Estey Real Estate Sales & Property Management
Providing our expertise to meet YOUR needs!
November 2013

Street Address
935 First Street,
Benicia, CA 94510
Phone: 707.745.0924

Email: info@esteyrealestate.com
Website: www.esteyrealestate.com

Welcome Maureen!

Meet Maureen Patterson, she joined our office a few months ago and has been working with our tenants and investment owners in maintaining their property. She has been doing a great job and we love having her working with us. And while she works for us during the week, she goes to school on the weekend. She just graduated from college and has started her masters in Applied Criminology. She is great at piecing together the "real story". Her brother is also in police work. So when you call about repairs to our office, Maureen will take the "report".

Best Practices

Check Your Insurance: Events can happen - flood, extreme heat, earthquakes, fire, and more! It is important to check your insurance to obtain the best coverage possible and ensure that it is current. Review now with your insurance agent before a disaster/emergency occurs.

If An Emergency Occurs: Please be patient and avoid tying up critical phone lines and our time. Our first priority during any emergency is to handle the situation, taking any necessary measures for the safety of your property and your tenants. Then, we will contact you as soon as we are able.

Our Associations

Showing Appreciation

It's hard to believe that we are reaching the end of 2013. All businesses have been challenged with the economy in the last few years but people now seem to relaxing and making moves again. To buy or rent a nicer, bigger home. We appreciate you as our owners. Estey Real Estate prides itself that our owners are an acceptation to the norm. You give us the ability to maintain the value of your property through excellent care and concern as we do for our own investment properties. We also hire great property managers to manage our own investment properties. Keeping the arms-length away is good advice to everyone.

It is time to remind you that we will be doing the Tenant Appreciation $25.00 during the closing month of December. Estey Real Estate does the work, pays for the stamps, purchases the cards and the administration for this small truly appreciated by your tenant's " Thank you". If you calculate the amount, it's $2.08 a month for 12 months, not even a cup of Starbucks coffee a month. It's not much, but as your public relations company, it goes along way. However, if you wish to increase the amount, please let us know as we do have owners that do this. Otherwise, $25.00 will be deducted from your account in November so that the cards can be sent the first week in December. This is an optional program so if you do not want to participate, please let us know ASAP. Of course, if your tenant givens notice to vacate, a card is not sent or if we have other issue that we feel should not be included with the card, we reserve the right to do so and your account will not have a deducted.

We get many tenants that thank you for the card. We will notify you of these responses. A happy tenant takes better care of your property. We love happy tenants.

We appreciate your continued business.

Sincerely,

The Staff at Estey Real Estate

Realizing The Benefits

Many times property owners question property management services because of the fees. Now with a distressed economy, this can become an even bigger question when a difficult market puts investment finances to the test. After quoting our fees to a prospective client, we often hear - "you want that much money for just collecting the rent?" Of course, there is much more to managing rental property than "just collecting the rent," and we are sure that you realize this as well.

Although our management fees show up prominently on our statements, if you look at the complete picture, the costs are absorbed in many ways.

Tax Benefits
The most obvious benefit is that all management fees are tax deductible, immediately reducing the full cost of the fees. Be sure to report all fees to your tax person so you can take advantage of these important deductions.

Reduced Maintenance Costs
Lower maintenance costs can offset management fees several ways. We start by taking the "preventative approach" to maintenance; this can mean great savings over time because it can prevent large repairs or even major maintenance. For example, installing doorstops can prevent big holes in walls and fixing faucet leaks can avoid dry rot in cabinets and flooring.

However, preventing major maintenance is not always possible. Because our company handles maintenance on a volume basis, we are generally able to procure reliable contractors at a better rate than many property owners can, particularly if they do not live locally.

It is vital for us to keep current on what labor and maintenance costs should be since this is part of daily management. For example, if an owner has not shopped for a roof replacement in years, they may be unaware of current prices and newer materials. They could pay more than they should for the job and still not obtain the best workmanship. A savings on a major repair can add up to several monthly management fees.

Professional Expertise
A major benefit to our management services is our professional expertise. It may seem that a vacancy is too long, but we know that the wrong tenant can be a much more expensive experience. It is much more costly to rehabilitate a property and/or pay legal fees because of poor tenant screening.

Moreover, knowing and implementing current legislation can reduce costly mistakes when handling tenants. There are owners that have paid, literally, millions of dollars because of mold, lead-based paint, and other similar lawsuits. Again, we use a preventative approach to save you unnecessary legal costs. A good example is that most property owners do not know there are new requirements for work concerning lead-based paint which took effect in April 2010. (We will cover this in our next issue.) The courts do not accept ignorance of the law and fines are far more than the management fee paid to a property management company for several years.

Peace of Mind
Many owners simply find that just having someone else worry about the many details of property management is simply worth the management fee. Avoiding unpleasant confrontations with tenants when problems arise, handling maintenance emergencies, or serving notices is definitely a way to avoid stress – a benefit to any owner.

We will continue to work to give you the full value of your management fee with our services and reduce unnecessary expenses. In the long term, our management fees may help to increase the return on your investment.

The material provided in this newsletter is for informational and educational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice.
Although we believe this material is accurate, we cannot guarantee that it is 100% without errors.

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