Sherman Weekes, Property Manager

Here’s a typical story from Michelle on operating as your own property manager.

Cops show up at Apartment 2xx, on the second story. They have a warrant for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer. They knock and announce. Usually this is a no-knock situation. Break down the door and come in with guns drawn. You don’t know if the perp is sleeping it off on the couch or awake and pointing a 12 gauge shotgun at the door.

Inside, the guy says to his partner, “I’m not going with them. I’m going to jump out the window.” She steps in front of him and says, “You’re not jumping out the window. I don’t want to be here when they come in. I’m jumping first.” She immediately runs and jumps out the second story window in the back bedroom. He opens the front door and surrenders peacefully to the officers.

She breaks her ankle. She’s screaming and crying. The EMT and fire engine shows up. They recommend that she goes to the emergency room. She refuses. They leave.

Next day, Michelle goes to her apartment and commiserates with her. Then Michelle hands her a notice of immediate eviction and explains, “You were harboring a felon and jumped out a second story window. You’re a threat to yourself and everyone else here. GET OUT!”

Him? ICE shows up and finds out he’s in the country illegally. Immediate deportation.

And as the property manager you will be overseeing plumbing jobs like this one. Started at 7 am; ended at midnight. Actually, they had to come back the next morning to finish pouring the concrete and install flooring.

This was a pretty big job. But we’ve had bigger. Later we will tell the story of the $55,000 plumbing job, same location.

So, while Michelle continues to act as property manager for our other properties, we decided to go with a property manager for our TMP properties because:

  1. Insight into probable rental rates, the attractiveness of the candidate property and a good (accurate) estimate of what it would cost to get the property into rentable condition
  2. Compliance with laws/regs (housing 2nd most regulated activity after employment)
  3. And most of all, you don’t have to deal with 2nd story jumpers

Some people worry that a property manager ‘will cost more’ and reduce your return on investment. Probably not and probably not, let’s add 4 and 5 to the list:

  1. It only ‘costs more’ if you don’t value your own time. This is another ‘opportunity cost’ lesson.
  2. An expert property manager will almost certainly get better financial results (i.e., better return on investment by less ‘mistakes’) For example, do you want to be in court evicting tenants? And possibly being held in contempt of court? Yes, that happened to Michelle also.

So how do you find a property manager? Michelle and I went to the local rose society meeting for the first time, sat down at a table and there he was.

So, I would like to introduce Sherman Weekes of Crest Premier Properties.

You can go to your local rose society or, if you’re investing in Phoenix; just call Sherman at (480)-838-9558.