Mike,
Thank you for your response. Maintenance is definitely going to be where the majority of your time will be spent if you do use a property manager. I agree that professional management is not worth the 10% charge, especially for SFH’s. However, I still think their is quite a bit of management involved with rentals that an investor must do, especailly when you are starting out. Accounting, to include debt payments, and managing contractors to handle routine maintenance(lawn care, snow removal, ect) are two that come to my mind immediately. In addition, marketing to find tenants, screening and ect that are not included in the 10% charge. There is also quite a bit of management involved with your holding company, such as how to grow. I am confident that you know this from experience, but I felt that it was worth mentioning for the benefit of others.
You have also brought up two very valid additional varibles that would need to be taken into consideration when putting a chart together. I do think that a ROUGH chart representing AVERAGES is possible however, we would have to make some assumptions and disclose them. The assumptioms would be based on ethics that are in agreement with the goals of this fourm to promote and to include:
- the landlord acts responsibly, not a slumlord
- the landlord is professional, not buddy buddy
- a learning curve should also be taken into consideration
The learning curve should reflect an increase in profficency as the number of units and experience grows.
I think the chart should be developed with new investors in mind, which the chart would be of primary benefit to. A chart would also be useful to experienced investors to show how far they can grow before one must begin outsourcing and to be able to determine what lifestyle they want to live, i.e. work 20, 40, 60 hours a week or none at all and the costs associated with outsorcing so an investor can relate them to the value that they place on their time. I think that a chart is possible if certain assumptions are made and disclosed. The chart would only be used as a resource for AVERAGE numbers. This chart would be an extremely valuable resource to this forum, but would require a lot of input/information from experienced investors. In addition, this chart would be a large undertaking, but together this forum should be able to complete it with teamwork. I will volunteer to attempt to put this chart together if you guys will provide the information.
Also, I would like to rephrase my orginal question to be more specific.
What is the maximum number of units you can realistically manage and maintain by yourself, in a responsible and ethical manner, without having to outsource responsibilities to a property manager or maintenance professionals?
At what point(# of units) would you be forced to outsource?
When answering these questions, lets make the assumption that 60hrs/week is the most an individual can work.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank you in advance for all the responses lol.
Sincerely,
Matt