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The Search For A Great Kansas City Property Manager

Yesterday evening over at my BBQ Capitalblog I wrote a piece called Property Management In Kansas City. And while I'm not going to recap the entire post here I am going to say that I'm having a heck of a challenge finding a good property manager that is LICENSED to do business in the state of Missouri.

It seems a great many of the people doing business in Missouri as property managers are doing so unaware that they are supposed to hold current real estate license. How does the state of Missouri allow these people to continue in business? They advertise. They manage. They put signs out. They probably work with the Kansas City or Independence Housing Authorities. So how does this work?

My other frustration is that I do know of a couple property management companies that operate legally but they also hold actively pursue real estate sales transactions. I have no problem with that part. (Though I am always leery that it's possible to be great at both aspects of the business since real estate investing is such a specialty niche that needs constant study and attention. Same with property management.) Where I get frustrated is that when I've contacted them they are happy to manage the properties for the clients I send them but will not respect the lines of relationships. In other words, they consider the rental property owner theirs from that point forward and have them sign a paper that says they will list and sell that home if it need be done.

That policy doesn't exactly endear me to them as you might well understand. Oddly enough, my clients don't like it either. They prefer to stay with me. (I guess I'm doing something right.) For Rent Kansas City

HELP

So this is a shout out to the property management companies that operate in Missouri, specifically the Kansas City, Blue Springs, Lee's Summit and Independence areas, to give me a call or an email if you can and want to help. Legally, that is.

Also, if you have a good to great property manager who operates in the Kansas City area, I want to hear from you. Let me know!

Posted by Chris Lengquist, RIPS on 09/06/2007 08:51 AM

Comments (7)

property management, kansas city

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7 Comments on The Search For A Great Kansas City Property Manager

SEP

2007

good luck with this one. Perhaps the best approach would be with the state licensing agency, they have a interest because the collect all those fees from the people who follow the law.

NOV

2007

Chris, I'd love to help...

www.turnkeyproperties.org is the place to go for Kansas City Property Management. However; I understand you have a problem with the fact that I am also a broker who sells investment property.

No problem, for you I can waive that, provided I do get a referral fee. I have held a brokers license since the early 90's I am licensed in both KS and MO. I am an Accredited Residential Manager and know what I am doing in property management. I also specialize in investment property sales.

By not referring clients to licensed professionals because you may lose the future sale you are doing a disservice to your clients.

I do have an exclusive in my management agreement and here's why. I do not want to be the guy who is used as a leasing agent so that others can sell the property. Since the management agreement is null and void at the time of sale I'd be paying my staff to lease properties so another agent can sell them as occupied investments. No money in that!

I pay the same E&O and I pay a lot more in liability and other insurance coverage than any agent because I have a lot more liability. PM is a whole different ballgame and unless you know it, you don't want to get into it. Not much money in it on the single family side of things.

I've seen hundreds of companies come and go in Kansas City since I started Turn-Key Properties LLC in 1995. You are right, there are many who are not licensed and I have seen many abscond with the owners rents and deposits too. Pretty ugly world out there if you hire someone who is not licensed and insured.

There are a few new ones in town, paying big money to get pay-per-click placement on the web. Just Google "Kansas City Property Management" I looked up a few of them and they are not licensed in MO. Be sure to click on the ads too, I always do! LOL

Call me Chris, let's work something out.

Ben 816-313-8876

www.turnkeyproperties.org

Ben,

Thank you for the note. I have worked out an arrangement with a licensed PM and so far am very pleased with the service. And more importantly, my clients seem pleased with them.

And the PM isn't going to make me pay them a referral fee for generating them business that will last 5-8 years. :)

I understand that's your model and appreciate that. Unfortunately, it didn't jive with mine. I know your reputation in town and it's solid. I hope that we can cross paths on a transaction at some point in the future.

My best to you.

DEC

2007

Property Managers in Missouri do not need a Real Estate license to perform regular duties including lease negotiations. Only am agreement between the ownership and the PM outlinging these duties. Personally, I require my PM's to hold an active license as well as pursue BOMA and IREM designations but these requirements are not at all necessary. Contact MREC if you're unsure

Again, and I hate to keep saying this over and over, you are invited to call legal counsel of the Missouri Real Estate Commission. YOU DO HAVE TO BE LICENSED TO MANAGE PROPERTIES FOR PEOPLE.

Now if you are an employee of a building, that's different.

But I've grown bored with this subject so I'll say it one last time.

If you are a client of mine I recommend you have a property manager that is a licensed real estate agent in Missouri. If you choose to do otherwise you do so without my blessing.

Obviously, this confusion is convenient for many people and therefore they try to keep it that way.

As far as your comment Contact MREC if you are unsure, that's what I did.

DEC

2007

Chris,

I see it over and over again in KCMO - 100's of investors with a few rental properties who decide they should hang out their property management shingle - but not go to the trouble to get a license. We actaully decided to do that at our office and Don Tucker spent about 3 months getting his brokers license so he could be the broker of our property management company. But we found after a few months of our own management services that we were not cut out to be property managers.

As a licensed agent who also used to list and sell properties for investors I had several investors come to me and ask me to list their properties and market them through my network of buyers built up over the past 8 years. But because they had a property management agreement that stated that the manager must get the listing we had problems from the start. Never mind that the property manager had attempted to list and sell and had no luck, that is why the owner contacted me. When we tried to negotiate with the proeprty manager, I got the same, you list the property and show the property and find the buyer and negotiate the sale and collect a commission, but please pay me 25% of it. Needless to say we did not list these properties.

Then approaching this as a buyer. I did a marketing campaign to out of state owners in our area that we buy and we had an owner contact us that he wanted to sell a property. We had everything negotiated, but wanted to get into the property to make an inspection and the only key available was at the property manager's office. Licensed property manager here in town. Would not show us the property unless he was to get a full commission on the sale of the property. He did not ever contact the client to see if he might like to sell the property and when the client found a buyer for his own property at an agreed upon price, the property manager killed the sale because he wanted a piece of the pie.

I have had several licensed PM companies tell me that the commissions help them keep their company afloat. But I have also worked the PM companies that only manage, no sales, and they seemed to make a lot of money, paid a huge staff, and were very successful, so not sure what would be different with these area PM other than the fees they collect for manaing inner city properties are rather low and tenants don't alwasy pay rent, then they don't get paid. But these same successful companies that did not list and sell aslo worked in the inner city as well.

I don't know - but still looking for a good PM that works in the inner city, that is licensed, that plays well with other realtors (several don't like to let other realtors show their properties - it's a knock and see if you can get in mentality that is very dangerous in the urban core),

Kim - thank you for the kind comments and your stories. If people knew you, your experience and your stature in this town they would be well advised to heed your wisdom.

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