The proper and through screening of prospective residents for your investment property is one of the most critical tasks that you as a property owner. By doing the leg work (and phone work) up front, you can certainly limit yourself from unneeded hassles and/or loss of rent income.

Los Angeles, Ca

There are many reasons to rent an apartment in stead of buying a home these days. One reason that is frequently overlooked is the customer service you receive as a renter from a property management company. Instead of having to find the right handy man, plumber, electrician, etc – one call or email to your property manager and the issue is on schedule for repair. As a renter, you do not have to worry about who is going to fix what and when and for how much – your property management has got you covered!

The housing market will remain depressed, with record high foreclosure levels, rising mortgage rates and a glut of distressed properties dampening the market for years to come, industry experts predicted on Tuesday.

For those of us looking to place money in the money in the multifamily market, rest assured that we have not missed the boat. In GlobeSt.com yesterday, there is a nice, QUICK, break down of the state of the apartment market in Los Angeles.

Property management is an upscale, highly sophisticated babysitting industry. And property managers are the babysitters your always wished you could find for your child. We babysit, take care of, tutor and nurture your child (aka your investment property – whatever that may be). As property managers we will love it for you; educate it for you; make sure nothing bad is happening to it; we inform you when it is misbehaving; we reward it when it is doing well; and give you detailed reports and suggestions on its progress. When a property management company is

An apartment building of 10+ units will generally benefit from having an on site laundry facility. Residents enjoy the convenience of doing laundry in their own buildings and owners enjoy the extra revenue. The downside, of course, is the repair cost, which can add up once the machines fall out of warranty. Service technicians for a washer or dryer can be in excess of $200+ per incident, never mind the lost revenue if a machine is out-of-order and waiting for new parts.

A question that we

This is article that I found on The Real Estate Channel’s website seemingly creates a set of mixed emotions for the multifamily and residential rental industry. While we, as property managers and investment property owners want rental demand to increase in our apartment buildings, we do not necessarily want this increase to be at the expense of our single family home investments – or do we? If our portfolios are weighted more towards multifamily, then perhaps this article is good news… What are you thoughts? Are we seeing the first signs of a multifamily dominated real estate market?
-Trevor Henson

My latest post on Property Management 2.0 discusses the feasibility of installing electrical sub meters on a master metered apartment building in the midst of a recession. Do the numbers make sense? Will there be resident turn over? Check out blog.firstlightpropertymanagement.com for the full article.