Why Should you Hire a Property Manager?

You may be questioning whether or not to hire a property management company.  It can't be that hard to manage on your own, right?  The answer to that is it's not that hard if you get the perfect resident... the tenant that pays their rent on the first of the month and makes you aware of maintenance issues and is patient while the repairs are being scheduled.  The tenant who is not overly inconvenienced when they are without air conditioning or an appliance for a few days.   Those tenants are out there and the majority of tenants I work with are great.  I like to say that 80% of tenants are awesome and the other 20% take up 80% of my time.  

Maintenance Emergencies- Emergencies can happen at any time... a water heater may rupture at 10:00pm on a Friday night or the tenants may have their HVAC unit stop working at 2:00pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  Do you want to spend your days off finding a plumber or HVAC contractor in Charleston?  Chances are you would rather someone else handle it.  We have a contractor in every specialty and they schedule the repairs quickly once issued a work order.  You don't have to scramble on your days off because we have someone to take care of it for you.  Since we work with these contractors on a regular basis the problem will be fixed quickly and accurately.

Late Payments- If you don't have a Property Manager and you deal with your tenants directly they may ask a Landlord to pay rent late if they experience a financial dilemma such as a disabled vehicle or medical bills.  Many Landlords don't realize that by accepting late payments you may be encouraging a habit of late payments.  Our Property Managers follow the lease exactly as written and we thoroughly explain the lease to our tenants.  If rent is late we can file an eviction.  Late fees accrue and are a good incentive for tenants to pay rent on time.  Of course change of circumstances may occur with our tenants and we handle those issues with Landlords as they arise.  Most of our Landlords do not live in Charleston and it would be difficult for them to travel to Charleston to file an eviction.  We can take care of that process for you.

Accessibility- We have keys to your property and we are local.  If there is an emergency we can get to your property quickly.  Over the last two years we had a flooding in October, 2015 and Hurricane Matthew in October, 2016.  I was able to get to every property within a week to conduct inspections and assess for damage.

Security Deposits- We collect and disburse security deposits.  We take photos and make lists of repairs based on normal and excessive wear and tear.  We then contact the Landlord for approval on repairs.  When we disburse the security deposits and tenants have questions about deductions (meaning they want to provide you with every excuse possible why there should have been zero deductions) they contact us first.

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