How to Vet a Property Manager Without a Full-Time HR Department
You manage a dozen units, maybe twenty. No HR person. No paralegal. Just you, a spreadsheet, and a stack of applications from property management firms that all promise the moon. The problem? Without a vetting system, you are one bad hire away from a Fair Housing complaint or a maintenance crisis that bleeds cash. This is not about 'trusting your gut.' Gut feelings have sunk more portfolios than bad roofs. What you need is a repeatable, low-overhead vetting workflow that does not require a corporate back office. Here is how to build one, step by step, without a full-time HR department. Who Needs This and What Goes Wrong Without It A field lead says teams that document the failure mode before retesting cut repeat errors roughly in half. The solo landlord trap: why you think you can skip vetting You own four doors. Maybe eight.