Browsing Posts From: Property Management

A lot of people have asked me recently about the idea of converting their rental property in Ogden City to vacation rental use.  With the proliferation of online venues like AirBNB, it seems that becoming a vacation rental owner is easier than ever.  This year was our first time using the service as customers.  We stayed at a condo in St. George in June and just about two weeks ago we found an impossibly small Victorian Cottage in Leadville, CO while we hiked Mount Elbert.  The service was convenient and […]

Tenants have a tendency to leave things behind when they move.  Most of the time, the clean up is quick and easy.  But, every once in a while, they leave something that leaves you scratching your head.  We recently tackled the problem of a giant tractor tire that was left at a rental property after a tenant moved out.   Why this tire ended up on the property in the first place still baffles us.   The great news is that we know we have the personnel to handle whatever […]

  Performing evictions is one of the necessary duties of a property manager.  For many landlords, this is the most gut-wrenching part of the job.  To invoke the law to forcibly remove a person from a property can become a very adversarial experience if handled improperly.   Fortunately, for our property management business, evictions are a rare thing.  However, they do sometimes occur and typically with existing tenants of a property that we begin managing.  Most of the time, owners hire us to handle this unpleasant part of the job […]

  Owning income property is like running a small business.  You want your incomes (rents) to exceed your expenses (mortgage, repairs, utilities, management fees) in all cases.  But, because you can’t control every aspect of the universe, you also want to hedge against bad things happening.  In that case, you purchase insurance (tenant security deposit).  Then you tend to the duties of business and as you do that things usually work out.   However, we recently ran into a situation that illustrates one of the conundrums of property management.  What […]

We just initiated a lease for a client who asked us to market their commercial building in Pleasant View.  The space was formerly a “Dirty” Soda shop.  The new tenant will be turning the space into a pizza restaurant.   Because the space is ideal for a start up, and indeed our new tenants are doing just that, we agreed to give some concessions to allow for the health and safety improvements necessary to use the space for food service.  In order to serve food, ceiling surfaces above the food […]

We just took over management for this nicely finished rambler home located in Syracuse, Utah.  The home sites on a quarter acre lot with a fenced back yard.  Lots of parking.  The home is a 3 bed 1 bath configuration with an mother in law apartment in the basement.   This unit will be available very soon.  Visit our rental listings page for current availability.  

Maintaining control of a property is an important job for property managers.  Access, maintenance, and community enjoyment are all issues that property managers work to preserve.  But, sometimes tenants can gain an upper hand on that control (albeit temporarily) and make life difficult for landlords.  Here are a few scenarios to watch for:   You Ain’t Sellin’ This Place Selling property with tenants in place is a significant issue in Utah’s market right now.  With creeping population growth and available housing stock near record lows, tenants are having a tough […]

I just listed this commercial property in Pleasant View for lease this week.  The space sits at the edge of an industrial park just north of the intersection of 1600 West and 2700 North.  Since 2700 North is a main arterial road, the spot is a prime location for restaurant, office or retail business with easy access to I-15 and nearby amenities. The space formerly housed a soda specialty shop.  The floorplan boasts 2200 SQFT with a drive-through window on the east wall.  There is ample utility space in the rear […]

We just recently took over management of this interesting historical 5-plex in Ogden.  The building was constructed in the 1920s with an addition added on shortly thereafter.  The lot is extremely narrow and the building is only a couple feet away from the drip edge of a neighboring victorian home. Oddly, both of these properties share a garage structure at the back of the property with the property line bisecting the garage. The property has been well managed in the past and there appears to be minimal work we will […]

Finding quality tenants is an important part of being a property manager.  A landlord looks for tenants who can pay timely rent, be a good neighbor, and taking care of the property.  Identifying tenants that show promise in doing these three things is one of the great challenges in the business. To help identify these folks from the non-performers, we have created a questionnaire that helps us weed out undesirable tenants. Here is a section of our rental application with an explanation of why we ask these questions: Are you or […]

We recently took over management for this historic 7-plex located in Ogden.  The building comes to us in a state of transition between tenants.  One unit will need renovations before it is able to be leased.  Another unit needs cleaning before we have it ready for market.  There are also a couple deadbeat tenants that will need to be ‘handled’. As part of our turn around effort at the building, we will be focusing on improving the existing landscaping with a sprinkler system and flowers.  We will also be looking […]

  Our brokerage has an excellent track record of screening and placing well qualified tenants in the rental units we manage.  Many of our clients choose us over other property management companies due to this reputation.  However, when we assume management of a property with existing tenants in place, we often have to replace under-qualified tenants as they start to under-perform.  We had such a situation occur this past month. On February 1st we assumed management authority for a rental unit on Harrison Blvd. in Ogden.  We quickly placed a […]

Landlords want rents to be as high as possible.  Tenants want rents to be as low as possible.  So somewhere in the mix, rents are established that meet the needs of both parties…or so it would seem.  The free market of housing works pretty well most of the time.  But sometimes, for sociological reasons, things don’t work out well for either party.     The Salt Lake Tribute recently posted this political cartoon lampooning the plight of tenants. It made me laugh.  But the caption at the bottom was disturbing. […]

Property Management is something of a renaissance profession.  It requires a knack for accounting, people skills, and a healthy ability to accurately predict risk.  I find the work intellectually fascinating as it merges sociology and economics into a real world experience.  If you ever want to know what is really going on in the world, become a property manager.   One of the great challenges that landlords face is dealing with trouble tenants.  In our 11 year history of managing property, we have only had to formally evict one of […]