Property manager

A property manager advertises the rental, screens tenants, collects rent and arranges repairs.

When you need one

• If you’ll rent it out and can’t handle showings, screening, rent and repairs yourself, or you live far away.
• Commercial property with tenants: from day one.

How to find one

• Ask local investors who they use, and compare fees and contracts.
• In Nevada, property managers need a real estate license plus a property management permit from the Real Estate Division.

Questions to ask

• What’s your monthly fee, and your fee to find a tenant?
• How do you screen tenants?
• How are repairs approved and billed?

A property manager finds and screens tenants, collects rent, handles repairs and keeps owners’ and tenants’ money in trust accounts. In Nevada, managing rentals for others requires a real estate license plus a property management permit. In Texas, collecting rent for someone else from a tenant in a single-family home counts as real estate brokerage, which needs a TREC license (Occupations Code 1101.002). Check your state’s real estate regulator for the licensing rules that apply to managers there.

The biggest risk is the trust account. If a manager mixes or spends owner rents and tenant deposits, owners can lose months of rent. They can still owe tenants their deposits back. Nevada regulators found one Las Vegas broker’s security deposit account held $15 when his records said $185,343.

A license lets you check that the manager is allowed to do the work, see any discipline, and file a complaint with the state regulator. Separately, a state recovery fund can repay some losses caused by licensees, but only certain claimants and claims qualify, usually after a court judgment, and only up to set limits. A recovery fund doesn’t insure your investment or cover every rental problem. In California, it’s the Department of Real Estate’s Consumer Recovery Account. In Nevada, it’s the Real Estate Education, Research and Recovery Fund. In Arizona, it’s the Real Estate Recovery Fund. In Texas, it’s the Real Estate Recovery Trust Account. In Utah, it’s the Real Estate Education, Research, and Recovery Fund (Utah Code 61-2f-503).

How they’re paid

• Ask how the manager is paid: flat fee or share of rent, leasing fees, repair markups. Get it in the management agreement. No reliable sourced typical-fee data was found for these states.
• Make sure rent and deposits go into a separate trust account. You should get monthly statements you can check against your own bank deposits.

Check before you hire

• Check the license with the state real estate regulator, and look at its discipline history. In Nevada, also check the property management permit.
• Ask where rent and security deposits are held and ask for trust account reconciliations.
• Get a written management agreement covering fees, repair spending limits, and any “deferment” or offset arrangements. Nevada: in one case, a broker’s unwritten rent deferment deal led to missing rent.
• Compare monthly owner statements to your own bank deposits. Missing deposits are an early warning.
• Confirm the security deposit will be transferred to you or the next manager if you change managers.
• Ask for references from current owner-clients.

Real stories

Manager stole; licensing let owners recover part of it (2019)

Owners hired Carousel Properties, a Carlsbad management company, to pay fees on their rentals. The company’s owner was accused of taking about $200,000. She faced 29 felony embezzlement counts and took a plea deal for a year in custody. With the district attorney’s help, 23 victims were paid back $172,084.68 from the Department of Real Estate’s Consumer Recovery Account. More payments were pending.

Lesson: California’s real estate recovery account repaid these owners only after a court judgment or restitution order, and other states’ funds have their own rules and limits, if they have one at all. A fund doesn’t prevent the loss, so check statements and the trust account yourself.

Owner tracked deposits, complained, was made whole (2024)

An owner noticed her bank statements showed no rent deposits for several months in 2023, though her two units were rented. In April 2024 she filed a complaint with the Nevada Real Estate Division. By October 2024 she told the investigator the broker had paid all the money he owed her. The Division kept investigating anyway, and the broker’s licenses were later revoked.

Lesson: Comparing statements to your bank account and complaining early to the state regulator can get your money back.

Broker kept rents and deposits; licenses revoked (2025)

The Nevada Real Estate Commission found a Las Vegas broker had misused rents and security deposits for properties he managed. In one complaint, owners of four rented units said they never received more than $23,000 in rent and deposits. His trust account showed $15 in security deposits against records claiming $185,343. The commission revoked all his licenses and ordered more than $35,000 in fines and costs.

Lesson: Ask for trust account reconciliations, and act quickly when rent deposits stop arriving.

Property manager took $586,000 to fund gambling (2025)

A Cedar City property manager pleaded guilty to cheating HOAs, property owners and tenants in Iron County out of more than $586,000. This happened between January 2020 and January 2025. There was also a separate $1.4 million scheme against a bank. He was caught after one victim’s lawyer reported suspicious activity. Investigators found accounts where he was the sole signer. He was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison.

Lesson: Don’t let one person be the only signer on accounts holding your rent and deposits without outside review.