At Real Property Management Gold, we serve southern Maryland owners in St. Mary’s County, Charles County, and Calvert County. We get two questions from just about every property owner who is looking for professional property management. Those are: what do you do and what do you charge?
Managing Your Southern Maryland Rental Property
When we first get a signed contract with a Southern Maryland home owner, we come to your house and do a walk around. We’ll see what kind of condition the property is in and if there is anything that needs to be done with maintenance. We provide recommendations, and you can take care of it or we can handle it for you with our maintenance team. Once the property is ready to rent, we’ll run a comparable analysis for you to let you know how much the property should rent for in your area. This is based upon the market, the location, property condition, and local competition.
We’ll take pictures of the property and put it online with over 120 different internet sites. We are a national company, so we have listing agreements with all the major sites including Trulia, Zillow, Military Listing by Owner, and all the places renters go. We list on the MIRS because we’re licensed Realtors. So, any Realtor in the state of Maryland can show your property to their clients.
Once we find someone, they fill out an application. We screen the applicant by running credit and criminal background checks and verifying income. Another important thing we do that not all companies do is we check court records to see if an eviction was ever filed against them for nonpayment of rent or noncompliance with the lease. If we feel we have a good fit, we’ll discuss the applicant and let you know who is moving in and whether there’s any risk. You make the final call on who gets placed. With your approval, we move forward by drafting the lease, collecting the security deposit, and scheduling a move in. On move in day, we walk the property with the tenant to document anything condition-wise that needs attention. We take pictures and upload them to our online portal where you can log in and see where your house stands when it’s occupied.
While the property is occupied, we collect rent. If a tenant doesn’t pay, we take steps to get your money and if necessary, we file eviction. We inspect periodically depending on the management package you choose. We will also coordinate any maintenance for the property. If something breaks, we take care of it. We hold a $300 maintenance reserve in your account. If anything comes in under $300, we’ll send you an email to let you know what’s needed. If it’s over $300, we’ll get you an estimate for a repair and if you like it, you’ll authorize us to take care of it. Emergencies like flood, fire, or something that makes the house dangerous or puts you in a position where you’re taking on liability, we take care of right away. If insurance will cover it, we’ll file a claim for you. If you have a warranty, we’ll work with those too.
At the end of the lease, we go back to the house and take pictures and inspect again. We’ll compare the condition at move out to the condition at move in, and charge the tenant for any damages sustained. Then, we’ll hand the property back over to you if you’re selling it, or we will rent it out again. We want to keep your property rented, and we turn it over quickly.
Southern Maryland Property Management Company Costs
There are two basic charges from any company you choose. The first is the leasing fee, which is the cost of renting out the property. We charge 59 percent of the first month’s rent. Then, the management fee is what covers the daily operations, and we offer two packages – 8.9 percent of your monthly rent and 10.9 percent of your monthly rent. In the gold package, we give you a 29 day guarantee that we will rent your property and also a 365 day guarantee, which says that if a tenant breaks the lease and leaves the property, we will re-rent it at no additional leasing cost to you. We perform quarterly inspections as well. Every four months, we inspect and post pictures of your house. We know if the tenant is following the lease and taking good care of the home.
That’s what we charge and how we work. If you need any additional information about our services or our price program, please contact us at Real Property Management Gold. We’d love to be your southern Maryland property manager.
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.