So I’ve finally talked with a property management company and gotten an idea about their fees and how they work. Since this will be my first experience using a property management company, I’m excited to see how everything plays out. It sounds like I’ll be able to be pretty hands-off, and they’ll handle most everything. This obviously comes at a price, that’s to be expected. So here’s the basic rundown of what it’ll cost:

• $195 to market the property which includes putting it on the MLS, taking and processing applications, and screening the tenants before presenting them to me for approval.
• Once a tenant is accepted, the company takes the first months rent as it’s commission for finding and placing a tenant.
• Going forward, the property management company will take 11 or 12 percent of the rent depending on what the eventual rent price is. (I was hoping this would be cheaper, but I guess I’ll have to deal with it.)

So as you can see, it’s not exactly going to be cheap to have the property managed. On the other hand, I’m not going to have to manage it myself. While in the future I’d like to own more and more rental real estate, I don’t want to end up buying myself another job in the landlording field. So we’ll see how this first one goes, and I’ll keep you updated through the process

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