Property Management Companies - worth it or not?!

[coombsyatrodagolf]

Hello All

I firstly just wanted to thank you all for all the information you have covered so far on this site. We bought a townhouse on Phase 3 which we completed on earlier in the year and have found all the advice really useful, in particular on where and how to furnish a place in Spain.

As well as wanting to enjoy our property and keeping our fingers croosed that they will commence building work on the shops and restaurant at the resort soon (!) we are aiming to rent our property out, mainly to friends and friends of friends etc. We have contacted several property management companies who seems to charge approx seven hundred euros to handle this plus %age of rental costs plus cleaning which seems a bit steep to me, especially when they are not overly optimistic of how much rental income they themselves will be able to secure.

For those of you who do rent your property out, what methods have you found work well and are pretty economical ??

Cheers, Clare

[inspectahomespain]

Claire if you mail me i will send you a copy of the Our Property Guide rental advice documents which explains more about the various rental sites and techniques

To successfully rent there is only one way, do  it yourself, and use a local keyholder

[Hugh_man]

Clare
Welcome to the board, we hope that this and the Private Board will grow in use and advice very soon and will proove to be a valuable tool for all owners.

We don't rent so I stand to be corrected by others on here but I do know that they and others at Roda work very hard themselves in networking and marketing their apartments.
Regrettably most agents will have difficulty in finding renters under the current climate.

As the previous post said and I would concur, it is paramount that you undertake much of the work yourselves and it is certainly possible to find a number of very good local keyholders/cleaners who either live on site or nearby.
Nothing is particularly cheap in Spain, even cleaning, so a good idea to check out a few for their service package and prices and try to see them when you are over so that you feel comfortable.

You may also get some help from the regular Monday coffee mornings in the clubhouse where people are usually very friendly and helpful.
Message/mail me if you do need any contact details of locals.

[Sandra]

I second all that has been said - we handle all the rentals ourselves through various means and I have a marvellous "Head of Housekeeping" and "Property Manager" who between them manage both this apartment and our other apartment at La Tercia.  So, would recommend that you go down this route.  It is time consuming, but looking after an investment is bound to be.

Hope this helps and if you want any further information, then do pm me.

Sandra

[janejohn]

Hi Clare,

There are many different property management companies out there, so my advice would be to speak to other owners and go with personal recommendation.  As the others have said, it's hard work to generate rentals at the moment, although I'm optimistic about the future when we have a commercial centre (fingers crossed as well).  However you say you mainly want to rent to friends, and friends of friends, so if that's the case, you don't really need a management company to try and find rentals for you which as Hugh_man has said, doesn't happen much in the current climate anyway. 

We have used 2 different companies - I would recommend both but they offer different services.  If you want more info please pm me.

Jane

[coombsyatrodagolf]

Thanks all for your replies. I am sure I will be asking you lots more on other topics!

Hope to meet up with you for Sangrias when we are all over there!