Why Professional Landlords Should Use a Property Management Company

If you’re a professional landlord, one of the most important decisions you need to take is whether to use the services of a property management company. You may think you can manage on your own, and perhaps you can, but if you have a large portfolio of properties, or a property that’s made up of five, ten or more flats, you may welcome some professional assistance. In this article, we look at why it makes sense for landlords to use a property management company.

What is property management and what does it entail?

Property management is the administration, on behalf of owners, of commercial, residential, and industrial properties, and includes houses, apartments, flats, shopping centres and so on. The job entails handling all the maintenance and repair issues, communicating with tenants, dealing with complaints, collecting rent, advertising the property for rent and, where necessary, enforcing evictions.

Why you should hire a property management company

Here are some reasons why you should consider hiring a property management company:

 

Your rental property/properties are in other parts of the UK

If you live a good distance from your properties, it’s not easy to make regular visits to oversee problems and handle any rental, repair or maintenance issues. On the other hand, a local property management company, with all its resources, is ideally placed to do all of this for you.

You have a large portfolio of properties or rental units

If you have a large portfolio of houses and/or flats, it’s not easy to manage each one proficiently. It makes sense, therefore, to hand them over to a company that specialises in property management and let them do all the hard work.

You’re not interested in hands-on management

If, like many landlords, you view the ownership of rental property strictly as an investment and want little to do with the day-to-day management, then hiring a property management company is the ideal solution.

Time is money

Even if you’d like to be a hands-on landlord, you may have a great deal of other more important work you need to focus on including searching for new property investments, arranging the finance for refurbishments of existing portfolio properties, as well as meeting with estate agents to view potential new properties. Once again, a management company is the more practical answer.

You don’t want to become an employer

If you do take on the management of your own portfolio, you’ll probably need to hire a manager and perhaps some staff to help with all the administration. This means you’ll become an ‘employer’ and, as such, will have to be involved in payroll and tax matters, plus all the other legal issues that come with being an employer. The alternative is to outsource the work to a property management company to act as an independent contractor.

Affordable housing programmes

If any of your properties are part of an affordable housing programme, things can get more complicated. These programmes provide landlords with financial assistance in the form of low-interest loans, tax credits, or grants. In return for these, landlords have to agree to rent at least a part of their properties to lower-income tenants. To continue receiving financial assistance, they also have to comply with a complex set of provisions and rules. In cases like this, contracting a property management company that has experience in dealing with particular housing programmes is a good idea.

Finding a good property management company is key in helping you manage your property portfolio successfully. Word of mouth and recommendations from other landlords, business associates and colleagues are always a good place to start, as is the Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA). Once you’ve drawn up a shortlist of potential suppliers, ask each of them to prepare a presentation to set out why they should be appointed to handle your portfolio, and go from there.