Any recommendations for property managers/companies/services that we could use to rent out a house in Raleigh?

8/7/2011 10:01:23 AM

Giving up on selling the house?

8/7/2011 10:24:59 AM

giving it some more time but want to have a back up plan

8/7/2011 10:31:10 AM

There's always Preiss.

8/7/2011 10:40:50 AM

becklee

they managed a property we rented. They were fine to work with, but we were pretty low maintenance tenants.

8/8/2011 8:15:58 AM

A friend of mine, after not having much success trying to rent out the place on his own, went with Wilson Property Management. So far the only major complaint he's had is that they charge what seems like a lot for any services/maintenance they have to perform, but he lives in Greensboro so unless it's an emergency service he can usually come by and do it himself.

Also, having been on the other side of the coin and rented a place from Wilson, they're pretty good to have as landlords.

8/8/2011 8:43:34 AM

We just rented our house through HCoProperties - http://hcoproperties.com/.
They charge us 8% of the rent as their fee.

It took 6 days being listed for us to have 3 applications to choose from.
We haven't been renting long enough to have had to deal with any issues but I have a friend that also rents through them and he thinks their cost for service/maintenance visits is very reasonable.

8/8/2011 10:42:33 AM

The property management company that manages the house we are renting seems to be pretty good. We applied to three of their houses within a few days after coming on the market before being able to get one since they received several applications for each place within just a couple of days. So I guess they do pretty well. http://www.robertsrentals.net/

8/8/2011 10:48:36 AM

ive started the process for doing this with my home in texas. what are the fees you guys are seeing? i just want to see whats out there, i've asked for quotes from 4 firms but i'm not sure what is "normal" and what is just crazy

8/8/2011 5:43:07 PM

http://www.emilymassey.com/

I moved from Raleigh to Salt Lake City back in April and had to rent out my town home in Morrisville. I got Emily's reference from my neighbor, who'd recently used her to rent his town home out. She charges a flat rate for finding a renter and getting the lease signed. She also charges a flat monthly rate for property management. The finders fee includes the first month of property management, but you have to keep her as your property manager for at least 6 months following signing of the lease.

Overall, she did a great job. Found me a renter within' 2 weeks of listing my town home for the rate I wanted. I didn't even lose a single month of rent, the renters moved in the day I moved out. All the management duties have been handled well, and the only problem I've had so far was the A/C needing cleaning/recharging last month. If you live anywhere in the Triangle, I'd give her a call.

8/8/2011 5:58:22 PM

^The place I use in Roanoke, VA is 10%/month, plus we had to pay the actual cost of advertising. A friend in Chesapeake has a similar deal. Another quote I got with a larger realty company was $350 + 25% of first month + 10%/month, and quoted the price I could rent for at $225 less than what I got after going with the cheaper company. However, I'm getting what I pay for and the communication with my rental company isn't very good. No major issues though.

8/8/2011 6:12:11 PM

i'm trying to decide if i want to use property management (i will still be living in houston) or if i just want help finding a tenant. i have a relationship with my realtor but not sure how well she'd do finding me a tenant.

i wonder if i could negotiate with one of the local companies, pay them a finders fee for a tenant and handle the management myself. any advice on that from anyone who has done it? what should i be thinking about?

8/8/2011 6:25:27 PM

Hell, if you don't want to use a property manager, I imagine Craigslist and an application process would get you where you need to be.

8/8/2011 11:24:57 PM

i dont know if cragislist would quite cut it. houston has a very popular website http://www.har.com that is most peoples first stop when they're looking for a place. you have to be a realtor to post on there but it is extremely popular. that is part of the reason i am considering help. also i'm not quite sure what i list my place for since i'm offering it furnished, not sure how to calculate that in

also this is going down around october/november and i'd like to be prepared and considering i will be gone for all of september, i don't have a lot of time to do it myself. it's worth paying someone to handle the dirty work for me. they could show the place on my behalf since i would be living in it up until someone else would be moving in.

8/8/2011 11:31:48 PM

Most property managers charge 10% of the rent every month for a management fee, AND 1-1.5 months rent for a lease up fee. Add that up over a years time and its a lot of money, it might be worth looking in to self managing if you are up for it (and you are staying in the area).

8/9/2011 12:06:37 AM