All Property Management Review: Free for Owners Because Managers Pay for the Lead

The service does something genuinely useful — it produces a local shortlist in minutes for nothing — and it should be one input rather than the process. What to do with the results: Treat it as a shortlist, not a ranking. Inclusion means a manager pays for leads in your area. Add candidates the service did not surface. Ask neighbouring owners, your local landlord association, a real estate attorney and your insurance agent. The best small manager in a market frequently does not buy leads because they do not need to. Get at least three quotes, and compare like with like, which is harder than it sounds because fee structures differ. Expect follow-up contact. Submitting a request sells your details to several businesses at once. Use an email address you are comfortable being contacted on, and expect calls. On fees, and how to compare them honestly. Management pricing is rarely a single number: The management fee, typically a percentage of collected rent, and check whether it is charged on collected or scheduled rent — that difference matters when a unit is vacant or a tenant does not pay. A leasing or tenant placement fee, often a substantial share of one month's rent, charged each time a unit turns over. This is where the real cost sits for a manager who turns tenants frequently. A lease renewal fee. A vacancy fee, charged while the unit is empty in some contracts. Maintenance markups. Ask whether the manager charges a percentage on top of contractor invoices, and whether they own or are affiliated with the maintenance company. This is the least visible and most consequential cost. A setup or onboarding fee. Eviction handling, inspection, and 1099 or year-end reporting fees. Whether late fees, application fees and pet fees go to you or to the manager. Ask for a full fee schedule in writing and model a realistic year — one turnover, a couple of maintenance jobs, twelve months of rent — for each candidate. A lower headline percentage with a full month leasing fee and a 15% maintenance markup can cost more than a higher percentage with neither. Diligence that takes an hour and is worth years: Check licensing. Most states require a real estate broker licence or a specific property management licence to manage property for others. Verify it on the state licensing board's public database — it takes two minutes and it is the single most useful check. Ask for and actually call owner references, ideally with portfolios like yours. Ask how many units they manage per staff member. This predicts responsiveness better than anything on a website. Ask about trust accounting. Client funds should be held in a separate trust account, and many states regulate this specifically. How often are owner disbursements made, and what reporting comes with them? Ask what software they use and whether you get an owner portal with real-time statements and documents. Ask about insurance — general liability and errors and omissions — and whether you should be named as an additional insured. Read the termination clause before anything else. How much notice, is there a penalty, do you keep the tenant relationships and records, and how quickly are funds and documents returned? A contract you cannot leave is the worst outcome in this category. Check reviews from owners specifically, not tenants — tenant reviews of property managers are systematically negative for reasons that do not tell you much.

Because this is a health publication, the part of property management that matters most to us is habitability — the health hazards that live in rental housing and the legal duties attached to them. Lead paint. This is the one with the clearest federal obligation. Under the federal Lead Disclosure Rule, sellers and landlords of most housing built before 1978 must disclose known lead-based paint and hazards, provide any available records and reports, and give buyers or tenants the EPA-approved lead hazard pamphlet. Sales contracts must also allow a 10-day opportunity to test. Renovation work on pre-1978 housing is separately governed by the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule, which requires certified firms and lead-safe work practices for work disturbing painted surfaces. Sanding old paint without containment is exactly how children get poisoned. Why it matters so much: there is no known safe blood lead level in children. Lead affects brain development, and the effects are irreversible. Children in older rental housing are the highest-risk group, which makes this squarely a property management issue rather than a paperwork one. Mould and moisture. The health issue is dampness rather than any particular species. Damp indoor environments are associated with respiratory symptoms, asthma exacerbation and infections. The remedy is to fix the water, not to test the spores. Testing for mould is rarely useful. Guidance from public health bodies is generally that if you can see or smell mould, you remediate it — identifying the species does not change what you do. Persistent damp in a rental is a maintenance failure with health consequences, and repeated tenant complaints about it are a signal worth taking seriously rather than managing. Carbon monoxide and smoke alarms. Requirements vary by state and locality, and many jurisdictions now mandate CO alarms in dwellings with fuel-burning appliances or attached garages. Working alarms are cheap, legally required in most places and prevent deaths. Test them at turnover and document it. Radon. The second leading cause of lung cancer in the US after smoking, and entirely invisible. Testing is inexpensive, mitigation is well established, and several states have disclosure requirements for rentals. A property that has never been tested has not been shown to be safe. Water. Lead service lines and lead plumbing remain in use in older housing. Tenants are entitled to know, and the EPA has been tightening requirements around service line identification and replacement. Pests. Bed bugs, cockroaches and rodents are health issues, not just nuisances — cockroach allergen is a well-documented asthma trigger in children, and integrated pest management works better than repeated spraying. And accessibility and fair housing. The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination including on the basis of disability, and requires allowing reasonable modifications and making reasonable accommodations — including for assistance animals, which are not pets and are not subject to pet fees. Getting this wrong is both a legal exposure and a health equity issue. The point for an owner is that delegating management does not delegate liability. You generally remain the owner, and obligations attach to the property. So ask a prospective manager, specifically: How do you handle pre-1978 properties and lead disclosure, and can you show me the forms and records you keep? What is your process when a tenant reports damp or mould, and what is your response time? Do you test and document smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and how often? Has this property been tested for radon, and would you arrange it? Who do you use for maintenance, and are they licensed and insured for the work they do — particularly anything electrical, gas or lead-disturbing? What is your emergency response process and after-hours coverage? No heat in winter and no hot water are habitability failures with health consequences, not inconveniences. How do you document habitability complaints and responses? A manager who answers those readily is managing your risk. One who has not thought about them is managing your rent collection.

