With rising rental rates in the suburbs and Virginia opening back up again, now is the perfect time to rent out your property and rake in the profits. Plus, if you work with a property management company, you can capitalize on these benefits without any hassle or headache.
Unfortunately, finding the right property management company is often easier said than done. While here at RentSimple we believe we are the best property management company in Northern Virginia, we know that finding the perfect company for your specific needs is a tough decision that takes time and consideration.
How to Find the Best Property Management Company in Northern Virginia?
In order to help you determine whether a company is a good fit, we’ve compiled this list of questions you should ask when you’re shopping around:
What Guarantees Do They Offer?
Surprises are fun when it comes to birthday parties and proposals. However, when it comes to your money and your property, not so much…
Any property management company you consider should have guarantees they can offer you so that you aren’t surprised with minimal profits or a strenuous battle for rent money. If a property management company cannot provide any guarantees, run for the hills!You’re trusting a company with your money and your home. You should be confident that you are going to get something in return.
However, finding property management companies with great guarantees is rare. For the most part, companies simply agree to rent your property, and you get what you get in the end. While there is nothing wrong with hiring a property management company that offers minimal guarantees, we believe that you deserve better.
At RentSimple, we offer guarantees that quite simply cannot be matched. If you choose to work with us, here are the landlord protection guarantees you will receive:
Good Pet Promise
You may not want to allow pets in your rental home, but with the rise of Emotional Support Animals (ESAs) and with over 67% of American Households now having a pet, as a Landlord, YOU MUST ALLOW PETS! If you are worried that a tenant’s cat or dog will wreak havoc on your place and cost you an arm and a leg. Fear not! When you work with RentSimple, you don’t have to fear pets in your property. We cover 100% of pet damage through our Good Pet Promise. Its as “RentSimple” as that! 😉 Read all about our Good Pet Promise here.
Eviction Free Guarantee
Evicting tenants can be costly…that is if you don’t work with a great property management company. Between lost rent payments, potential property damage, legal fees, and court costs, eviction-related costs average roughly $3,500 for landlords who have to undergo this process. RentSimple covers 100% of the cost for evicting tenants (when applicable), including any court and legal fees, so that evicting tenants doesn’t have to break the bank. Don’t fall for plans that cover up to limited amount, we cover it all!
Rent Guarantee
One of the biggest challenges many landlords have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic is finding ways to collect rent when their tenants are experiencing financial difficulties. You may be wondering if renting your property is even worth it if you might have tenants who do not pay rent. Don’t fear Eviction Moratoriums or non-paying tenants — we pay 100% of any rent money that tenants do not pay each month directly to you so you don’t have to worry about losing rent money, even during a pandemic. There are no strings attached to this and no limit on payouts. We believe this is what a Property Management Company should do and we believe that all Rental Property Owners have the ability to be a long term investor. This one simple Rent Guarantee helps achieve our belief!
Happiness Pledge
At RentSimple, your happiness is our main concern. If you’re not satisfied with our services, we will do everything in our power to make things right. If we can’t, we will credit you one month of our management fees AND allow you to cancel our contract.
If you aren’t a fan of the “get what you get and don’t throw a fit” approach that many property management companies offer, Rent Simple and our unparalleled guarantees might be a good fit for you.
What is their online reputation?
A lot of rental property management companies sound great on paper. Their websites might look even better. But you’re not paying for a good-looking website or a company that sounds like they’re amazing. When you are looking for the perfect property management company, you need to make sure you put every single one you consider to the test. See their online reviews and hear from people who have used their services.
A company might seem great, but actually have several poor reviews from landlords who weren’t satisfied with their service. Take some time to look at their online reputation and weigh this in your decision process.
At RentSimple, we have a 4.9 rating on Google.
Here are a few things our clients have had to say about us:
- “RentSimple was AMAZING. Very responsive and walked us through the questions we had. They STILL are responsive to our needs.”
- “We worked with RentSimple for a house we rented for roughly two years. Very responsive for maintenance requests and repairs and provided excellent interface with property owners. Good team to work with!”
- “The team at RentSimple are professional and extremely responsive. The process for finding a home was tedious and stressful until I found a home managed by RentSimple.”
We believe in treating everything and everyone, from our clients to the residents, with concierge-level service, and our online reputation can back up our efforts.
When you’re looking for a company to work with, it isn’t enough for them to just say that they’re worth your while. Find a company whose online reviews and reputation support their claims.
How do they market your home?
First impressions matter… According to research presented in the New York Post, it only takes 27 seconds for someone to form a positive or negative impression of someone or something. This includes your rental property.
If you have low-quality pictures or you don’t use marketing strategies that will capture attention immediately, people will move on to looking at a new property, regardless of how great yours might be.
