Investor FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you screen residents? What is your criteria to make sure that I get quality residents?
Resident screenings are one of the most important steps in managing a property. You can do every other step of the property management process right but if you put the wrong resident in a home, it can be a disaster.
We look for good residents for our investors. A good resident is someone who can afford to pay the rent, will take care of the home and will leave the property in good condition when they vacate. Speaking frankly, some of this is difficult to identify through screening. We have developed a resident placement process over the years to screen residents to identify the good and the bad.
We require that all adults who will be occupying the home complete and pass the application process. We encourage you to review our Application and Screening Guidelines in the Rentals section to learn more about our extensive screening process.
How do you determine fair market rent for my property?
Every investor of a rental property has two goals that are somewhat at odds. Number one, they want to maximize their rent. Number two, they want to minimize vacancy. Simple economics tells us that you have to find a balance between these two goals to find the best rental pricing. Underprice your property and you will rent it quickly but leave money on the table and reduce cash flow. Over price your property and you may experience difficulty finding a resident, which can become costly.
At PURE Property Management of Florida, we want to help you find the balance between these two goals. Our team is constantly monitoring the market and tracking the various inputs that drive rents and marketing times. We monitor the marketing times and rents of all residential investment properties in our area.
We will provide you with a comprehensive market analysis that will show you comparable properties to yours, along with the amount those properties rented for and the number of days it took for them to get rented. We will also walk you through our pricing recommendation and pricing process, answering any questions you have related to the rental amount. The final decision is up to you.
How quickly do maintenance requests from residents get completed?
The number one reason a resident moves from a property is not rent. It is because of the resident’s dissatisfaction with the way their maintenance requests are handled. At PURE Property Management of Florida, we recognize that resident turnover is a huge expense for our clients so we have designed our resident facing processes and property management maintenance systems in a manner that increases resident retention.
Residents make maintenance requests through our online resident portal. The requests are instantly routed to our property management team. The PM team first reviews the request to determine if the issue is something the tenant should be able to address or something that we can troubleshoot with them. We cultivate a library of online tutorials and YouTube videos to help educate the residents on problems they can address themselves. This video library helps renters troubleshoot minor maintenance issues, saving money for investors and aggravation for residents.
If the issue cannot be addressed by the resident, we either send the ticket to our handyman or to a contractor/partner. The handymen we work with are great at completing just about any service that does not require a licensed professional. However, if the issue requires a licensed professional, we assign the work order to one of our amazing contractor partners to complete.
We have implemented an online system that allows for collaboration between our property managers, the contractors and the residents. Because this system allows for direct communication and scheduling between the resident and the contractor, it reduces the amount of time it takes to receive, dispatch and complete a maintenance issue. Our innovative Resident Response System leads to greater resident satisfaction, keeping residents happy and maximizing your ROI.
Once a repair or maintenance ticket has been completed, we send the resident a Satisfaction Survey, which helps us monitor for any hiccups that may be occurring in our processes and enables us to maintain our high standards of excellence.
How do you select the best vendor for repair work on my property? How do you know if the vendor is right about how to fix the problem?
PURE Property Management of Florida has worked with hundreds of contractors/vendors through the years. What we have learned through all of that is to maintain a strong contractor network requires almost constant nurturing, like a garden. We are always looking for new property management maintenance contractors to add to our network while at the same time monitoring the performance of our existing network to determine who needs to go.
The vendors we work with are contractors that have proven to be reliable in service and competitive in pricing. Any contractor who works with PURE is required to provide proof of insurance and licensure in their trade, if the work requires a license. With the Resident Satisfaction Survey, residents are asked to rate the contractor after completion of the service ticket; PURE monitors these responses closely.
Our team has worked in residential property management for years. While we are not contractors, we do have the experience to keep a healthy skepticism of our contractors recommendations. This means that while we trust our contractors, we know that it is our job to protect our clients from unnecessary and costly repairs. If the contractors recommended course of action does not make sense to our property managers, they will discuss the recommendation with the contractor and look at alternative courses of action.
It is important to note that we are big advocates of making the right repair first, versus the wrong (cheaper) repair multiple times. We have seen time and again how choosing the cheapest path over the more complete repair can lead to repeated contractor calls, higher expense in the long run, and unhappy residents.
What do you do if a resident doesn’t pay on time?
