10 reasons to hire to professional property management company in Missoula
With rents and housing prices skyrocketing in the past year in Missoula, more and more investors are looking to purchase rental properties in the Garden City. Many owners think they’ll want to manage the rental properties themselves, but quickly find out it’s worth it to hire a professional property management company in Missoula.
Here are the reasons why it’s important to hire a professional property management company, located in Missoula:
1. Advertising- The first step in attracting tenants will be advertising. While it’s easy enough to slap an ad up on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace to cast a net, you are at the mercy of the algorithms of those companies. You’ll have to update the ads regularly, sort through emails, and spend a good chunk of time answering a million questions potential tenants have.
Missoula Property Management has a website that has more than 50,000 visits per month in the busy season. Each property is advertised on our professional property management site, on Craigslist, Hot Pads and other sites to help attract renters. We also have two customer service agents, a designated showing agent, and property manager available to answer questions for each property.
2. Screening- Someone’s shown interest in a property! That’s great! Now you’ll want to screen the applicant. There are fair housing laws to follow, and there’s always the chance someone isn’t honest on their application. So how does Missoula Property Management make it work?
Our professional property management team screens applicants through AMRENT. This pulls a credit report from Transunion that lets us know the applicant’s payment history. We are able to see if the prospect has any past collections for rent, utilities, or cell phone bills that might indicate a habit of not paying on time. We also pull a criminal background report to make sure violent and sexual offenders don’t slip through the cracks.
We also partner with PetScreening.com to screen dogs and cats. This is a huge advantage for property owners as numbers of applicants claiming to have an Emotional Support Animal have skyrocketed in recent years. Applicants have tried to pass off rabbits, mice, and other animals as ESAs. The experts at Pet Screening know the laws and will ensure that only dogs and cats serving legitimate disabilities are considered.
3. Showing- Showing a property to dozens of potential prospects can be a huge consumer of time. As far as we know Missoula Property Management is the only rental company in the Garden City that has a designated showing agent that shows units all day, every day, Monday through Friday. We do also allow residents to check out keys at the office and via Rently for self-guided tours, however, having an agent to show and answer questions about properties and the application process is a huge benefit to would-be tenants. Some applicants just prefer face-to-face interaction.
4. Lease writing- What needs to go into a lease? What can’t you put in there? What common mistakes are made? After nearly two decades of experience Missoula Property Management has vast knowledge of the lease-writing process, and if there’s a question, we have relationships with attorneys and authorities in the field to clear questions up quickly and accurately.
5. Maintenance- What happens if someone’s smoke detector keeps chirping incessantly or a pipe breaks and a unit floods? Missoula Property Management has a full maintenance and grounds staff dedicated to keeping our owners’ properties in tip-top condition. We handle issues big and small. Our staff also has in-house inventory for items like toilet seats, light bulbs, batteries and smoke detectors so our team doesn’t have to waste time purchasing items at Home Depot. When maintenance is needed, we’re working to get it fixed again as soon as possible.
6. Inspector- Inspections can be a pain if you are self-managing properties. Notice must be given, the owner has to have the time to do the inspection, and then there’s still the risk that you miss something. Our designated inspector is experienced. He inspects properties all day, every day. In addition to yearly interim inspections that check the interior condition of the property, our inspector does regular exterior drive-by inspections to make sure tenants are adhering to terms of their lease.
Inspectors look for evidence of unauthorized pets, tenants and smoking, property damage, maintenance issues, and general untidiness or poor upkeep. If an inspector finds an issue residents are given a notice to correct the matter within a certain period of time, typically 14 days or 3 days, depending on the urgency of the matter. If tenants continue to break terms of their lease and do not correct issues noted during inspection they may be subject to lease termination or eviction, though, in general, tenants typically correct matters quickly.
7. Legal knowledge- It rarely happens, but sometimes tenants won’t correct issues. In these cases the landlord can opt to not renew a lease or to evict the tenant, depending on the circumstances. Eviction is a legal process that must be carefully followed and often is complicated by souring relations with the tenants. Missoula Property Management has a go-to legal team and experience that makes these unfortunate experiences resolve as expediently and smoothly as possible.
8. Quick Customer Service- Tenants want a response as soon as possible when an issue or question arises. Missoula Property Management has customer services agents, licensed property managers, a maintenance department, and upper management on hand to handle questions and concerns as quickly as possible.
9. Record keeping and streamlined processes– If you choose to self-manage keeping up with records of rent payments, maintenance requests, tenant communications, notices, violations, expenses, applications, etc can be a full-time job. Missoula Property Management has streamlined systems that track applications and expenses, maintenance requests, etc. Each and every phone call recorded so if an issue arises, we’ve got it documented.
Our website also makes it easy for tenants to pay online, communicate with property managers through email or text, and submit maintenance requests or letters about other concerns with the click of a button!
10. Applicant pool- When prospects apply to Missoula Property Management, they apply knowing that their application is good for any of the more than 1500 units Missoula Property Management manages should they come available, instead of having to re-apply with numerous private owners.
Contact Missoula Property Management today at 406-251-8500 for a free market analysis!
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