Worth asking before choosing one, since a management fee is a permanent cost against a rental's return. A manager genuinely earns their fee when: You do not live near the property. Remote self-management works until something floods at 2am. You have several units, where the administrative load becomes real. You do not want tenant contact, which is a legitimate preference and a common reason people sell rentals. You lack the network of reliable, licensed, insured contractors — which is genuinely most of what an experienced manager is worth. Local law is complex. Rent regulation, licensing and inspection regimes vary enormously by city, and getting compliance wrong is expensive. You want the eviction process handled by someone who does it regularly and lawfully. Self-management makes sense when: One or two units, locally, with time and inclination. You have or can build the contractor relationships. The management fee is a large share of a thin margin. On a single modest rental, a management fee plus leasing fees can consume most of the cash flow. Either way, some things are worth paying for individually rather than bundling: A real estate attorney to review your lease. A jurisdiction-appropriate lease is cheap insurance, and downloaded templates frequently contain unenforceable or illegal clauses. Proper tenant screening, run compliantly. An accountant who understands rental property, particularly for depreciation and the year of sale. Adequate landlord insurance, which is not homeowner's insurance, plus loss of rent cover. And two things owners underestimate: Reserves. A roof, a heating system or a sewer line will eventually need replacing, and a rental without reserves becomes a forced sale or a deferred-maintenance property — which is where habitability problems begin. Documentation. Move-in and move-out condition reports with photographs, written records of every complaint and response, and receipts for everything. This protects you in a deposit dispute, an insurance claim and a habitability complaint alike. Who this service suits: an owner who wants a quick local shortlist for free and will do their own diligence on top. In that role it works well and costs nothing. Who should be careful: anyone who treats the returned list as a recommendation, or who chooses on management percentage alone without modelling leasing fees and maintenance markups — which is where the real money is.

Is All Property Management free for owners? Yes. It is funded by property managers paying for leads — its own materials describe generating over 8,000 leads a month for around 1,200 managers. Are the managers shown recommendations? No. They are managers who pay for leads in your area and property type. Treat the list as a shortlist to call, and add candidates the service did not surface. Will I get contacted a lot? Expect so. Submitting a request typically shares your details with several businesses at once. What do property managers charge? Usually a percentage of rent plus a leasing or placement fee, and often renewal fees, maintenance markups, setup fees and more. Ask for a full written fee schedule and model a realistic year. What is the least visible cost? Maintenance markups. Ask whether a percentage is added to contractor invoices and whether the manager owns or is affiliated with the maintenance company. How do I check a manager is legitimate? Verify the licence on your state licensing board's public database — most states require a broker or property management licence to manage for others. Then call owner references with portfolios like yours. What should I ask about client funds? Whether they are held in a separate trust account, how often owner disbursements are made and what reporting comes with them. Many states regulate this specifically. What is the most important contract clause? Termination — the notice required, any penalty, and how quickly you get your records, tenant relationships and funds back. Does hiring a manager transfer my legal liability? Generally not. Obligations attach to the property and remain the owner's, so ask specifically how the manager handles lead disclosure, damp, alarm testing and emergencies. What are the main habitability health issues? Lead paint in pre-1978 housing, damp and mould, carbon monoxide and smoke alarms, radon, lead in water, and pests — cockroach allergen in particular is a documented childhood asthma trigger. Should I manage it myself instead? Reasonable with one or two local units, time and a contractor network. A manager earns their fee with distance, scale, complex local law, or when you do not want tenant contact. What do owners most often underestimate? Reserves for major systems, and documentation — condition reports with photographs and written records of every complaint and response.