If you are a multifamily property owner, or investor thinking of using a property management company for your rental apartment community, there are some key features you should look for before making a commitment to choose a property management company. When you choose a property management company, you’ll want the best possible service, while also earning good cash flow from your investment property. Here are five major features every property management service should offer you.

1. Excellent Customer Service

The type of property management company you choose to manage your investment property could play a major role on the satisfaction level and loyalty of your customers. Your residents will remember your community by the level of service they receive during the period of their stay at your community. So, providing an exceptional customer service to residents who choose to call your community home is very important to earning their continuous patronage. The property management company you choose for your rental needs should offer excellent customer service and be able to provide testimonials from previous and current satisfied residents. After a prospective resident has entered a lease agreement, and paid the required fees and their first month’s rent as per the lease agreement, they should be able to arrive in a clean and ready apartment home. 

A well customer focused property management company should be able to communicate with the future resident and explain in clear details either in person, by phone or email when the property will be ready for move-in. Especially since some residents might be moving from out of state and may not want to stay in a hotel, while waiting for there apartments to be ready. Moreover, as a good customer service etiquette, it will be nice if a property management company could provide welcome packets including directions to the rental property as well as helpful information about the surrounding area to new residents. Such a customer strategy will make the residents feel welcomed and give them the impression that they’ll love their stay in your community. 

2. Cleaning & Maintenance Services

As a property owner, when choosing a property management company, you would also want to ensure that the property management company has well experienced and professional onsite management and maintenance teams. A consistent maintenance culture of your community is necessary for keeping your loyal residents, and make them feel well taken care of and happy. It would also maintain the value of your investment property. Especially if you decide to sell the property in the feature. A good property management company should also be able to provide good cleaning services and use a reliable professional maintenance team to keep your property in good shape. 

Besides the day-to-day renovations and turning around of apartment homes after lease expirations to have them ready for new tenants, the property management company should be able to have an onsite management and maintenance team to handle maintenance issues such as water damages or leaks, pest control, inspection of roof and gutters, patching of cracks in ceiling and drywalls to control further damage to building structure, ensure that curb appeal is kept clean and trees are well trimmed, perform replacement of filters in air conditioners and furnaces, perform flushing of water heaters, inspect smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and ensure that there are not any activity that violates the lease agreement entered by the residents of your community. 

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3. Management fees

Before choosing a property management company for your rental investment property, you’ll would have to factor management fees into your bottom line. In general, most property management companies could charge between 8% to 12% in average as fees of the monthly collected rent.  In addition, some property management companies may also charge setup fees and onboarding fees to manage your rental property.  Nonetheless, the cost of using a property manager for your rental property depends on how much responsibility you want them to take on. Note; as a property owner on a budget, you could be able to delegate some part of the property management operations such as maintenance and payroll to a professional property management company, then handle other areas of the running the community yourself if you have the time for such responsibilities. But realistically, such a management strategy might not be a good idea for large communities. By hiring a professional property management company for your investment property, you can be able to delegate most of the landlord responsibilities. This would save you time to focus on other businesses and avoid the emotional and physical stress in dealing with various kinds of residents. You would also avoid the daunting task of maintaining the community as a whole, marketing the property and ensuring that it continues to maintain its market value.

Apart from setup fees, some other property management fees to consider may include Maintenance fee, Vacancy fee, lease renewal fee, Tenant placement fee or Leasing fee, Eviction fee, and Early termination fee. Other factors that may impact how much fee you’ll be charged by a professional property management company might also have to do with the location of the property, the size of the property and the condition of the property.

4. Accounting Services

Another factor to consider when choosing a property management company for your investment property has to do with the ability of the property management company to carry out the day-to-day financial operations of your rental property. 

For instance, some professional property management companies may have an in-house-accounting team to carry out all their financial transactions. Ranging from rent collections, cashflow statements, payroll, income statements, accounts payable, bookkeeping and budgeting. However, some property owners might want to have a separate management company run the operations and marketing aspect, while outsourcing the accounting services to another company. However, simplifying or streamlining your investment property accounting operation by making use of the same property management company for both your property management and accounting services would save you cost and increase your bottom-line overtime.  It would also enable you as an owner to better understand your numbers. 

5. Marketing Services

As an owner of a rental apartment community, choosing the right professional Property Management company to market your property is very vital to increasing occupancy level and growing your bottom-line. For instance, an experienced property management company can properly market and position your property in the market with a focus to enable it stay competitive. Or, help you lower your advertising cost by utilizing cost effective marketing strategies and channels. 

A professional property management company with the right expertise could also help your property gain more brand awareness, stay competitive, and target the right market audience. In addition, using the right professional property management company that understands branding, market segmentation and rental trends is very crucial to growing your cash flow. When choosing a property management company, you should find out if they carry out market research constantly to determine where rents are trended so you could benefit from rent growth. The property management company should also have a marketing team that is capable 

Of providing you the owner with either a weekly or monthly progress report regarding the performance of your property against other competing properties in the area. Such market reports may include leasing activities, your property website performance, number of visitors that contacted your properties, leads and conversions and measurement of residents’ satisfaction through surveys. 

Get in touch with a reliable property management company today! Click Here to Speak to an expert. And enjoy a stress-free property management service. 

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