Frequently Asked Questions

Most people think they are getting relief from a 2 am overflowing toilet phone call.  The fact of the matter, emergency maintenance calls are quite rare.

In reality, hiring a property manager provides peace of mind.

1. It’s removing lingering stress that a vacancy will happen during your vacation with the kids
2. It’s no longer spending hours Googling for the updates on fair housing laws or changes in lease agreements; having the confidence that undue legal exposure doesn’t exist
3. It’s continued ease that regular inspections are being conducted and preventative opportunities are made aware before catastrophic failure occurs
4. It’s the understanding that your Resident has an entire team of folks dedicated to making their experience the best it can possibly be
5. It’s no longer dealing directly with Chuck in a Truck handyman that never shows up on time
6. It’s transitioning your real estate investment to becoming truly passive

You likely got into real estate investing to generate wealth and create more free time so you can do the things you LOVE.  Go do those things, we’ll handle the rest.

The WHM founders started managing their own investment property as far back as 2007. In March 2014 REIS Property Management and MKE PM were formed, then in August 2018 both companies merged to become Welcome Home Milwaukee.

We currently manage over 400 units and have a team of 16 folks including our management & maintenance teams.

All client communication routes through your Senior Property Manager.  This allows you to have a dedicated point of contact for all of your properties, and we are committed to responses under 24-hours, most often the same day.

Well first off, we charge a flat-fee which is a bit different than many providers in Milwaukee. That means the higher your rent, the more YOU get to keep. You can find our pricing and even our competitors pricing right on our website under the pricing tab or by clicking Pricing.

Monthly fee of $99 per door.

Lease renewal always includes an on-site inspection and our resident loyalty analysis, the fee is $199.

Our placement fee is $799 and includes our 12-Month Eviction Guarantee.

We charge our monthly fee when your resident moves out as we continue to oversee the property, manage vendors and work towards selecting the next great Resident.

Service calls vary on the vendor that we need, but for our in-house technicians we charge $70/hour with no trip charge.

Make sure to check out our pricing tab on our website for the all inclusive list of our services & fees.

Our property management agreement has always been, and will always remain, a month to month agreement. We strive to earn your business every single month. If we fall short, there is no expectation to continue utilizing our services.

Roughly 400 units all over Milwaukee County. You can see where the properties are located on our property map, WHM Property Map.

Our vacancy rate generally tracks at or below 6%. When properties are well renovated we can often show while they are still occupied, often resulting in a lease signed & move-in scheduled before the current Resident even moves out! In these cases, vacancy can be reduced to just days.

We are a scattered site property manager, so we handle single family and small multi-family (up to 8-units) in Milwaukee County.

We use a few tools including our internal software Appfolio & Rentometer, then evaluate each property based on size/condition and compare to other comparables we manage in the area. We set rental rates to attract the best candidate possible for your property.

Our post to lease number averages 12-days (the time from when we post a property available until a lease is signed). That number tends to go up in winter months and down during the leasing season.

Fair housing education is a huge part of professional property management, and a bit much to try and spell out in text here. We make sure our team is up to speed on all new laws and fair housing education by bringing in a Milwaukee Tenant/Landlord lawyer every year to do a full day of education.

Yes! All property management firms need to be licensed Wisconsin real estate brokerages, you can search for that credential at https://licensesearch.wi.gov/

We are also insured with all typical coverages including business liability, errors & omissions, cyber security and workers compensation.

Assuming a property is in rentable condition, units often are leased in under 2-weeks. In situations where maintenance work is required, that timeline can be longer depending on the work required.

Our team handles Resident maintenance requests 24/7 via Resident portals and/or our emergency maintenance line.

We start with troubleshooting the concern in hopes to remedy the issue immediately and avoid sending a costly vendor to the property. If that is unsuccessful, then we dispatch our in-house technician or vendor (whichever is appropriate) to address the issue. Most maintenance issues are addressed and scheduled within just a few days!

When on-site, our in-house technicians will take before/after photos of the issue and also do a preventative maintenance inspection to ensure no other obvious issues exist.

The first 100-days of working with WHM we consider the honeymoon period, and tend to be more communication to get us acquainted. Client Onboarding Timeline.

Once things are operational, we operate with “no news is good news”. We send statements on a monthly basis and you always have access to your client folder with photos & documents for your viewing pleasure.

We sure do! It’s our mission at Welcome Home Milwaukee that our entire team is on the path to owning their own rental property. We firmly believe REI is one of the best ways to build generational wealth, and put our money where our mouth is. You can see all 5 of our core beliefs on our property map page, WHM Property Map.

We process owner ACH disbursements on the 7th and the 15th of every month, which hit your bank account electronically. The occasional weekend and holiday will delay those payments.

We feel the amount of work associated with managing your property isn’t directly correlated to the amount of rent it commands. Why would we get paid more just because you purchased a higher-end rental property? As your rent goes up, you get to keep the difference not your manager.

WHM only offers term leases. We want to control the seasonality of your rental property; having a vacant unit in winter can run up a large tab on vacancy, lower re-rental rates not to mention heating costs and dare say property damage (burst pipe) due to cold weather.

We pride ourselves in offering one of the most thorough screening processes in Milwaukee! We flip every stone to assemble a full picture, then back all of our Resident placements up with our unmatched 12-month eviction guarantee. We pick a bad egg? It’s us paying for that eviction, not you as the owner.

Generally in single family homes the Resident will pay all utilities, water and handle lawn/snow.

In duplexes the Landlord will then be responsible for the water, Residents still handle utilities and lawn/snow.

Small multi-family buildings can vary quite a bit, often the burden of lawn/snow falls on the Landlord. In many cases, common area maintenance and fire inspections are required as well.

With the exception of WE Energies, WHM handles all billing and charges back to the Resident the amount they owe. We never let a resident handle billing directly with water works, that can result in large balance passed on to the property owner via taxes.