Medford Property Management Nightmares
If you have read any of our posts prior to this, you pretty well know that I don’t sugar cote things in my blog posts. This medford property management blog post is an update on a few properties that we recently took over from a different property management company in town, and our adventures therein. Hopefully you will get something from this in the way of what not to do.
Since my last update, I think I brought you up to speed on the following:The Owner was getting ripped off. Hadn’t seen a check in months from the current property management company, paying for:
- $55/mo advertising fee
- “Off site” blind cleaning fees (serious?)
- Property showing fee’s (not in contract fyi)
- Owner (instead of Tenants) paid for debris left from a Tenant
- Carpet Cleaning when Tenant left (Tenants are supposed to pay for)
- Management fees when property is vacant!!!
- Plus more….
So, as a parting gift, the property management company insisted, (since it was in her contract with them) that they maintain the contract and all property management related activities for 60 days following the termination of their contract. Having said that, they insisted that THEY collect rent, disburse funds, handle any and all maintenance, etc. Well, we got a flavor of exactly what that consisted of…
- minimal rent collection
- poor communication
- no maintenance
- The real parting gift….Tenant placement of a very poor performing Tenant. I doubt they even ran their credit or called 1 of their references; because had they done an iota of research they would have NOT rented to this person.
The first 2 months of performance form this individual has been poor. Both months have been late payments, which is a stress on not only us but really the Owner. The Owner is a great lady and deserves to have her rent collected and disbursed on time. In this case, both months have been late, which does cause her payment to be late and there she needs to pay the mortgage company out of pocket. 2 months in a row is a trend, and I do not like trends. And there are a few other things occurring at the property that I will not go into for security reasons, but long story short, we decided to act swiftly and remove the Tenant, as this IS NOT a Tenant that meets are minimum requirements.
There are a lot of great potential Tenants in Medford. We already have one locked and loaded for this property when we can “finally” get this current Tenant out. But there are equally property managers out there who will put anyone into a property just to get the Owner to stop calling them. Believe me, it happens; a lot more than I would like for sure.
We are taking care of this situation, and with everything that is going on, we are still going to transition to a new, much higher qualified Tenant who has an impeccable rental history, with only 2 days of vacancy and resulting rental loss. Given the severity of the situation and some of the other items that I will hold form going into detail on, 2 days is awesome.
Lesson learned – If I was in your shoes as an Investor, I would ensure that you have the ability to put your stamp of approval on a prospective Tenant. Just because someone holds a property management license, does not mean they are going to have your best interests in mind. Sorry, but that is reality.
Have a great week,
Asurent Property Management