Most rental property owners are looking for the best value in a property management company. Many investors focus on a property manager’s fees. But does getting the lowest price mean you’re getting the best value? Price is only one piece of the value picture.
At Strawberry Property Management, we provide some services which most other Las Vegas property management companies don’t.
Quarterly Air Filter Service
Unfortunately, tenants rarely change air filters in a rental home. In Las Vegas, where we use air conditioning 9 months of the year, HVAC is a huge issue. Unchanged air filters is the #1 cause of unnecessary HVAC breakdown. Therefore, we include quarterly air filter service for FREE, as part of our Premium Property Management package. This accomplishes 2 things: 1) It helps save the owner money on HVAC repairs, by making sure the air filters are changed at least 4 times per year. 2) It gets us eyes inside the property, at least 4 times per year. While not a formal inspection, this helps us keep an eye on the property in a less intrusive manner. This can also trigger a more formal property evaluation, as needed. We have never heard of any other property manager providing this service.
Annual Smoke Detector Service
Nevada law requires all rental properties to have working smoke detectors. Failure in this area can pose a significant risk to investors. Tenants are required to maintain the smoke detectors. However, we find that this often does not happen. When the batteries die and the smoke detector starts beeping, tenants often disable the unit instead of replace the batteries. We help mitigate this problem by servicing the smoke detectors every year.
Eviction Protection
This means we do not charge a service fee to evict a tenant we placed, AND we waive the leasing fee to replace the evicted tenant. This applies to any tenant we place. The only eviction cost to the owner would be the actual fees charged by the court, constable, and/or locksmith. Of course, we cannot cover property damage caused by a tenant. We don’t know of any other property management company in Las Vegas, that offers any type of eviction protection for free.
Tenant Screening
Most property managers in Las Vegas do not perform manual checks of local court records. At Strawberry Property Management, we do. We also run a national background check and credit report. This includes checking for evictions, criminal history, and sex offender registration. We take all of these steps to help weed out applicants who may pose too much risk. Our tiered system determines security deposit amounts. Finally, we use a strict policy for declining rental applications based on specific criteria. You can read more about our rental requirements here.
The Value in a Property Management Company
When choosing a property management company, consider the value of their services, not just their pricing. We may not be the cheapest in town, but our services can save investors a lot of money. If we save a property owner just one unnecessary HVAC repair bill, that would easily make us much more valuable than a cheap property manager 🙂