New Landlord-to-be of DC Condo -Please Help a Novice Out

[Anonymous]

Another property manager was highly recommended to me and is also a CPA. Her name is Tammy Hines (202-246-3266) and she manages a residential property for a commercial property manager I know. She charges 10% and 1 months rent, however. She was on vacation this week and I was initially leaving Friday morning, so I didn't get a chance to meet her in person.

19:24, thanks for the info!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks, PP, great info! I probably would've self-managed if I'd had more time to get my affairs in order. I just had an open house this weekend and have a few potential tenants who are/have applied and that was on my own. It was sort of impromptu, as I received several responses from the Zillow, CL, and AHRN ads this weekend.

I have alerted the condo board and they have been surprisingly helpful.

To the person who asked, I used Karissa Leake (202-450-5333) of Gibraltar Housing.

Update from OP.

Dont use this property manager. Since I've left, there has been zero communication. When I left, I had a couple who applied and were anxious for the place. They applied the day before I left. They told me that nobody ever calls them back so they assumed the place was already rented. I can believe that because I'm getting the same. Mind you, I'm the one who showed them (and numerous others) the property. I receive way too much interest from the ads I posted for my place to not be rented by now.

Moral of the story is, I will self manage after this year.

[Anonymous]

OP again.

Hiring this property manager has been the biggest mistake! Argh! Now, I am waiting for her to send the rent money from my tenant to me for the current month and she refuses to answer my calls or emails.

Can someone offer suggestions for reporting a property manager? I am overseas now but will be back in DC for a few days next month.

[Anonymous]

Her licensing board in DC.

[Anonymous]

OP I am sorry to hear that you are going through this. I have no good advice to you other than to tell you that we were in a similar position with a different property management company (one located at 18th and T in Dupont Circle). We wound up firing them after our contract was up. Luckily we were not overseas, so overseeing the rental ourselves hasn't been too problematic. When I asked on this board for a recommendation for a property management company all I got were complaints about various agencies. In general, I think they all tend to suck.

[Anonymous]

PP, I'm going to just self-manage with the help of a friend in DC. I am fortunately not THAT far from DC (West Indies) and will be home fairly often (once a month for the duration of the year, every bi-monthly thereafter).

Licensing board. Hmm, hadn't thought about that! I was online this evening looking up small claims court info. Does anyone know what the fees are for filing generally? The amount owed is less than 5K.

I'm going to pass new payment info to my tenant later this week.

[Anonymous]

This is 18:28 again. Which month's rent are you waiting for her to send? Our property management company used to send us the rent at the end of the month rather than the beginning so that they could cover expenses/repairs that cropped up during the month. Is that what's going on?

[Anonymous]

I wish! I'm waiting on September's rent. I was told that rent would be transferred/received between the 10-12th of the month. When the 12th came and went, I sent an email. 3 days later, she replied saying it hadn't been transferred because they needed direct deposit info for me. I completed the form on July 15 in her office. She said she would send me a copy. I mentioned this in the note (that I'd already completed the form) and then asked her to email the form so I could complete another. She did and I emailed it back, per her instructions and asked how many days it would for the transferred. She didn't respond so I sent another email yesterday morning (a week later). I also called her office today and she told the receptionist that she was on another call and would call me back. She has never returned a call since I left the States mid July.

I almost lost my current tenant because she wouldn't return his calls and other prospective tenants would contact me (I listed my property myself) complaining that my property manager wasn't returning any calls. She ignored my calls until I sent a lengthy email in late July/early August.

Sadly, I'm not even surprised that she is avoiding me or that I haven't received the money. If I never contacted her, I doubt she would have contacted me to say she needed additional information from me.