gunbuster – The 10% includes screening tenants, but does not include any fees associated with advertising in the UT.
There is no additional commission when they find new tenants. They take the 10% off the monthly rent and send a check for the rest.
Carlsbadliving – Obviously they are good at finding quality tenants 🙂
Regarding rent increases, that is up to the greedy property owner, not AHP. When the lease is nearly up they send a standard form to the me to offer a new lease, continue on month-to-month per the original lease, and whether to change the monthly rent. It is solely up to the OWNER.
As a reasonable property owner, in my case I always ask them what the tenant wants (new 12-month lease or month-to-month) and give it to them. I’ve also never raised the rent to an existing tenant. I rented for 10 years, I know what I did when the rent went up … I looked at other options. When it didn;t go up I continued along.
Raising rent by 10% to get a new tenant does not pay off for the PM company or the owner. For the owner, the rent increase will not cover the cost of turnover. There is always at least 2 weeks between tenants, along with carpet, paint, proefessional cleaning, etc that eat up that cost. These costs are paid to third party cleaning companies, painters, not AHP.
AHP actually would make more profit by keeping tenants rather than churning. It is easier to continue to take your 10% off the top and handle the day-to-day, than to continually screen applications and schedule viewings by potential renters to secure a new tenant.
I can’t comment on the maintenance issue from the tenants point of view. Perhaps it is non-responsive. But, in non-emergency issues where the value of the repair/replacement is > $100 they contact me, the owner, first before proceeding. I suspect that maintenance issues and rent increases are due to having non-responsive owners. The contract I have with AHP (the standard contract) is that they cannot proceed without my authorization on those issues.
I don’t think it is possible from a tenants point of view to separate the property management company’s actions from the owners’ actions. I suppose there are a fair number of negative dealings people have had with AHP and that it probably reflects the overall population of landlords out there.
