If you own rental property you may find the process of maintaining and running the property has grown untenable in the long run. Perhaps you're too far away from the company to give it the attention it needs, or you're unable to put a lot of time into rent collection and maintenance. Either way it is vital for you to find a reliable company to represent you and your best interests while looking after your investment.

There are four basic ways you can go about finding a trustworthy property management company. First, you can go with a personal referral. Talk to other successful real estate investors that you know and see who they recommend. Find out who they've had bad experiences with, too. You can get a very good feel for the landscape this way, even if you don't ultimately choose the same companies that the people in your network went with. For example, the referral you receive may not service the areas where your properties are located.

The second way you can go about this is to call the Michigan Association of Realtors. The MAR will be able to tell you what property managers service the area your property is located in. They may not be willing to offer recommendations for one over the other, but they'll have contact names, addresses, and phone numbers. Many realty offices offer full service real estate services and you'll find quite a few of them this way. When you call the realty office just ask for the property management division. There are, however, some dangers inherent in choosing a property management/realtor mix for your property.

The third way you can find a property manager is by using a simple Google search. The top listing on Google is All Property Management, and the Michigan link for that is http://www.allpropertymanagement.com/search/michigan-property-management-companies.html. This will give you a list of property managers as well as the ability to contact these managers for a quote.

The fourth way is to simply check your local paper or online newspaper. A search on MLive.com, for example, brings up several companies. Property management companies will often advertise here in the hopes of acquiring new business. Though this can be a rather hit and miss way of finding a good prospect to work with, you will at least be assured that an actively advertising company will have the ability to take on new business-namely, yours.