FAQ
Questions owners actually ask
Written for owners rather than tenants. Where the honest answer is “it depends on your city”, that is what it says.
Fees and getting started
Residential management in Greater Boston is usually priced as a percentage of collected rent, with a separate one-time leasing fee when a new tenant is placed. We quote per property rather than off a rate card, because the right rate for a single-family house is not the right one for an owner with six units — a single published figure would be wrong for most people reading it. You get a written quote covering every fee that would apply to your property, usually the same day, and before any agreement.
Ask this of every manager you compare, and get the answer in writing. A fee charged on rent actually collected means no rent, no management fee — which puts the manager and the owner on the same side of the vacancy question. A fee on scheduled rent is due whether or not the money arrived. The difference matters most in exactly the month you can least afford it, and your written quote will state which basis applies to your property.
Twelve months. Full-service management is a 12-month minimum commitment. The agreement states that term, its notice period and what termination involves before you sign, and we walk you through all three rather than leaving you to find them. Be wary of any manager who is vague about how you would leave.
Usually within a couple of weeks. The work is transferring the lease file, the deposit and its documentation, and the tenant relationship. The deposit transfer is the part that has to be done carefully — Massachusetts has specific requirements about how residential security deposits are held and accounted for, and a transfer is a common point at which the paperwork trail breaks.
Yes. The city pages are the areas where we have enough local detail to write something genuinely useful, not the boundary of where we work. We manage residential rental property across Greater Boston — if your property is nearby and not listed, ask.
Tenants, leasing and screening
You do. We screen every applicant against written criteria, present the file, and tell you plainly which applicant we would choose and why — but the decision is the owner’s. What we will not do is apply the criteria differently to different applicants, because consistency is what makes the decision defensible under fair housing law.
It depends far more on the asking rent than on the marketing. A correctly priced unit in most of Greater Boston leases quickly; an overpriced one sits, and the cost of it sitting almost always exceeds the rent difference that was being argued over. We give you a range and what each end of it is likely to mean for time-to-lease, rather than a single number.
You are told the day rent is late, not at the end of the month. Notices go out on a set schedule, and we work the situation early, when there is still room to resolve it. If it cannot be resolved, eviction in Massachusetts is a court process with strict procedural requirements and it is handled by an attorney — we coordinate, keep the documentation the case depends on, and are honest with you about the timeline, which is longer than most owners expect.
Yes. Ahead of each renewal you get our recommendation on the rent and on the tenant, and you decide. The renewal is usually the highest-leverage decision in the year: keeping a reliable tenant at a slightly softer rent frequently beats a turnover, once the vacancy, the make-ready and the leasing cost are all counted.
Yes, and it has to be planned months ahead. A very large share of Greater Boston tenancies start on September 1, which compresses notice, marketing, showings, turnover work and move-in into a few weeks. A unit that starts being marketed in August has already missed most of the demand.
Money, maintenance and reporting
On a stated date each month, by electronic transfer, with an itemised statement showing every dollar in and out and the vendor invoice behind each expense. You should never have to ask what a line on your statement was.
No — you set a spending threshold, and routine work below it proceeds without waiting on a reply. Above it you see the quote and decide. Requiring approval for everything sounds careful and tends to cost money: a small problem that waits four days for an answer is often a larger problem plus an emergency call-out rate by the time it is addressed.
Licensed and insured trades we work with regularly, not whoever answers the phone first. Using a consistent bench is what makes response times and pricing predictable, and it means the person attending has usually seen the building before.
It is held separately from operating funds and documented from the day it is collected. Massachusetts regulates residential security deposits closely — how they may be collected, how they must be held, what has to be given to the tenant and when — and the penalties for handling one incorrectly are statutory and can substantially exceed the deposit itself. This is stated as of 2026 and is a general description rather than legal advice.
Through the monthly statement, notification of anything material on the day it happens, and photographic documentation of maintenance work and of condition at move-in and move-out. If the only time you hear from your manager is when a statement arrives, you are not being managed, you are being invoiced.
Rules, registration and risk
It depends on the municipality, and the requirements are genuinely different between neighbouring cities. Boston operates a formal rental registration and inspection regime for non-owner-occupied units, stated as of 2026. For other cities we will not state a requirement we have not confirmed — the city pages say plainly where a rule is established and where it is not. For managed properties, confirming the current requirement and filing it is part of the job.
At minimum: keeping the unit in compliance with the state sanitary code for the whole tenancy — heat, hot water, working facilities, sanitary condition — delivering the disclosures the lease requires, handling the security deposit exactly as the statute requires, and respecting the tenant’s right to quiet enjoyment, which constrains when and how you may enter. This is a summary as of 2026, not legal advice; a specific question deserves an answer from a Massachusetts attorney.
Yes. Management does not replace your own coverage, and a policy written for an owner-occupied home is usually the wrong policy once the property is rented. Tell your insurer the property is a rental — the most expensive time to discover a coverage gap is after a claim.
A signed lease runs with the property and survives a sale, so a tenant’s rights continue for the term regardless of who owns it. That does not stop you selling — many buyers actively want a tenanted property — but it does shape the timing, and it is worth planning around before a lease is signed rather than after.
No. Everything on this site is general information about managing residential rental property in Massachusetts, stated as of the year given, and the rules do change. For a specific situation — a deposit dispute, an eviction, a compliance question with money attached — speak to a Massachusetts attorney.
Fee questions in more detail are on the pricing page, and city-specific registration questions are on each area guide.
Question not answered here?
Ask it directly. We would rather have a real conversation than have you guess from a webpage.