I agree with you that depending on the owner and the property location, it is sometimes advantageous to manage the property yourself. And you are right – owning commercial property is like running a business! And it better be preplanned and done right, or you will lose money and your shirt.

In my blog, I specifically mentioned multiple units “in one location”. I was talking about large apartment complexes, hence my comment about “all in one location”. For those, you definitely need an on-site manager, or your time will be taken up by showing properties, collecting rents, and performing maintenance. And many investors don’t necessarily buy properties in their own state. I’m in CA, and we currently have offers out on multi-unit properties in Texas, Mississippi, and Florida. As far as owning, my partners and I do prefer 100+ unit properties, which makes it much more cost-efficient to have an on-site manager. Same thing for self-storage units – there has to be at least 30,000 sq ft of rentable area, to justify an on-site manager.

As far as smaller properties that are scattered near where you live, I agree that it could be more profitable to manage them yourself, at least until you build up some cashflow, or until you get too many to handle.

Personally, I manage my own SFRs and condos if they’re within 400 miles of where I live. That’s right – 400 miles. I manage my own houses as far as Phoenix, even though I live in Southern California.

Mind you, I use “hard-nose” landlording and I never hear from my tenants once they move in, so it’s not as bad as it sounds. I’ll talk about “hard-nose” landlording in the next few days.