What are the 3 major benefits of having a property manager?
Those in the real estate and have rental houses including residential or commercial buildings and go downs, can bear witness that this is a very huge investment, and has many challenges and headaches. This requires a total rest after the completion of the construction. Therefore, it is paramount for the property owner to engage a property management firm to help in management of their property in order to realise the real benefits from the investment. Property managers’ charges between 5% to 10% of the total rent collected, but others demand a standard monthly charge.
Major benefits of having a property manager, include but not limited to the following;
1. Marketing and selling of the vacant rental spaces/houses
If an investor builds a mall, an apartment, or even a go-down and fails to get tenants, then it defies the logic of why the investment was made. Empty building spaces are a great loss to the landlord/lady. Getting someone or a company to help fill up the vacant spaces in the building is key for any property investor. With a good property management company, especially one that uses technology in marketing and selling empty spaces for leasing or renting, the investor should enjoy between 90% to 100% occupancy of his/her property. Major property management companies use online platforms to market and sell empty spaces of apartments, go-downs, or malls.
2. Setting and prompt collection of rent fee
If a building is fully occupied by tenants, but then they don’t pay rent and if they do it’s not promptly paid, again this is a loss to the property investor. The property managers help the real estate owners in setting the amount that tenants should pay either for long-term lease, monthly rent, or otherwise. They equally help in ensuring that the set rent fee is collected in good time as per the tenancy agreement. This helps the landlord/lady meet his financial obligations such as loan/mortgage payment, tax payment, service charges payment and land rates settling effectively and efficiently. More importantly, the landlord/lady enjoys the revenue from his/her investment.
3.Record Keeping
Sometimes it is cumbersome to keep all the records including files and receipts of all the tenants, especially in an instance where tenancy documents are many. It is also difficult to maintain such records as financial, statutory, lease agreements and the like for all the tenants, government, suppliers, and other stakeholders in the real estate industry. This is even difficult if the landlord/lady is not experienced or skilled in record keeping. To forestall the headache, the real estate investor should engage a property management firm to help in all the above. In Kenya, the property managers help the landlord/lady in paying of statutory bills including government levies and taxes and subsequently keep the records well for audit purposes.
The fourth reason which is an equally important one is,
4.Services
The property manager offers other services albeit on an extra fee where applicable. The property manager will mostly coordinate and manage the implementation of these services. The services include;
* Property caretaking services, -cleaning, garbage collection,
* Managing the statutory bills -Electricity, Water, Internet/TV network etc.
* Security –provision of guards, installation and management of CCTV
* Renovation and maintenance – Especially when tenants vacate the house
* Legal Services –coordinating the drawing of tenancy agreements, ligations auctioneering etc.