will be some good questions that the people should expect or they should just be asking a property manager okay so if I were a tenant going to a property some of the things that I would look for was how quickly did you get a response so if you inquired on a property whether it be a website inquiry or a phone call.
How quickly do you get a response to that inquiry use that as a good judgment to kind of see how it’s going to work the rest of the way through if it takes several days for somebody to respond to you or you don’t get a response at all that could be some indication about how your tenancy is going to go as far as getting the feedback in the communication that you need from your landlord what field you get walking into the property so once you do get a showing and you’re going there is everything in good condition or is maintenance still in the works or you know does it just look bad and they’re not willing to do anything so definitely trust your gut and gauge your first impression.
Whenever you walk into that property usually kind of helps allow how your tenancy is going to be as well and then for maintenance always ask how quickly do you guys do maintenance how can I pay my rent how do you guys communicate with me you know are you in your office do you have office hours pretty much everything boils down to communication so how quickly did they execute from the very beginning through your lease process is going to tell you how they’re going to execute for the rest of the way down so at any point if you have a property manager that’s not responding to the little simple showing inquiry they may not respond to the big maintenance issues.
So those are things I would recommend looking for as far as a tenant now if you’re a homeowner or an investor and you’re looking for a property manager you definitely want to focus on the communication style as well ask them how do they communicate what is their preferred method of communication if they say we do everything by email you know ask them if you know do you ever pick up the phone call me will I ever talk to you just to find out how you can expect them to communicate with you just to see if it fits your nature on what you want to do you know what is their primary focus do they do sales and leasing do they do only leasing how many properties do they manage what types of properties do they manage you really want to hire somebody that’s an expert in property management.
That’s their focus that you know that they’re going to be going to bat for you as a property manager 24/7 with that says into your property manager do they do it by themselves or do they have a team behind them you know it’s really hard for one person to do everything especially whenever there could be 24/7 maintenance or they’re you know they could have hundreds of properties or 50 properties whatever it may be if you have one person and you don’t have a team it might take them longer to communicate with you or communicate with the tenant so having a expert team behind the lead property manager to me is huge because it’s only going to increase that level of service that they get you and ultimately you could get multiple people for the price of one that’s awesome.
And one of the things that I think to point out that’s really important to really come back to that team concept because it really is in specially it’s not only for someone leasing a property but I would tend to think that on the person who is a landlord who is who is wanting to lease a property out that becomes even that much more important instead of having one person that does half roll estate half leasing have something else that you actually have a team of professionals that look maybe sometimes you know that person is available but somebody can pick up the slack make sure that person is taken care of and their needs are met and quite frankly you’re dealing in most cases with similar pricing some where costs they may be a little range a little bit differently.
But again having that security I just have to think Renee is just a big plus of people should be
looking for it yeah I mean you’re definitely getting more bang for your buck as the old thing goes and you know what I can price out to manage your property for you know I have 13 people on my team plus maintenance texts that are working for that price so and if I’m not available you can talk to any team member and you can still get the same information so you’re not relying on that one source of information and I think the other thing too is I would imagine this comes up too if you’re definitely if you’re thinking about leasing what is your track record I mean again giving information of course you know most people leasing the property know they need to keep me on general maintenance up and you keep things going a good and good standing.
But you know sometimes answering that question is well okay am I gonna if I go with you is it going to be four months or five months before I get my property leased I mean that’s something actually that comes up with you right yes absolutely if you have somebody to focus on the market that knows the rental market that is an expert property manager you should be able to ask them how long is it going to take to get my property rented and be able to get a set guideline now of course nothing’s a guarantee but you know you should be able to cut property managers should confidently be able to say it’s going to take me approximately 45 days that would be my estimate that way they can budget you know I like to tell people it’s like okay if it’s going
to take me 45 days.
You know you need to plan on not having any money any deposits for 90 days just to be safe because then that helps them plan their budget and everything and really spell it out that extra step so they don’t end up getting in a tight spot with the mortgage payment or any maintenance or anything that comes up so having that information is super critical that’s fantastic information a thanks so much for sharing that with us because again it doesn’t have to be a guessing game when you’re leasing in the same thing and one things we talked about with the book where he said sold it doesn’t have to be a guessing game.
When you’re putting your house on the market I think again Renee would never from social property management for sharing that information I also kind of want to get into a the book part and that is getting the book is free it’s simple you get readysetsold.org not .com but readysetsold.org not .com and pick up a free copy of the book so be mailed right to your house no strings attached just getting information out because the market is just well it’s just going crazy and you really need to maybe still have that information to make sure that you’re going to get top Tower absolutely free with that said we’re going to be talking in the next segment about the housing market and going a little bit more deeper in making sure you get top dollar and a fast sale even in hot markets you want to make sure that you get maximize your profits they’re listening to Ready set Sold I’m your host Bryan Vogt.
[Music]