Today, property owners are increasing in large margin especially here in Florida. Investors from all over the country are flooding in the market honing in on properties despite the distance. This makes it harder to manage the properties on their own, and therefore, looking for an estate manager to help with the management of the properties remains to be the only solution.
Now, the hustle begins when you try to find a good property manager especially when you have a limited idea of the role. Well, everyone would agree that they are there to make your work easy and take care of the properties on your behalf. That’s very true, but quite a number of the property owners who have dealt with them before might tell you otherwise.
Hiring an estate manager doesn’t always come with a silver plate especially when you hire a wrong estate manager. They can make your work harder than it should be and sometimes lead you to bankruptcy. 
So what should you do and where will you find them?
Well, that’s why we are here. Spending all these years with real estate investors, we have gathered helpful information of where and how to find the best estate manager that will take care of your property. 
Starting with where; a property owner might need a bit of asking around. This will be easier if you talk to other investors whom you can easily find in your local estate investment association, property owner associations or other meetings that might require them around. These investors will give you candid opinions of who can manage your properties best out of their personal experiences.
If that fails, you can take the approach that we always advise our clients who are willing to go a mile further to learn the property management business. Here, you find someone with interest in becoming an estate manager and train him/her to be a manager of your properties. Once you train them, you can get the comfort that they won’t try to ruin your business, and if they do, they destroy their business too. If you do it right, then it’s a win-win approach. 
Either way, you need to look for a property manager who can take care of your property as better as possible. 
Here are 8 Tips That Will Assist You with That:
1. Know how many properties are being managed by the estate manager and the employees they have. 
After doing our research on property management, we came to learn that a well-equipped property manager can comfortably manage about 40 units, not including the accounting. Now, considering this will help you understand whether the estate manager is a good fit for your property or not. For instance, there is an estate manager with no employees managing about 39 units, and you have five units that he should handle, do you think his service can be as good to your property? Of course not, you need someone who can comfortably manage your property and give it his/ her best.
2. Understand if they own properties themselves.
Everyone comes with his/her own opinion on this. Some consider estate managers with properties as experienced, but, others see it as a deal breaker. For us, we view it as a plus. If your Estate manager owns properties, they can better relate what the investors experience and most probably they will give your property their best. 
3. Know how they plan to conduct a formal inspection of your products. 
One of the crucial components in an efficient property management is a routine checkup. When interviewing in search for an ideal property manager, you should always consider this. A good manager should be committed to your property and should conduct a formal checkup on a regular basis. You will find some very accommodating, but some might ask you extra cash for the routine property inspection. We don’t encourage to go for those who take the check as different from their normal services.
4. Get to know the estate managers and see if they are the listening type. 
You can find a manager who is cutting you off during your discussions. If you hire someone with this characteristics, the probability is that they will never listen to you and that’s not healthy especially for your property. The best manager is one who listens to your needs and acts on them.
5. Know the automated tools used by the manager. 
There are a lot of tenant management systems out there, but only a handful are useful. You need to make sure that your manager has the best property/ tenant management tools and should have a report on the same during the interview. 
6. They should also be able to address the maintenance issue. 
As a property owner, you should have your estate manager addressing the maintenance issues of your properties. There are several ways to pay for that and get the maintenance resolved. You can have an agreement to pay a certain amount most of the time it does not go far beyond 10%. 
7. Know what the terms of payment are.
Most of the properties manager charge between 7-10% of the managed property rent. You should be sure what the amount is based on to avoid inconveniences during the payment. Not clarifying that you might end up finding that the managers are demanding the pay even before they collect the rent or for the unoccupied rooms.
8. Have an agreement when a written report on the state of your property should be delivered. This comes hand in hand with the collected rent and any other expenses that have occurred on your property. It’s better to set a date at the beginning of each month. 
Once all that is in check, you are good to go for your estate manager. You should understand that no one can manage your property better than you, so keep on checking your property just to be safe. If you notice any behavior that might bring harm to your property, then consider looking for another manager. All in all, there are quite a good number of estate managers here in Florida, and all you need to do is to follow the above steps, and you will end up with the one that suits you.