Should I manage my rental property myself?

Should I hire a property manager? In this video blog, I am going to talk about the 2 questions you should ask yourself before deciding to manage yourself or hire a property management company. Question number 1 that you should ask yourself when you are deciding to hire a property manager or do it yourself. Am I prepared to screen the tenants for their criminal, their credit, their rental history, take calls in the middle of the night, know the laws like the back of my hand to protect you from getting into a lawsuit, taking— handling all the complaints, possibly having to go to court to evict tenants. I mean, some owners just think that because they heard that their next-door neighbor has a couple of rentals and that they're making $200 a month in cash flow and they've never had an eviction they can just hire someone and never have repairs or any issues. That's not the case. There's another video blog series that we did that we can link to this one called What to Expect as far as repairs go. What should I— how much should I save? What do— what should I look for in a property when trying to locate the best rental property? So we'll link that one in here as well. Finding the best repair specialist. So when things happen, and they will happen, who do we— who do you call? Do you have a list of vendors that are quality roofers, plumbers, contractors, electricians that are cost-effective, can get there in time? As you may or may not know, rentals and repairs are a time of the essence type of situation. So if you've got a leak, you don't have time to shop around to save $10 an hour. You've got to get to that and do it quickly, so you need people that will respond, and that's not an overnight thing. Those relationships, just like any other, take years to build. Property managers, if they've been in business for a while, have a good list of vendors. Are you prepared to watch the rental market? So do you stay on top of the rents? And no, I don't think that owners that simply just ask for $300 over asking, that's not watching the rents. Okay, we're talking about knowing the perfect space of if it goes too high, it's going to sit vacant for 2 or 3 weeks, but if you go too low, you're going to miss out on some good cash flow opportunity. So finding the happy medium, and that's not an easy thing to do. So having a portfolio of a property management company, having a portfolio of hundreds, if not a couple thousand units, is beneficial because they can take a look at the portfolio and see real-time what similar properties in that area of that size, similar bed and bath, amenities, school districts, what those types of properties are renting for. Question number 2 that you should ask yourself: what is your time worth? So if you answer this $0 an hour, I will go ahead and post a link for job applications for Centurion, because we'd love to have you. But in all seriousness, if your, if your time is not that valuable absolutely, go ahead and manage it yourself. But most people, if not all, get into real estate investing because they want to free up time so they can enjoy life. They can go and do the things they want to do, travel, spend more time with family. But the sad and unfortunate reality is, is most people who get into real estate aren't prepared for what lies ahead, so they end up having a second job. That's basically what it turns into. So what is your time worth? So those are the two questions that I wanted to propose to you, the viewers, of when deciding should you manage yourself or should you hire a property management company. I would love to hear more about how you make those decisions, as well as other ones. Maybe your expertise and experiences in this area may be, uh, should I replace my oven at my rental? Should I do it or should I call a professional to do it? Because You know what, it's Friday and I wanted to go fishing, or I wanted to go golfing. Those are the types of things that you need to seriously weigh, and I would love to hear how you guys make those choices and how you guys got into real estate. So please hit the subscribe button down below, leave a comment, we'd love to interact with you guys, and we love to learn just as much as we love to share our knowledge. So please give us a like, comment, subscribe. Happy investing! Mendell Gosnell.