Should You Hire a Property Manager or Self-Manage?

We manage property for a living, so treat our opinion accordingly. That said, plenty of owners should self-manage, and we tell them so. Here is how we'd think about it if it were our house.

Self-managing works when three things are true

You live close enough to see the property without rearranging your week. You can take a call about a water heater during business hours without it costing you more than the repair. And you have the temperament to enforce a lease against someone you have met and probably like.

That third one is what usually breaks. Collecting late rent from a stranger is a process. Collecting it from the nice young couple whose situation you know is a conversation most people avoid, and avoidance is expensive.

The costs owners forget to count

The management fee is visible. The costs of self-managing mostly are not:

• The vacancy weeks that come from part-time marketing and weekend-only showings
• The tenant you accepted because screening properly felt awkward
• Your own hours — count them at what your time is actually worth
• Vendor pricing, where a manager sending repeat work usually gets rates and response times an individual owner does not
• The mistake you don't know you're making until it becomes a dispute

The moment it usually stops working

There's a recognizable point at which self-managing owners call us, and it is almost never the second property. It's the first genuinely bad month: a tenant stops paying, or a repair turns out to be a symptom of something structural, or an owner moves out of the area and discovers that managing a rental from two hours away is a different job.

The other common trigger is simpler. The owner got tired. Fifteen years of 2 AM calls will do that, and there is nothing wrong with deciding you've done enough of them.

What a manager has to actually earn

A manager is worth paying if they do things you would not do as well yourself. Ours is a specific list, and it's a fair list to hold any manager to:

• Screen every adult applicant against one written standard, applied identically — which protects you legally as much as financially
• Price off closed comps rather than hopeful listings
• Serve notices on schedule rather than when someone remembers, because timing and procedure are what make a case hold up
• Handle maintenance within a spend threshold you set, and bring you anything above it with a scope and a bid
• Keep owner funds in a broker trust account, with statements you can actually read
• Tell you when the answer is 'this needs an attorney, not a property manager'

Questions worth asking any manager, including us

Ask what the monthly fee is and whether it's a percentage of your rent. Ask what they charge to place a tenant. Ask whether they mark up maintenance invoices. Ask about a lease renewal fee. Ask what happens if you want to leave.

The answers tell you more than any sales conversation. A manager who earns more when your rent rises and more when your house breaks has interests that differ from yours in two places that matter — which doesn't make them dishonest, but is worth knowing before you sign. Every fee should be in writing before you do.

If you'd like a second opinion on whether managing it yourself still makes sense, call us. We'll tell you honestly, including when the answer is that you're doing fine on your own.