February 13, 2020

When to Hire a Multifamily Property Manager in Royal Oak MI

Managing multi-family investment properties in Royal Oak comes with unique challenges: each unit has its own needs—as do the tenants inside.

Although you’ve likely heard of some of the benefits of hiring a Royal Oak property manager to support your property investment portfolio, how can you tell when it’s time to call in the big guns? This can be particularly challenging to gauge when you have multi-family properties.

If one—or more—of the following apply to you, it’s time to take your real estate portfolio to the next level by teaming up with a Royal Oak property manager.

1. If You Find Yourself Still Working at Night

One of the easiest ways to tell if you’re doing the job of more than one person is if you’re kept working late into the night. In reality, you should be able to take care of everything you need to get done during your workday.

It’s a common myth that you have to work 16 hours a day—or more—to manage multi-family investment properties in Royal Oak. This simply isn’t true—especially if you properly delegate aspects of the management process to a qualified team.

Your time after work belongs to you: when you work with a property management partner, you reclaim that time.

  • Often, the things that force you to work at night are little emergencies that pop up unexpectedly.
  • They require immediate attention to keep your tenants pleased and your profits up.
  • A skilled property manager frees you from these tasks by taking them on—and then some!

Money and chart2. When Your Maintenance Costs Seem Too High

The cost of maintaining multi-family investment properties in Royal Oak should be significantly less than that of maintaining the same number of separate, detached units.

Further, if your costs include spending time shopping for replacement parts, technicians, or materials, a property manager already has the connections in place to do this even faster! Plus, time saved is a penny earned: with a property manager on your side, you don’t have to worry about:

  • Driving from one supply store to the next to find what you need
  • Perusing through lists of “professionals,” hoping to get the best one
  • Over-working your sole fix-it professional—or giving them jobs that are out of their comfort zone
  • Wasting hours and hours online, trying to find reasonable deals on maintenance necessities.

Keep in mind there are two factors you should take into consideration when figuring out the maintenance costs for your real estate portfolio: the cost of maintenance and the cost of your time.

When you are working to either grow or improve your real estate investment portfolio, you are generating value for the business in a way that only you can. If you’re spending too much time maintaining the properties you already have, this value is lost.

Hiring a property manager to care for your multi-family investment properties in Royal Oak gives you back the time you need to keep growing your portfolio!

3. When You’re Having a Hard Time Keeping Your Units Filled

An empty unit sucks away at the value of your real estate investment portfolio; filling them also takes time.

A property manager has the bandwidth to dedicate both time and resources to make sure as many of your units are filled as possible. They can help with:

  • Marketing your properties
  • Listing units
  • Updating listings
  • Vetting potential tenants
  • Writing contracts
  • Reviewing changes to contracts requested by tenants
  • Deciding whether or not to allow pets in your properties.

If your properties aren’t as full as they could be, a Royal Oak property manager can invest their energies into keeping them packed—and profitable.

4. When Your Accounts Are Starting to Get Harder to Manage

Keeping track of the money you’re owed probably wasn’t at the top of your list when it came to the joys of multi-family property ownership. Even less enjoyable is trying to get payments from renters who have fallen behind. Not only does this take valuable time, but it can also be stressful.

Sometimes, there’s a personal connection between you and your renters that can make it hard to “put your foot down.” Not only does a property manager help wrangle accounts receivable, but they also make it easier to draw the line between business and personal. They can be the “bad guy,” so to speak, acting as the shield between tenants and your reputation in the community.

Happy young business man at office5. When You're Sacrificing Family Time for Your Business

You got into real estate investing to spend more time with your family—not less!

Another easy-to-see determiner of when it’s time to get a property manager is when you find you’re taking care of business when you should be spending time with your family. Perhaps you see the interruption of family activities as an unnecessary evil of multi-family property ownership. However, this is not the case.

  • You have earned the right to spend time with your family without interruption.
  • Further, your family has earned the right to have your full attention for hours or even days at a time!
  • Hiring a property manager can help you reclaim the quality time you and your family need together and pave the road to retirement.

If any of the above apply to you, it’s time to get a property manager in Royal Oak on your team. Even if you simply reinvest some of the time you save into your real estate portfolio, your business can become more profitable—and your financial future even more secure.

Take the strain out of managing multi-family units: leave your portfolio in the hands of the professionals at JMZ Management! We can handle portfolios of any scale and scope so that you can get back to doing what you do best: investing!


Multifamily Property Management 

Topics: royal oak property manager, Multi-Family Property Investing, Property Investing Tips