10 questions to ask property managers, how to find good Indianapolis property management for rentals.

by | Indiana real estate, Indy Anna, Real Estate Investing

Indianapolis property management help – how to find a good property manager in Indy.

If you are an out of state landlord who owns rentals in the Indianapolis market then you already know how important good property management to your ROI.  Today I’ll go over 10 questions that any real estate investor can ask to find good property managers here in Indianapolis or anywhere else.  If you still have problems please let me know and I’ll do everything I can to help.

First of all, THANK YOU again for making this channel the number one channel for Indiana real estate on YouTube according google analytics and SocialBlade info for BigReia.com.  We’re also building the world’s largest organization of Special Needs Business Owners and Real Estate Investors.

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Our mission is to make lifelong friends helping folks around the world create generational wealth with Indiana real estate and business building.

Now for today’s class on find good Indianapolis property management…

How to find a good Indy property manager BigReia.com

10 Questions to Help You Find Good Indianapolis  Property Managers for Your Indy Rentals.

You can download the Printable Guide from above by clicking HERE.

The size of the US economy is about 20 trillion dollars, and the biggest sector of our economy is real estate at about 2 trillion and within this sector one of the biggest areas if property management, a 50 billion per year industry according to the IRS.  

For centuries the idea of a “property manager” was unheard of, but starting in the 1930s (after the Great Depression) and more so in the booming 1960s the industry developed into what we see today where investors hire a person or a company to manage their rentals and maximize ROI.  Today we will be going over how to find a good Indianapolis property management, we will talk about 10 questions to screen property managers, what to look for in their answers and dangerous mistakes to avoid.

IRS and Bureau of Economic Analysis GDP info:

https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gdp-industry

Quick HORROR story about Indianapolis Property Management:

Everybody who is familiar with Indiana real estate knows what I’m about to say, and although we don’t want to be “negative” it is important to address the elephant in the room.  There was a scammer named Clayton Morris (he was former TV host for fox news, he later left and fled to Portugal with his family to avoid extradition) and his company named Morris Invest, now named Morning Invest, worked with another conman Bert Whalen and his company called Oceanpointe Property Management.  These people ruined lives, they scammed over 1,000 people on several hundred properties and somehow they are still free and still running their con game.

I don’t want to focus on them but since they have left such a stain in Indiana real estate and made so many people nervous and suspicious of all Indiana investing, we do have to clear the air.  So what those guys did was awful, they scammed people and walked away with about $30 million and since they got away with it, we will most likely see it happen.  This is why it is so important that you ask the right questions and pick the RIGHT people to work with.

An example of bad property management tremors still felt today:

How bad can bad property management (like the scammers I just mentioned) be? We are about a half a decade after the great fall of Ocean Pointe here in Indy, yet just this past month, I was speaking with a tenant that STILL had lingering property issues from when he was being managed by the original OP holdings group.

Let that sink in; one company, well you can hop online and read how that all went down with lawsuits and some very unhappy folks left this tenant high and dry. But not only did they fall short of being able to manage a rental successfully – among other things- so did the subsequent TWO  PM companies. He still had issues with this property that he was trying to get resolved years and over three PM groups later.

Is this successful property management?

Not at all- in fact it’s AMAZING this tenant  didn’t end up suing. I get that Indy is a landlord friendly state, but even we have to have working toilets in our rentals… surprise ending, after tenant was without facilities  for a week, he installed a new toilet himself. This was only one of the law breaking issues he could have sued over- I would have been sweating bullets if my PM group was doing this kind of stuff.

We’ve got to help fix the PM situation by jumping ahead of it prior to signing a property management contract; even if you’re not here in INdy, you should be able to have some peace of mind about the quality of care your investment is getting from Indy pros. Now we have some people that you might find some help with at BigReia.com/People- and let us know if these are not PM rockstars so we can adjust and continue to help = )

Today Indy Anna explains;

The top 10 PM questions and tips to cover with any PM before you sign

Clear explanations of each question, why we ask and ideal answers to look for

Where you can begin looking for Indiana Property Management help today for FREE

So we to different property managers and Indy real estate people from our People Page:

https://www.BigReia.com/People

We asked them for the best questions to ask to screen PMs and this is what they said:

1.) How can you make sure that you’re marketing for this property, and not just any tenants?

Yes, having a tenant pool is great- but having a pool of the RIGHT tenants for the property is what we need. We can’t be aiming for average area rental comps of $950/mo, yet getting applying renters that don’t even pull down over $2500/mo total income.  You want to see the checklist of what they do for every property so you avoid just throwing a low quality tenant to collect their placement fee.

2.) How do you verify tenants or vet them?

There are so many online resources for verifying tenants, and this will include all non dependants over 21- YES, be certain that includes live in partners.  We have covered some of this and helpful resources in our class on how to avoid bad tenants from hell, for now just get an idea of what the verification process is.

3.) Do you follow up to make sure that renter’s insurance is in place before moving in?

Not that most renters will have the extra funds to go to court over lost personal possessions, but this is never out of the realm of possibility. It’s simply in your best interest to verify they have renter’s insurance ready to go.

4.) Have your contracts been updated or overlooked by an attorney recently, will I have access to the attorney?

This one is rather amusing in one way, yet alarming in another. I’ve seen some rental agreements that look as if they were hand written on a spare napkin, and others that were so piece mealed together they counteracted each other in the terms.  Get a name of the attorney that they use.

5.) What’s your policy for renewing leases?

I simply cannot state this enough and how important this is. Any given week, I can hop on the MLS and find listings with tenants in place that are severely under-rented and the words- or some form of- “Under avg area rent. Property management did not renew leases correctly” this also leads to tenants at will and all kinds of other messes. So be clear on when they renew leases.

