Rich Dad's Advisors: The ABC's of Property Management: What You Need to Know to Maximize Your Money Now: What You Need to Know to Maximise Your Money [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

[...]

Ken McElroy should be a familiar name if you've kept up with the Rich Dad Advisor's series of books. The The ABC's of Property Management is McElroy's third book about real estate investing but this one is somewhat unique because it tackles a topic that hasn't been covered much in any other real estate book and that's property management.

The book is split into three sections. In addition, you get the usual foreward by Robert Kiyosaki himself. One of the more humorous sections of the book is the introduction because it details an account of what can happen when properties go bad.

Section one deals with whether you should hire a property manager or manage the property yourself and this chapter is over half of the book. One underlying premise of the section is that if you've never managed a property, it's a lot tougher,and more importantly, much more time consuming then most people think. The final chapter of this section has a ton of good information and it details a month in the life of a property manager. Things will go wrong folks and if you're not prepared to deal with the problems yourself, then it's probably going to be money out of your pocket.

Section two discusses how to find a good property manager. You get to read about the types of management companies as well as some of the things you'll want to look for, at least system wise, when looking at a property manager.

Section three is the shortest section and it discusses how to hire a good property manager. Here, McElroy takes you through a three tiered system of evaluating a property manager.

Overall, it's a solid read but there's two knocks. The first is that it's geared more towards bigger properties. The "month in the life of a property manager" deals with an eight unit complex and some of the examples consist of big, multi-unit properties. While this isn't neccesarily a bad thing, there's only some information on single family homes so buyer beware. The other knock is, for $17, you're basically getting a 120 page book. There's some sample forms in the back that add about 20 more pages but it's not really meaty. I'd give it a "B" rating, so it's basically something worth picking up if you're really interested in the subject, but not a book I'd consider mandatory reading.

McElroy wrote two other books, but they deal mainly with real estate investing. I am amazed that this book is far less popular than the other two. Property management is the key to real estate success. It's not just about finding a good deal, doing the due diligence, and closing the transaction. If people are not interested in learning how to manage a property or at least learning how to find a good property management firm, then they should not be buying real estate, because real estate requires work. It is not a mutual fund or stock. When you buy a small apartment building or a single family home to rent, you are in the business of real estate, which means you sell rental space, and if you don't provide any customer service to your clients/tenants, you are unlikely to be successful. I found this book to be really good. It covers topics such as how to manage and maximize cash flow, how to find the right property manager, and how to decide if you should manage your property yourself.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

The book of the week was The ABC's of Property Management by Ken McElroy. This is another book from of the Rich Dad series, a series that I am a huge fan of. It's not the first book I've read by McElroy either. He is a great writer and gives all types of great information about the real estate sector. This book was clearly about property management and I found it very helpful.

I think the most helpful aspect of this book is that it opens your eyes up to the work that goes into property management. It's a big decision whether or not to manage your property yourself or have someone else do it. The largest incentive to self-managing is decreasing expenses and thus increasing cash flow. However, when you dive deeper into self-managing, you could potentially do more damage and cost yourself more money in the long-run due to lack of experience and know-how.

There are several things that could cost you money in the long-run by self-managing. It could be legal fees because you didn't follow the right protocol when evicting someone. It could be maintenance fees because you tried to fix something yourself and didn't have the skills or didn't keep up with preventative maintenance like you should have. And maybe worst of all, it could be the cost of physical vacancy because you don't have the resources to get the right tenant into an apartment within a reasonable amount of time.

Property management is a full-time job for people for a big reason- it's a lot of work! One of my favorite investments is cash flowing real estate, but it is important to know when your abilities cease to be effective and where a professional management company should step in and help out. But don't get me wrong, I don't think that property management isn't something that can be done alone. It all depends on the size of the property and your time-constraints. If you have invested in a duplex and you live a few miles away from it, it would make sense to self-manage it. And I think it's really good experience for anybody going into real estate investing. However, if you have a 30-unit apartment building a couple miles away you'll have to really think about the pros and cons of self-managing. If you are like me and have a full-time job it would be very difficult to manage it effectively without exhausting yourself completely in the process.

McElroy has a great system for researching a property management company in the book. It has 3 levels of research that I will summarize real quick. Level 1 you will search the internet for the companies and get yourself a good list with any background information you can dig up on them. Then with Level 2 you can visit the companies. Take a look around their operation, ask about their staffing, maintenance connections, and the accounting program they are using and, lastly, ask for a list of the properties they already oversee. Secret shop these properties and look for cleanliness of the property, effectiveness of local management, availability of rental resources... depending on the property, you may have more things to investigate like a clubhouse, a pool, mailboxes, etc. Then with Level 3 you take your data to your team and ask what they think. They could be your lawyers, friends in property management, accountant, anyone that may have some insight on your big decision.

A really great resource for real estate is at Ken McElroy's website at [...]. It has all types of great sample forms that help give the scope of property management.

I recommend this book to anyone that is going into real estate investing. It has all kinds of signature Rich Dad tips that all help to maximize your cash flow. As always, if you have any questions on the book don't hesitate to ask. I would be more than happy to help anyone that wants it.