Knowing who to partner with as a new real estate investor isn’t easy. As an owner-investor, due diligence rests on your shoulders from the beginning. To be a passive investor, you must first find the right property management company. The quality and integrity of their business will guide your success.

Now, there are many elements to vetting a management company – looking at their public information, reviewing their quarterly and annual reports, and soliciting reviews from other investors. But perhaps the most critical step for a new investor is asking questions.

Experienced real estate investors know even small factors can make or break their wealth-building efforts. While broadly, that single factor is due diligence, we want to get a little more specific. We’re talking about what your residents really want.

Because investing in real estate is a numbers game, getting those numbers to fall in your favor is everything. While maximizing profits and minimizing expenses is sound on paper, it doesn’t always work in practice.

Right now, investors want to ensure that any property they own or acquire maximizes its potential. After all, the investment market is less forgiving these days. Every decision counts!

Though some real estate investors would balk at the typical commission received by a property management team – usually around 8 percent – sharp investors recognize the real value in a great property management structure.

In the world of real estate investment, there is a crucial element that makes everything work. Without it, the whole concept falls apart: property management.

As passive real estate investors especially, we rely on property managers to allow us to be passive in the first place. Without their diligent management, we would have to involve ourselves in much of the day-to-day operations of our investments: defeating the purpose of “passive” real estate investment!