Unfortunately, late rent and non-payment of rent are a fact of life when owning a rental property. No matter how effective our resident screening process is, residents sometimes don’t pay their rent (or pay it late). This is where our property management eviction processes become very helpful. Our leases state that rent is due on the first with a 3-day grace period. On the business day following the 3rd of the month, we prepare a 3-day notice for non-payment to send to the resident as the first step in the eviction process. At the same time, we send a copy of the 3-day notice to the resident portal. Most often, the resident will pay the balance in full once they understand we are serious about pursuing an eviction. If the resident has not paid or made arrangements to pay the balance due by the deadline listed on the 3-day notice, PURE will engage the services of an attorney to evict the resident.
How do I know the residents are taking care of my property?
Prior to move-in, PURE Property Management of Florida performs a thorough inspection of the property, documented with pictures to confirm the exact move-in condition of the property. This report is provided to the resident and kept on file for the investor to review.
We review our expectations with the resident to ensure they understand that they are agreeing to keep the property in the condition they receive it. Further, we collect a security deposit to ensure the resident has skin in the game. Prior to the lease expiration date, we send the residents a letter detailing what steps they need to take to maximize the likelihood they will receive their security deposit back. Once the resident has moved out, PURE reviews the condition of the property, in detail, again documenting it through an inspection and photos. Any items damaged beyond normal wear and tear will be repaired and funds withheld from the resident’s deposit. If a resident renews their lease, PURE performs a lease renewal inspection to confirm the resident is continuing to maintain the property.
How do you handle resident's pets?
Many residents have pets. During the investor on-boarding process, we discuss with the investor their preferred pet policy. For those investors that allow pets, PURE Property Management of Florida utilizes a service for pet screening (petscreening.com). The resident is required to complete an application for their pet. The pet is screened by petscreening.com and those results will determine if the pet is approved. Additionally, if a resident has a pet, they are required to pay a non-refundable pet fee to cover the potential damages their pet may cause. There is an important distinction between a pet fee and a pet deposit. A fee is a non-refundable payment, whereas a pet deposit implies the resident may receive the money back. This fee is returned to the investor at the end of residency.
Do most residents renew their leases? Describe your process for lease renewals?
At Resolute PURE Property Management of Florida, we understand that one of the most costly events for a landlord is a resident turnover. There are a number of costs incurred when a resident vacates a property, including repair costs and lost rent from the properties time on the market. While we take measures to protect you from these costs, from holding residents accountable for the condition of the property, to aggressively marketing the property to reduce days on market, there will be some costs associated with a turnover.
With that in mind, PURE has designed our resident experience to increase the likelihood that our residents will renew their leases rather than vacate at the end of their lease. This process starts prior to move-in, when we begin working with our investor clients to help them understand the importance of delivering a rent ready property. Also, prior to move-in, we perform a resident orientation where we set appropriate expectations for the resident and show them how to log into and use their resident portal. We are fair with our residents, if they make reasonable maintenance requests, we encourage our investors to approve those requests. While we understand the need to keep repair costs low, we also know that most residents leave due to maintenance issues rather than rent amounts.
Prior to lease expiration, we reach out to the resident to determine if they intend to renew their lease. If they do not intend to renew their lease, we discuss with them to determine if there is an issue we can address to encourage them to renew. If they intend to renew, we review the rental amounts in the area with the investor to determine if a rent increase is warranted. We encourage the investor to weigh the cost of a resident turnover against the potential rent increase. In addition, we require a renewal inspection where a PURE employee performs a thorough inspection of the property.
How often do I receive reports and hear from you about my property?
At the time you hire PURE Property Management of Florida, you will receive a detailed inspection report, including photos and property condition notes. Once you are onboard, you will receive access to the PURE Investor Portal. You can access the investor portal any time and run reports as desired. In addition, each month when you receive your payment, you will receive an email with a link to your investor portal where a new statement will be available to you.
From there, you will hear from PURE at a minimum twice a year during our investor check-ins. We like to touch base to see how things are going, determine if you have any questions you need answered, and just generally say hi.
Finally, the other time you may hear from PURE is if a required repair or maintenance item exceeds our approval threshold. If this occurs, a representative from PURE will communicate with you, letting you know the issue, what was done to try to address and the amount of the repair for your approval.
I am an out of state investor. Can you take photos of my property so I can see the condition of the property?
Absolutely! PURE Property Management of Florida works with many out of state (and some out of country) investors. Providing thorough inspections is a part of our every day management process, but to the degree you require a specific set of photos or inspections at a time other than our normal inspection schedule, we are happy to accommodate.