6.) How often do you do regular maintenance and how quickly as a policy do you respond to emergency calls?

Some people think no news is good news, but that’s not really the case when it comes to maintenance. Deferred maintenance can add up, and what would have initially cost a few hundred to fix, can end up costing thousands to replace- this is just lazy.

The other takeaway here- what is the average response time to an emergency call. Again, we can go from hundreds of dollars to thousands in a matter of hours if there isn’t a set priority list response policy. 

7.) Do you have after hours numbers for tenants, and professionals from various facets ready to reply?

Take example number one above- if this tenant hadn’t known  how to install a toilet himself, and if it had fallen over the weekend, he likely would have called a plumber, or better yet, “Uncle Jim” who knows a few things about housey house stuff.

You could have ended up -as the owner- with a huge bill and non approved work, but it really might not have fallen back onto the tenant since the PM group broke the law in lack of response. Not all PM groups are big enough to have their own pros on staff, and that’s perfectly okay, as long as they have a list of a few folks ready to go.  Look for something like the BigReia.com/People page.

8.) What’s the threshold that you will spend before alerting me?

Occasionally you’ll run into a PM or PM group that gets a little over eager. Maybe they see some recent gentrification in the area and think they are doing you a favor by replacing the carpet -that does need replacing mind you when lease ends- with high end laminate they got ‘for a steal’.

Playing flipper with your money in other words and thinking along the lines of ‘they would do this sooner or rather anyway, so I helped out” . Big no no. Not the kind of help you ever want or need. So what is the threshold of spending- always with receipts- before you’re contacted?

9.) What’s your definition of regular maintenance?

Let’s jump back to this one for a second because it needs to be made clear from the start what their idea of regular maintenance is. It’s not just furnace filters once a month as the original and costly to replace ½” cedar siding is rotting away – it’s letting you know ‘Hey, this is going to need painted this year probably to keep the siding protected, I can get quotes if you’d like”.

10.) How often do you send property and rent reports?

Being a passive investor is the idea behind many folks when they come to Indy to invest, and usually it works well in most every case. But being all too passive might not be the best idea.

Nothing wrong with asking for rent reports each month, especially if you have multiple units, as well as quarterly  property reports to make sure you’re very aware of your investment’s happenings.

Oh and where you can begin looking for help today;

We’ve put together some of the folks here in Indy in one area for you to start your search;

https://www.BigReia.com/People

Also for helpful contracts for tenants and others you can get them for free at:

https://www.BigReia.com/Contracts

Email or Text us if you’re a ‘cut above’ PM and we’ll see about adding you too- always looking for great folks = )

So in summary when it comes to finding good Indianapolis property management:

The top 10 PM questions and tips to cover any PM before you sign

Clear explanations of each one and why we ask and what to look for in answers

Where you can begin looking for Indiana Property Management help today (Our People Page)

Also we have an Indianapolis Property Management page here:

https://www.BigReia.com/indianapolis-property-management

As always if you have any other questions or need help you can email/text me and I’ll do everything I can to make sure you WIN.

Upcoming I’ll have a preview of our always FREE download and the adventures of our BigREIA friends, but for now

Make sure to go BigReia.com and get our list of over 100 FREE ways to find motivated sellers, we are providing the world’s clearest instructions on how anybody on the planet can create a passive income of at least $30,000 a month through real estate and business building:

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You can download the Printable Guide from above by clicking HERE.

Okay so make sure you bury yourself with material at…

BigReia.com, go there and you’ll…

Make the Universe Smile.

Thanks so much!  = )

Indy Anna

Want more (brilliantly) EPIC posts of real estate investing and bidness badasssery...?

There is a great post and class on the 38 Ways to Buy Apartment Buildings Zero Down with Pet Policies, and here are some other helpful and EPIC posts... for starters as a real estate investor if you ever want to build a business that makes you 30 grand a month then you MUST do this...

Wanna Create Generational Passive Income Buying Real Estate and Small Businesses?

Here's a class on exactly how to make $30,000 in passive income as an out of state Indy landlord.  Exactly how many Indiana rental properties do you need to make 30 grand a month.  Anna can you help me invest in Indianapolis turnkey real estate investment properties?

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Plus make sure you check out Azam's post on how to hire a realtor that makes you $10,000 a month... while you sit back with your shoes kicked up on your desk and fingers folded behind your head.  Also there is a great post on how to make five grand a week from putting out signs.

Also we have some great posts on 30 ways to buy real estate with no money down.  That is a two part series so make sure to watch the second part on the 30 ways to buy real estate zero down and with no loans or credit.  I also get questions about our "Epic Flipping" and how to turn $1 into over $25,000 by flipping ordinary items for exponentially high ROI.

And don’t forget our EPIC page on 100 FREE ways to find motivated sellers, we are making the number one page in the world on FREE ways of finding motivated sellers.  Also check out how I find motivated sellers from code violation properties, and also how I make over $1,500 a week giving investors access to that list. 

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When I first go started I thought wouldn't it be great if somebody put together ONE list of every possible contact that I would ever need to build a passive income with Indiana real estate - or any Midwest real estate?  Well that's exaclty what I did with our “People Page” here it is:

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Stay here at BigReia.com and you’ll become allergic to being an LC and addicted to improving the world and creating Income Ascension and Social Mobility for you and yours… 

Thanks so much!  = )

Make the Universe Smile.

~ Indy Anna
Love (at) BigReia.com
(YES that's my actual Direct Line and I really do answer lol, so please text me first Thx!)

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