Lets assume another LL wanted to hire you as his/her temporary Property Manager. Your temporary job will be to get the upcoming vacancy fixed, painted, cleaned-up and ready to rent again. Also, you will be billing the owner for your time only here.

I have a guy that I call my goon roofer. He does random things for me once in a while with his guys. Every once in a while, he calls me to do some electrical or plumbing for him. He pays me 30 and hour. In this area, that's a good wage.

NE,

Roy, no, but that's what I'd pay. What does the turnover entail? Caulk, paint, clean and some new stove top drip trays? That's $15 an hour work.

NE,

Basic turnover stuff (no remodeling). If your hourly rate justifies it, you can farm it out to someone else. Again, considering your skills in doing a basic turn-over, what are you worth paying per hour?

The concept of a temporary property manager flies in the face of industry norms. Normally, 10-12% of gross revenue plus a 20% override on maintenance and repairs is customary compensation.

If you hire a person to be a temporary property manager, who will only hire subs on your behalf...20% of the value of the job, not by the hour.

If you hire this person to actually do the work himself, then:

(a) for skilled jobs - plumbing, electrical work, drywall repair and finish, precision painting - you pay the going rate for a skilled handyman. $25-$50.

(b) for unskilled jobs - digging, yard cleaning, window washing, kitchen and bath cleaning - $15/hr.

(c) jobs like A/C repairs, flooring, you pay by the job.

If I'm the guy doing the painting, doing the cleaning, doing the repairs, I'd probably do an hourly rate. $10/hr is unskilled labor in my area. $15/hr is a more skilled rate. $20-$30/hr is more like plumber/electrician rates in my area.

Great topic, Roy!

I think the first step to generating above average income is deciding that you are WORTH MORE than average income. Your post asks us to ask ourselves that question.

Think about this...what was your first job for pay that YOU chose for yourself. Not something your parents made you do. When someone offers you $X, did you agree immediately, or did you bargain for more? Do you accept what someone else tells you your labor, skill, and brain are worth, or do you know what you are worth and demand it?

Once upon a time I was happy to work for $6.45/hour flipping burgers and cooking steaks for Applebees. I was a junior in college and minimum wage was still $5.50 or something. Thought I was a living like a king. Then one of the guys whom I worked with told me about the 4-bed room house he bought next to the college campus and how he rented out 3 of the rooms to other students for $250 a month, a bargain back then, and more than enough to cover his mortgage, taxes, insurance, and upkeep. He was making the same $6.45/hour I was, but also an extra $1.04 24/7/365 waking, sleeping, and even while he was working somewhere else.

It changed my thinking.

I set a goal a few years back to get to $200/hour. To get there, I've developed my "all calls go to voicemail" and "everyone gets a canned response" philosophy and mostly automated the screening, showing, and application process. Less time spent = more money per hour.

No one is handing me a check in return for a statement of billing, so it take a little work to quantify.

I take my monthly P&L statement and find out how much do I earn from:

1) cash flow brought home for personal use (payday)

2) amortization on loans (i.e. debt pay down)

Then I divide by the estimated number of hours worked.

How do I justify it? I want it and people are satisfied to give it to me. What other kind of justification is there?

I'm happy to say I hit my goal of $200/hour and have since raised it. Heading toward $400/hour... Come on along for the ride. :-)

It's actually a tough question to really answer. On an hourly basis, I'm worth more than any turnover guy I would hire. I own the business, I own the houses and I know how to do the work. Regardless of whether or not if I do it or want to do it.

If I was going to caulk and paint for you, I can't say that I'd charge $15-$20 an hour. I could go get a job on any rag tag carpentry or roofer crew for that much or more.

It's kinda like this, if you were just getting started on your first rental property and had NO CLUE what you were doing or even where to start, I most likely wouldn't even mess with you and just give you the number of some of the guys I use at times.

