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House Property Management in San Jose
House property management in San Jose is currently a hot service. As rent prices continue to climb, more homeowners are getting the idea of renting out their house to earn extra income. San Jose is currently one of the hottest rental markets in USA, with a population of over 1 million people and new people searching for rentals every month.
What’s the cost of house property management in San Jose?
On average, the cost of house property management in San Jose is anywhere between 8-12 percent. Variables that determine the cost of property management can be physical lot size, location, property manager experience, skillset, and extra services they might provide. Rates can vary greatly depending on who you decide to work with.
What are some responsibilities of a house property manager?
A property manager has two overarching responsibilities – to earn owners revenue and keep tenants happy.
To help owners earn more revenue, a house property manager will compare rental prices of similar homes and adjust the rental price to match. Sometimes, home owners have not raised their rental prices in years, leaving extra revenue on the table.
Property managers also help with marketing, listing, and photographing and property. When prospects show interest, they process applications, show viewings, and background check applicants.
After the proper applicant is selected, the property manager writes the lease, collects signatures, and gives tenants their keys.
From there on out, they will collect rent, deal with evictions if necessary, and raise rents when applicable. They will also continue to manage the property, respond to tenant requests, schedule repairs, and routinely report to owners.
Do the responsibilities of a house property manager differ from the responsibilities of a commercial property manager?
Yes, the responsibilities of a house property manager can differ greatly from the responsibilities of a commercial property manager. For example, in most cases, the lease term of a house if 1 year, whereas the average lease if 3-5 years for businesses. Leases can also be written much more creatively for businesses and involve special clauses, while a house rental lease is relatively straight forward.
Regarding repairs, businesses are often responsible of covering the cost of repairs and maintenance in their rented commercial space, whereas owners cover the costs for residential property management.
A house property manager also does not need to know any business regulations because they are only dealing with people who will live in the unit with their families. On the contrary, a commercial property manager has more moving parts to address.
What skills should I look for when hiring a house property manager in San Jose?
1. People and Communication Skills
A house property manager must be good with people. He/she must be comfortable dealing with upset tenants, knowledgable enough to defuse emotional situations, and promptly find solutions to issues tenants might experience. They must be friendly enough to defuse situations, empathetic enough to understand a tenant’s issues and find solutions, and stern enough to process evictions when the necessity arises.
90% of a property manager’s role is dealing with people, and excellent communication skills is paramount.
2. Scheduling Repairs
More often than not, when you hire a house property manager, they will also be simultaneously managing other properties unrelated to yours within their management portfolio. This means a property manager must be good with juggling many moving pieces at once. They must be organized, have a centralized place where they jot down notes, and create to-do-lists to execute. If they are not organized, the needs of a tenant can be easily drowned by the needs of other tenants, and issues can compound in severity.
3. Must Be Available 24/7
Emergencies are inevitable in this field. Sometimes tenants lock themselves out past midnight and need help inside their unit. Other times, they can come home to a leaking pipe. Due to the spontaneous nature of emergencies, a property manager must be readily available 24/7. Essentially, a responsible property manager is always on the clock.
4. Timely Responses
A seasoned property manager answers all calls and responds to messages promptly. However, more often than not, I’ve seen property managers forget to call tenants back or reply to their messages within the same day, which can lead to issues compounding for tenants. Something as simple as answers all calls, keeping the phone off silent-mode, and replying back in a timely manner seems so simple yet so rare to find. Responsiveness makes a great difference in property management where emergencies can occur.
5. Handymen on Call
Property managers must have their own list of professionals ready to work when needed. Painters, handymen, electricians, landscapers, etc, must all be readily available. Imagine a pipe bursts and a property manager doesn’t have a reliable plumber to call on speed dial. What will they do? They will have to play the phone game, go on Google, call the list of plumbers, and hope one picks up. That should never be the case. Here at Zapien Real Estate, we have our own list of reputable vendors ready to work at a moment’s notice, which are also affordable to help you save money on repairs.
Do you provide house property management in San Jose?
Yes, here at Zapien Real Estate, we provide house property management in San Jose. We often have special deals to help owners save in property management costs and fees.
What’s the process of hiring you as my house property manager?
1. Contact Us
Firstly, you must contact us through our site or call to request the service you’re interested in.
2. Initial Consultation Meeting
Afterwards, we will meet in person to have our initial consultation. Here, we will learn about each other to see if we’re a good fit, and most importantly, we’ll learn what your goals are with your property.
3. Fill Out Paperwork
If we decide we will be a good fit for each other, we will proceed to filling out the paperwork for our property management agreement and discuss the details.
4. Property Preparation and Repairs
Before any marketing is done, we will prepare the property and perform any repairs that might be necessary. This is the step to make the property rent-ready. If you do not have the funds for necessary repairs, we can often cover the repairs and will be reimbursed by you later. This way, you can cover any repairs and essentially get a loan interest-free as a thank you from us.
5. Marketing Strategy
After the property is rent-ready, we will think about the best marketing approach. Marketing is essential to finding the most qualified tenants and get your desired asking price. Platforms we often use to market properties are Zillow, Redfin, HotPads, our own private contact-list, and more.
6. List Property
We will then take pictures, professionally edit them, and list the property across all platforms we work with. Pictures tell most of the story. Surprisingly, a property can earn more by simply taking higher-quality pictures, as opposed to using poor images for the same exact property.
7. Property Showings
At this stage, many people have responded to our listings and are interested in viewing the property. We will take care of scheduling, contacting, and showing the property to all those who are interested and handle everything for you.
8. Applications
Here, we collect all applications and prepare them for screening.
9. Tenant Selection
In order to select the best renter, we conduct screenings, background-checks, rental-history checks, and credit checks. We then select the tenant that best meets out criteria.
10. Lease Write-up & Signing
During this step, we write the lease and collect all signatures. Ordinarily, we use an online platform called DocuSign to distribute, sign, collect, and store leases.
11. Move-In Inspection
We then conduct a move-in inspection with the tenant and document the property’s condition for the record. Prior to the tenant moving in, it’s important for the property’s condition to be documented to assess possible damages when moving out.
12. Rent Collection
Then, we’ll set up the tenant in our rent-collection software and prepare them. We’ll also answer any questions they might have on how to use it. The software is pretty straight forward.
13. Ongoing Management
Finally, the tenant happily moves in, the owner is pleased with the vetted tenant, and we continue to manage the property and collect rent. We will also ensure the renter is up to date with any renter’s insurance and leases as time goes on, and routinely provide reports to the property owners.