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Good Property Manager in Cambridge Area?

wilkinson

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Feb 14, 2008
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I am looking for a really good property manager who could find us a tenant for the property we just bought in Cambridge ON. The one we used for the last property there was not so good. While they found us a good tenant, they managed to tick off the tenant before she even moved into our house. It took us 5 months to repair the relationship....all is good now, but I do not want to have to do that again! Can someone recommend a good property manager in the KWC area?

I am also worried about a property manager having my tenant`s contact info. We manage the property ourselves month to month, so we just hire property managers to find the tenant. I always wonder if the "contacts" that my previous property manager mentioned having were not just tenants she has placed in properties for other landlords who she contacts from time to time to see if they would like to move to a "better" place....thereby generating about $1300.00 for her each time....but not really doing much to legitimately find a new tenant. Not sure if this is true, but I just sort of wonder. Comments?
 

housingrental

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1) What did your property manager do to tick off the applicant ? It`s been my experience that a certain percentage of viewers are irate regardless of what you do - I`m blamed for the price of the place, size, fridge is yellow, no ac, paperwork, screening process, deposit required, start date isn`t what they want, etc... - Some people are just angry for no apparent reason - Also note many tenants will play pm off of owner...

2) I wouldn`t worry too much about your former rental agent poaching your tenant. unless your tenant is exceptionally desirable to have as a renter for some reason. This doesn`t really happen in most rentals... and would assume your tenant doesn`t want to live at the place anymore and is too lazy to open up the newspaper or type in Kijjiji.com etc...

I`d suggest if 1) was not based on a real issue you should us your previous property manager again (who did you use btw ? ) . If this isn`t something you`d consider give me a shout at rent @ hoffaco . com - I might be willing to help you as a one off rental in Cambridge depending on the particular location / info or if not will forward you some other managers that can.
 

CarlaJohnson

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My husband and I live in Cambridge and invest in the area. If you contact us at [email protected], we will send you the contact information of everyone we work with and it includes our property manager. Adam (above) and our PM Shari both have a lot of experience and are well respected.

As you have experienced, different PMs have different styles. Hopefully you find someone who is a good fit for you.

All the Best,
 

wilkinson

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QUOTE (housingrental @ May 13 2009, 03:37 PM) 1) What did your property manager do to tick off the applicant ? It`s been my experience that a certain percentage of viewers are irate regardless of what you do - I`m blamed for the price of the place, size, fridge is yellow, no ac, paperwork, screening process, deposit required, start date isn`t what they want, etc... - Some people are just angry for no apparent reason - Also note many tenants will play pm off of owner...

2) I wouldn`t worry too much about your former rental agent poaching your tenant. unless your tenant is exceptionally desirable to have as a renter for some reason. This doesn`t really happen in most rentals... and would assume your tenant doesn`t want to live at the place anymore and is too lazy to open up the newspaper or type in Kijjiji.com etc...

I`d suggest if 1) was not based on a real issue you should us your previous property manager again (who did you use btw ? ) . If this isn`t something you`d consider give me a shout at rent @ hoffaco . com - I might be willing to help you as a one off rental in Cambridge depending on the particular location / info or if not will forward you some other managers that can.






I would rather not mention the name of the company we used....I am never sure how the law works in that regard so I would rather be careful than sorry. However, I will mention some of the issues:

1) Never showed the house a single time for a single individual who wanted to see it at a time that was good for them. She always tried to consolidate people for an open house night that she selected and referred them to that date if they were interested in seeing the place. If that did not work out for them...oh, well. She also charged us extra for each open house...which is, I suspect, why she wanted to have open houses and not show the house otherwise.

2) My tenant says she/her agent in KW were hard to get ahold of and did not call her back during the times the tenant indicated would be best....she works nights as a nurse so she sleeps during the day...you have to call her at certain times of the day to get ahold of her. She is, I grant you, very bad at returning emails and phone messages left on her machine.

3) Property Mgr was supposed to do a walk through with the tenant and have paperwork signed off showing agreement on initial condition of the property. She never completed this...she gave the paperwork to the tenant to fill out her part and then never came back to do the walk through.

4) She collected post dated cheques from the tenant for 18 months...but failed to tell us she had done this. When we called our tenant at the end of her first month of renting to come collect the rent cheque for the 2nd month, as well as post dated cheques for months to come, she told us she had already given them to the property manager a month earlier. This made me look really stupid and upset the tenant because she did not know where her already signed cheques had gone (she did not know our names so she filled out everything on 18 cheques except the "to" field). We had to call the property manager to get them couriered to us.

5) In the days running up to the move-in, the tenant tried to get ahold of the property manager to arrange to get the key for move-in on the 1st. The times when the tenant could pick up the key (due to shift work) were not the times when the prop. mgr`s agent in KW was available (apparently she had to baby-sit). Now maybe the tenant could have been more flexible and made some other arrangements...but in my opinion, she is paying me $1300.00/month and I expect the property manager (to whom I am paying good money) to be available to get my tenant the key whenever it needs to be available in such a situation. The tenant is, after all, my customer. In the end, the key was driven over by the agent`s boyfriend in the end and basically dropped into the tenant`s hand without a word (he was ticked off, I guess)...but this only happened aften I demanded that the prop mgr get her the key at any cost on the first.

Anyway, a very frustrating situation! The tenant has been really good with us....once we got past all this and got her to see that it was not us making these decisions...we didn`t even know this stuff was going on.

I would be interested in knowing more about your company, costs, etc. Our property is in North Galt. It is a 4 bedroom semi...Sekura and Gail Street area.
 

housingrental

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Sounds like a few service issues.....Sorry to read, its not really standard procedure at most companies for a rental agent to keep 18 months of blank post dated cheques for a month and not tell the owner
 

JoeRagona

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Carla is a good source of information - I have used many on her team.

PM me if you are still looking and I will give you my property manager. He is a REIN member and knows the area and our system well.

Joe
 

tahani

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Sep 20, 2007
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as a real estate broker i always want to refer the best PM for my clients but its not easy to find someone who is amazing and passionate about what they do and consistent with what they say. my clients/REIN members are using Joanne Guerra services and they all think she is professional and love what she does. call her at 519 634 5335.
 
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