You want your property management company to give your property a fighting chance by forming a great first impression and marketing your property well. At RentSimple, we hire a professional photography studio to shoot professional pictures and conduct an HD Video Tour instead of delegating these tasks to an in-house property manager. We put your property’s best foot forward so that it makes the great first impression it deserves!
We also make sure that we market properties effectively. We are a premier Zillow Subscriber and syndicate to over 40+ rental sites, and we average 50+ qualified leads, 21 showings, and 5 applications for each property we list. As of the publication of this post, our average days on market is 5.3!
You want your property management company to be as invested in finding the right tenants and marketing your place as you are, and that’s what you’ll get with RentSimple.
What are the average days on market?
The longer your property stays on the market, the longer you are missing out on opportunities to collect rent and make a profit.
When you are considering which property management company will be the best fit for you, check out each one’s website and see how long their properties are on the market on average. You want to find a company that is proactive and will help you find tenants quickly.
RentSimple current average days on market (as of July 2021) is 5.3 and our cumulative historical average is 11.7 meaning we are a lot quicker than our competitors. This is more than 2 weeks faster than the industry average in Northern Virginia, which is 28 days.
What is their pricing structure?
Before you sign a contract with a property management company, you need to know exactly what you’re paying for. The last thing you want is to sign with a company only to realize they have tons of hidden fees, their costs don’t cover everything you thought they would, or they are far more expensive than competitors without offering any extra services.
Look at their pricing pages and read the fine print to see exactly what they are charging and what you will receive in return.
RentSimple has straightforward, full-service pricing: Our monthly management costs, with all of the perks mentioned above, are only $95; our rent collection, processing, and guarantee costs are just 5% of collected rent; and our tenant placement costs are 50% of the first month’s rent.
That’s right. Whereas most property management companies charge 100% of the first month’s rent, we only charge 50% as an annual leasing fee, giving you more bang for your buck. We will find you high-quality tenants and screen their credit, their background checks, and even their pets for a fraction of the cost that most other companies charge.
When it comes to renting out your property, you want to focus on your bottom line. This means taking a close look at the costs and fees that prospective property management companies will charge you for their services.
What is their primary focus?
When you look at different property management companies in Northern Virginia, find out if they focus on rentals or if they also do sales, too. While it might seem harmless for your property management company to focus on both rentals and sales, this can be a problem for your property and your profitability.
You want to make sure that the company you are working with won’t prioritize sales and leave your rental property as an afterthought. You want them to pour all of their time, energy, and resources into getting your property off the market, finding great tenants, and making sure your property is well maintained and managed.
For these reasons, it is advantageous for you to work with a property management company that only focuses on rentals, like RentSimple.
Our CEO Will Austin, serves as the Regional President to NARPM (National Association of Residential Property Managers), and he knows first-hand how to address the issues that plague many landlords when it comes to rental property management. We only focus on rentals, and we have the experience and expertise necessary to help you make the most of your rental property when you work with us.
Do they focus on Volume or Quality?
Sometimes property management companies impress prospective landlords by showing how many tenants they have been able to secure for their clients. While finding tenants is certainly something you want your property management company to be able to do well, this won’t matter if they are not finding high-quality tenants.
High-quality tenants pass background and credit checks, take responsibility for the property and treat it with respect, warn about anything needing repair, and pay rent on time. These are the types of tenants you want in order to make money on your property. We stress quality so much that we can Guarantee it!
You also want to make sure that the property management company you work with offers high-quality services. Be wary of any company that seems to prioritize volume without having anything to say about quality.
What do they Value?
Look at the mission, vision, and values of the property management companies you are considering, and make sure these align with your own. For instance, if you value professionalism, but their website and online reviews don’t give you the idea that they share this same value, you might want to look elsewhere.
At RentSimple, we have three core values: Great spaces, Great people, and Lasting returns.
We believe every tenant deserves to have a space that they can call home, so we make sure that all of the properties in our care are well-maintained by a team of people who value the tenant as much as the client. We believe in the importance of finding high-quality tenants who will take care of your property the same way we take care of them.
We believe in maintaining high standards that will not only lead to high financial returns but also positive returns within the community. This vision is not shared by every person we talk to and that is ok. However, we only accept clients that share our vision of quality and properties that meet that standard, and we only accept about 35% of the properties that want to be part of our program. In order for us to be successful and for our program to work, our client’s values, tenant’s values and our values all need to be aligned.
When a property management company’s values, pricing, priorities, efficiency, marketing, reputation, and guarantees line up with what you need, then they are likely going to be a great match for you. Your property management company should make being a landlord a stress-free and profitable experience, and you should have no doubts that they have your best interest in mind.
If you’ve asked the questions above and think that RentSimple might be the right fit for you, feel free to contact us to learn more about how we can help you rent out your Northern Virginia property.
