"Accidental", or ill-advised?

      When I was a new agent, I was offered a handful of properties by a lady who was leaving the office.  "It's easy money, Fred!"   

      The day after I agreed, a top producer in the office took me aside.  "Fred, we make our money from commissions on the sale.  What are you going to get for property management?   10 percent of the rent, and that gets split 50/50 with the Broker?  Don't do it!"

     But I had given my word, so I went forward.  What a learning experience!  After about six months of it, I found a newer agent in the office, and offered it to them.  They agreed to take over.

    Never again!

ALL my listing agreements for (CRE) lease offerings state clearly "NO MANAGEMENT DUTIES WILL BE PERFORMED BY BROKER" and why is that in there? LOL
Because of out of area owners too cheap to hire management and claim they 'self-manage' -- and then try to slough off those duties to the broker acting (ONLY) as leasing agent. 
I've fired owners for trying that with me, without regrets.

I might fall into that category, Landon. There was a period of time when I was selling a lot of investment properties to out-of-state buyers.  Of course, they needed a property manager, but the company I was affiliated with didn't want to do PM. So, I opened my own company to include property management. It turned out to be a very fortunate move because I ended up with over 60 rentals to manage, and that income provided a steady cash flow during the 2008 slowdown. It was a good, steady base income to supplement my sales revenue.  Property Management has it's pros and cons, but it was a nice base income for me. 

Kind of before I was in real estate, haha.  The owner of the property I was renting asked one day if I would look after his other properties, haha.  I was more of a leasing agent than a manager, though.

Oh, 

HELL. NO. 

Not by choice, by accident, or otherwise! 

I wouldn’t say it was accidental. Early in my career, I ended up with quite a few investors and sold many multifamily properties. Those clients asked me to handle rent collection, but I wasn’t the contact for repairs or emergencies—just rent.

I still do it today because it doesn’t take much time, guarantees me property management income, and guarantees me the rental listings when units open up.

I realized early on that this side gig basically covered my health insurance, cell phone, and other miscellaneous expenses, so it was a win-win. I even wrote a blog Laundry Money once about how much I enjoyed collecting the laundry money from the machines.

Never by accident. I was appointed an asset manager of a large portfolio of apartments and commercial real estate that made me never want to be in property management ever again. 

Spent decades in this field & if everything goes well, it's a great experience. If things don't go well, a nightmare Landon Murie 

Accidental is not the way to do this, or much of anything, it takes planning and preparation.  Without this you really should sell it to someone who is prepared to make money while providing quality homes to renters.

We have been managing a portfolio of properties for 25 years, and it is challenging and important to keep your properties in good shape and make sure that people pay their bills so that you can afford to keep improving the properties.

Landon Murie No accidents here, lol. I did prepared several lease agreements for couple of Sellers. (3), the owners managed the incoming payments. It cured me really quickly, It was sad to see what tenants will do to properties. If someone wants me to do another, I will simply refer it out. Not my cup of tea!

Marginally, during the life of a listing, for an absent homeowner or executor, and only in a very limited capacity. For example, I assisted with finding cleaning and landscaping or rubbish removal services, but never involving tenants. 

Absolutely not.  My wife's firm previously did management, but she phased it out as clients left by selling their properties and didn't take any more on.  Thankful.

Our broker will not allow up to be property managers.

When I purchased a rental property I decided I would manage it Landon Murie and then others started asking: "Will you manage mine too?". I enjoyed it until a oil boom hit our area and we were flooded with druggies and prostitutes. It was a nightmare.

nyet

I knew early on I WOULD NOT become a property manager, on purpose!  LOL

nope.  But I on purchase stopped.

Have zero interest in property management, except for my own.

I've seen and smelled too many properties that were not managed well, (obvious damage from unreported water leaks, holes in walls & doors by angry tenants, urine-saturated, crunchy carpets due to unattended cats or dogs, destroyed carpets, mystery stains on flooring, mangled doorways & doors where dogs tried to chew through to escape, unkempt yards with weeds thigh high) by those who overpromised and under-delivered.

Short answer,  no.  longer answer with all my moves I did have two opportunities to long term lease my previous house.  It is all good but one of the two went south and I had to lawyer up.  

No I did it for 36 years by design. I was happy to do it until I wasn't - I saw the writing on the wall in 2020 during California COVID and what our governor was doing to destroy the entrepreneurial buy & hold industry. I retired from CA property management in 2022.

I’m curious. I own a house. With all the maintenance, repairs, and improvements I have to make, and with all the bills I have to pay (mortgage, insurance, utilities, water, sewer, taxes), does that make me an “accidental property manager”? Not sure if I’m glad I did, or if I dread it.

Yes, I would say I was an accidental property manager. I bought into a new construction condo- with just 12 apartments. The developer was charging a property manager fee- but didn't even attempt to do any work. We had an owners meeting...and next thing you know I am self managing a new building with lots of problems. I was already working 50+ hour weeks- but several owners asked me to do it since I had a finance and project manager background. I did it for somewhere between 6 months and a year before insisting we needed to spend the money to hire a property manager. I remained on the condo board- just without the full weight of being property manager as well. After experiencing awful agent after awful agent while serving as Treasurer and later President of the board- I knew I do better than these awful agents- leading to my career change into real estate. Nearly a decade later I am still an agent- but I have zero interest in property management.