All Copyrights Reserved, Mockingbird Realty, 2015-indefinite.
John Wells, 15615 Dove Mdw, San Antonio, TX 78248.
Broker. 318-918-0078. mockingbirdrealty@gmail.com
In October of 2006, I received orders to Barksdale AFB and we moved to Shreveport. A year later I bought my first rental property there. In the five years that followed I purchased, renovated, and rented 27 properties. These, in addition to the two that I already had in San Antonio, put my total at 29. In 2016, instead of selling my home, I rented it out when I moved back home to San Antonio. (This brings my present personal total to 30 rentals). At this point I had four more years to go until I hit retirement in the Air Force. I stopped purchasing homes and started paying off the debt. I was able to pay off half of the homes that I had mortgages on.
When I was done buying homes for myself a friend asked how he could get in on this deal. So, I located and helped purchase a home for him, renovated it, and found him tenants.
This was when my friend and I started talking about a management agreement. We researched a standard agreement that most property managers used, which is 10% of the rent and half the first month's rent of all move-ins + 15% of all maintenance. Most property management companies also include an advance reserve paid by the homeowner so that the property management company would never be out of pocket for any work that was done. There are usually clauses that the management company can do any needed repairs in case of an emergency without the consent of the homeowner. Since then, I have found this clause to be an open invitation for property management companies to do pretty much anything they liked and charge the homeowners for it. We both agreed that this was a horrible arrangement and set off to do better.
We started off our agreement with a two-sentence contract that said I would manage his property for a flat fee and everything else at cost. If any expense was to exceed $500, then I would give him a call and let him know. Otherwise I would just take care of it and deduct it from the next month's rent. The agreement worked perfectly.
Then, I started getting more requests from my friends to manage their homes. My standard response was give them for free everything they would need to manage it themselves: leases, spreadsheets, and a market analysis and send them on their way. They kept coming back, and then they told their friends. I had a new problem: lots of people really needed help with their rental homes. I started looking for property management systems and a management agreement that I could use with everyone, not just my friends. This evolved into the system I use today: a detailed management agreement that makes clear exactly what is expected of all parties, written in plain English, and a comprehensive property management system, called AppFolio.
I charge a flat fee of $100 per month prorated in conjunction with the rent being paid to the owner. (For example, if the owner only gets rent for 30% of the month, then I only get $30). All other expenses are passed on to the owner without any additional fees being added. I make every attempt to keep expenses as low as possible. I have one full-time and several part-time handymen. They do the general repair, painting, and clean-up. I have a free-lance-style network of plumbers, air conditioner repair people, roofers, maids, and pretty much everyone needed to take care of anything to do with your home.
Showing your home, taking pictures, and doing inspections is a team effort. Normally I have you, the home owner, show your home and take pictures and send them to me. If you are not available, I will have my handyman show your home. He is less expensive than a Realtor and can actually fix things when he is there. If a Realtor finds a renter it normally costs ¼ first month rent. I recommend paying this because the renter often is being relocated by their company and is pre-qualified and often needs a home immediately. I don’t show your home as part of my $100 a month, but I can find you people who will do it for a reasonable fee. The same goes for inspections. If the homeowners live locally, they can either do the inspections themselves or we will pay someone to do it and pass on the cost, without additional markup.
As of August 2016, I began to manage the day-to-day operations of Mockingbird Realty from my home in San Antonio. But, it is actually everywhere there is cellular service. Managing the properties is actually easier now because moving forced me to do electronically many of the things that I was doing in person such as meeting with tenants to sign leases and collecting rent. My relocation also made it a requirement for everything to be online. Leases, management agreements, tenant payments, and work orders can all be signed or paid with a smart phone or computer.