North Brunswick, NJ: There are a variety of reasons why someone would hire a property manager to manage an investment property. When it happens, it could be a life-saver.
One such example is when a homeowner decides to become a landlord without any experience or training and later realizes they are in over their heads.
These types of homeowner landlords go into it motivated and optimistic, only to eventually realize just how difficult being a landlord can be.
At some point in the landlord process, they “throw in the towel” and hire a property manager to take over. This happens because they have reached a point of exhaustion and no longer wish to deal with the landlord’s challenges.
That’s the story of one of our prior clients we will call Mark Ellison (to protect his privacy). Below is a client’s story about how a property manager changed his life.
Mark Ellison’s Story
After separating from the military in 2009, my wife and I moved back to New Jersey and purchased a small ranch-style home in Sayreville. It was our first home, small and perfect for us – the future looked bright!
After residing there for a few years, my mother was forced to sell one of her investment homes in East Brunswick to pay off taxes that my late father let accrue for several years. My mother was motivated to sell the house for much less than its value to simply get out of the tax issue as quickly as possible.
My wife and I decided to purchase my mother’s house rather than let a stranger buy it at a steal price. To qualify for the mortgage, we needed to move into the new house. That meant we either needed to sell our current home or rent it out.
We decided to rent it out thinking how hard could it be?
As we prepared to rent our original home, we made several mistakes right away. First, we acquired a generic lease online that didn’t fit the property nor did we screen or do any type of background check on the future tenant. Worse yet, we didn’t take any photos before the new tenant moved in and so on.
Everything was smooth for the first few months, then the problems began. The tenant started making partial rent payments and began accruing a balance. At some point, he stopped making payments altogether.
We had to spend an inordinate amount of time following up with the tenant to make payments and keeping track of the payments and what was still due. We made several repayment plans to bring the past due rent up to date – of which they never lived up to. At some point, we decided to evict the tenant, so we had to figure that out next.
Lessons Learned
After that ordeal, we re-listed the house for rent but were more prepared this time around. We had a professional lease, conducted a background check, and confirmed the new tenants could afford the rent.
We thought, “We got this now!”
Once the tenants moved in, it wasn’t long before they complained about every little detail. Some were legitimate maintenance concerns that we dealt with. But most of their complaints were mere cosmetic items that they felt must be corrected immediately.
For example, they asked if we could paint a room a different color or add another outlet for convenience. They even complained about the noise of the passing traffic and requested new windows be installed to alleviate the noise.
It was just one thing after another, and their constant issues became a mental drain on us.
It reached a point that we decided to turn over the landlord responsibilities to a professional property manager. That’s how we found Real Property Management All-Star.
Once the property manager Marwan explained the process, we were eager to proceed. After it became official, he dealt with all the issues and managed the property from there on out.
It was a weight lifted off our shoulders.
No longer did we have to deal with regular nuisance requests. We could now focus on living life and being happy instead of going back and forth with mostly nonsense concerns from needy tenants.
And that’s how a property manager changed this client’s life.
– Mark Ellison
Real Property Management All-Star
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