When my tenant's children were playing ball in their rented apartment, they broke up a large front picture window. The glass went from the inside pushed to the outside. At first they claimed someone through a rock through the window. But the balls markings on the wall and several witnesses who were in the front patio of the building said otherwise.

So I boarded up the window and asked the tenants to call a class company to get it fixed. Instead the tenants called the City Housing Authority and I was given a violation, I must fix the window.

So case in point:

a) I am a licensed building contractor. If I purchase the replacement glass sheet for $35, cut it down to size and install it myself -- the courts (Small claims or Eviction) will only award a landlord their true costs, no labor.

b) But when I call a outside glass company in to replace the glass and get charged $175 -- then I can expect my tenant to cover that higher costs.

This story is just to give you and idea that a "landlord" time is sometimes frowned upon by "government" as respect to tenant reimbursement.

So when I ask my tenants to cough up $20-$35 for glass, and they don't, then I will call in a glass company and deduct from their deposit the costs ($175), then give them a 5 day notice to bring their deposit back up to the "lease" requirements.

Also as a licensed plumbing contractor, when a tenant looses their wedding ring down the "John" and then wants me to go hunting for it -- another licensed plumbing contractor with a sewer camera fitted with a retriever will charge up to $500 to recover jewelry down the sewer line. But I as the owner, manager and plumber of the building -- should do the service for free, according to the "City" judges.

If the LL was of equal value to me, I would help, no charge and would hope when I was in a bind they would stand in for me.

There's a difference between what my time is worth to ME and what it's worth to someone else.

I have an hourly rate (less than SID's!) that I would have to make if I took a JOB. So nobody would hire me to do $15/hr paint job. That said, the last time we had a turnover I painted it myself, because I could paint the whole thing faster than finding someone else to do it. And I often do minor repairs myself because it would take just as much time to schedule a handyman and show him what needed to be done.

Robin, work orders are your friend! I make them as I do the move-out walk thru and take pictures to text to handyman along with work order.

Then when he's done I just go down a copy/checklist. Takes 15 minutes to make...15 to review...30 seconds to issue payment.

Finding competent workers is one of the tasks you should do, not the actual layout of work. You want the guy who charges $30/hour and can work off a work order, has his own tools, transportation, and reputation to promote vs. the irresponsible goofball off Craigslist who can't be trusted and charges $20/hour and walks off with $100 in loaned gear. The $10/hour saves you TONS of time and money on redos and delays.

Sources: VFW post, Boy/Girl Scout troop leaders, local Boys and Girl's Club (the volunteers, not so much the kids), church, Kiwanas/Rotary/Optimist Club, etc.

My handyman charges $25.00/hour. My plumber charges $75.00/hour. My CPA charges $150.00/hour. My attorney's hourly rate is around $250.00.

In other words, what is YOUR TIME worth by the hour? Mine is at least $50.00/hour. If a newbie LL wanted to pick my brain for 1 hour, my minimum charge would be $50.00/hour.

Two components that are often overlooked when determining what a job is work: Responsibility and Risk.

People today who whine about wealth inequality often use this argument: "This CEO makes 371 times more than his average worker. Does he work 371 times harder than the guy on the floor?"

No, and that's the point. Work SMARTER, not HARDER. Use your unique blend of talent, skill, and work ethic to generate something that most other people can't or won't do.

A person's pay should reflect the responsibility and risk of the position, not just how hard you work. I can hire a guy to dig a ditch with a foundation with a shovel, or I can hire a backhoe operator. Mr. Backhoe gets paid more because he does the work faster, cheaper, and with less risk of failing to complete the job than a guy with a shovel. Same for the guy who builds sky scrapers vs. single family houses.

Pay isn't just drops of sweat and hours on the work site.

So don't be too tempted to short change yourself thinking you're only worth $50/hour. I'd say a guy who can convince people to sell him houses for $5000 and turn those into fully rehabbed, cash-flowing rentals is worth at least $200/hour and probably MORE!

Hire out the $50/hour jobs and focus on the $200+/hour jobs!