How do you handle maintenance and yard work?
Most property managers want to be able to make maintenance decisions on their own. Allow them to do this up to a certain dollar amount, usually around $100 to $200.
Be sure to also ask them if they charge extra for maintenance. If so, your profit could lessen considerably, especially if you have an older property in need of updated appliances and utilities.
Also, hammer out who would be responsible for yard maintenance. Is your property manager up to the task or is it something tenants should handle?
43 Property Manager Interview Questions & Answers
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If you want to ace your upcoming interview, practice with our topical-based interview question sets.
Get ahead of your competition by practicing from one of the following company question sets
Gain further insight into your interview by practicing from one of the following careers
We hand picked these industries based on your career that might help you prepare for your interview
The purpose of this page is to help you prepare for your job interview. We do this by creating interview questions that we think you might be asked. We hire professional interviewers (people with multiple years of experience interviewing candidates) to help us create our interview questions and write answer examples. We do not have advertisements on our pages but we do try to make money through paid-memberships.
How do you (would you) maintain the records of incomes and expenses associated with your work?
The key is to show them that you have a clear system in your work. It doesn’t matter whether you use MS Excel, a sophisticated property management software, or just pen and paper. As long as you track everything–even the very minor expenses, and can assign each expense to a particular tenant or property or housing unit, your answer will satisfy the interviewers.
If you have such a system in place, you can even show it to them on your laptop. If you do not have one, you can talk about a separate spreadsheet/file for each tenant and housing unit, with columns for incomes and expenses, notes, contact information of the tenant etc. Basically something you can always refer to when unsure about this or that thing.
Do you have any rental properties of your own?
While it may seem beneficial for a property manager to have their own rental properties, according to Peter Giardini, this is actually a bad idea.
“The way I see it is my properties and my tenants are in constant competition with the managers and their properties,” he says. “If the manager has a vacancy at the same time you do, how can you know that your property will be filled first?”
Even if a manager assures you they’ll prioritize your properties, there’s no way you can confirm it and no way they can prove it until after the fact.
Do they charge a flat fee or a percentage of the rent?
Think about it: managers that charge a percentage of the rent seem like a more viable option since their paycheck depends on number of tenants and the price of rent. With lower rents and high vacancies, there’s no big payoff, which is bad for you and your property manager.
As a result, property managers will be more motivated to fill vacancies and fight for higher rents, keeping them more engaged with your property. You should also consider whether their percentage is based on the amount of rent charged or the amount that they actually collect.
Similarly, do they charge a fee when a property is vacant? If so, this will counteract the purpose of charging a percentage, as there will be no penalty for vacancies.
Finally, additionally consider if there are other miscellaneous fees they charge for their service. Miscellaneous fees have a habit of sneaking up on you.