When looking to hire a property manager, it’s important to do your homework to find the best fit for you and for your commercial property. Unlike residential properties, it can be difficult to find tenants to occupy your space, so you want to keep your current tenants happy; hiring a competent, professional manager can not only help your rental business run smoothly, but save you money and stress in the long run. Before making any fast and hard decisions about who to hire, answer these questions about each company to ensure that your commercial property is being handled by only the best managers.
- How qualified are the company’s employees?
Before you hire a firm to handle your properties, you want to make sure that their employees, the property managers with whom you’ll be working, are qualified to handle the task. Did the company perform background checks before hiring their employees? Have they undergone proper training necessary to manage effectively? Were they given the proper education prior to being set to work? Ask to meet with the individual property managers to best ascertain who will be the best fit for your business. After all, hiring an untrained, inexperienced manager to handle your property will inevitably cause your business to suffer as a result.
- How much experience do the owners of the firm have?
If you were investing in the stock market, would you choose to intrust your money with an experienced broker with inside knowledge of the market, or would you leave your cash with someone playing the market for the first time? Since your real estate is your investment, you want to treat it as such and only work with skilled professionals whose years of experience speak to a track record of excellence. You also don’t want to deal with people who are just looking to make some quick cash without too much time commitment. These managers will not be the ones to give your property the top notch care it deserves.
- How does the company handle maintenance and repairs?
Different companies choose to deal with maintenance and repair issues in different ways, and you want to make sure you find a company whose plans suite yours. Where bills for maintenance are concerned, some companies choose to bill you for repairs on income statements, while some prefer to have a monthly fee that covers repairs. You also want to work out the finer details surrounding costs. For example, set a limit of a certain amount that you’re comfortable with the manager spending without consulting you; after all, you don’t need to be give permission for every light bulb purchased or ceiling tile replaced. You also don’t want a company who’s going to let maintenance issues go unresolved for extended amounts of time; that’s a surefire way to damage the relationship you have with your tenants and can cause difficulty filling the space down the road.