Picking a property manager in LA is mostly a contract problem, not a marketing problem. Most owners sign on glossy photography, big-promise commission rates, and a fast pitch, then spend the next 18 months trying to figure out where their money actually went, why they cannot get into their own home, and what their exit clause says. The questions below are the 25 we wish every owner asked before signing anything with any furnished rental manager in Los Angeles. They are grouped by category, written for owners (not for the industry), and benchmarked against how Short Stay in LA actually answers each one.

How to Use This List

Read every question to any prospective manager out loud, write down the answer verbatim, and compare. Vagueness, "depends on the situation," and "we will work that out later" are answers. They mean the contract decides, not the conversation. Get every answer in writing in the management agreement before signing.

A property management agreement that does not put fees, payout cadence, lock-in length, compliance responsibility, and exit terms in writing is not negotiable later. The contract is the relationship.

Group 1: Fee Transparency (Questions 1 to 4)

Fees are where the largest hidden costs live. The headline commission rate (15 percent, 20 percent, 25 percent) is rarely the full story.

1. What is the headline management fee, and is it on gross or net rent?

A 20 percent fee on gross rent is meaningfully different from 20 percent on net. Net means after platform fees, cleaning, and credit card processing have been deducted. Gross is the rent the tenant actually pays. Always confirm gross or net in writing.

2. What additional fees exist on top of the headline commission?

Common add-ons: setup fees ($500 to $3,000 one-time), marketing fees (often 3 to 5 percent on top of commission), photography fees ($300 to $1,500), inspection fees per turnover ($75 to $200), pet fees, holiday surcharges, "concierge" fees, technology fees. Get the full list.

3. What is the markup on cleaning, maintenance, and vendor work?

This is the single biggest hidden line item in LA furnished rental management. Some managers pass through cleaning at cost. Most mark it up 15 to 50 percent. Some mark up vendor invoices the same way. A $200 invoiced repair can become a $300 charge to the owner without disclosure.

4. Are there guest-facing fees that you keep, or do those come back to me?

Cleaning fees, pet fees, early-checkin fees, and damage waivers paid by the guest can either flow to the owner, get split, or get kept entirely by the manager. The split should be in writing.

The full structure of how fees stack in LA is in our property management fees compared post.

Group 2: Compliance Handling (Questions 5 to 8)

LA's furnished rental market is heavily regulated and the rules differ by city. The wrong answer here can cost the owner $50,000-plus in fines, and most contracts push that liability back onto the owner.

5. Who is legally responsible for registration, tax remittance, and compliance with the LA Home-Sharing Ordinance or local equivalent?

Almost every standard management agreement makes the owner solely responsible. That is fine if the manager actively helps file. It is dangerous if the manager hands over the registration form and disappears. Ask: do you file on my behalf, do you remind me before deadlines, and do you absorb the fine if you missed a filing window you committed to handle?

6. How do you handle minimum-stay rules in cities like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, and Malibu?

Each of those cities has either banned short-term rental or imposed a 30-day-plus minimum. A manager that lists a Beverly Hills home for nightly rental is exposing the owner to massive fines. Ask: do your booking systems hard-block sub-31-night stays in restricted cities, and can you show me the listing rules in writing?

7. How do you handle Transient Occupancy Tax collection and remittance?

For under-31-night stays, TOT is owed to the city (14 percent in LA proper, varies elsewhere). Major platforms collect and remit it, but direct bookings need manual handling. Confirm who files, when, and what happens if a filing is late.

8. How do you handle insurance requirements, COI requests, and additional-insured endorsements?

Corporate housing placements often require the management company to provide certificates of insurance with the owner and the placement firm listed as additional insureds. A manager who cannot produce a COI quickly will lose those placements. Insurance specifics are covered in our insurance requirements guide.

Group 3: Payout Terms (Questions 9 to 11)

When and how you get paid is the single most underrated question in a management contract.

9. What is the payout cadence, and when does the clock start?

Common options: weekly, biweekly, monthly, "end of stay." End-of-stay sounds friendly until you have a 90-day tenant and your first payout arrives 13 weeks after move-in. Confirm the cadence in writing.

10. How long does the manager hold funds, and where are they held?

California requires that owner funds be held in a separate trust account, not commingled with operating funds. Ask for the bank, the account type, and the holding period. A reputable manager answers in one sentence.

11. What happens to interest earned on held funds?

For large portfolios with significant float, this matters. The honest answer is "the manager keeps it" or "we split it"; both are common. The wrong answer is silence.

Group 4: Guest and Tenant Screening (Questions 12 to 14)

For corporate housing and mid-term placements, screening is what protects the home.

12. What is your screening process for tenants on 31-day-plus stays?

The baseline for furnished mid-term rental is ID verification, employment or relocation verification, credit check or sponsor letter, and a signed lease. Anything less is exposing the owner. For corporate placements, the placement firm or employer often handles screening directly; confirm who.

13. Do you require a signed lease, security deposit, and renter's insurance?

The 2026 standard for furnished rentals is yes, yes, and yes. A first-month rent plus a security deposit equal to one month's rent is typical for stays under 6 months. Renter's insurance is often required and often provided by the relocation firm.

14. How do you handle damage claims and security deposit disputes?

Ask for the actual workflow: who documents move-in condition, who documents move-out, what is the dispute escalation path, and what is the typical resolution timeline. California security deposit law (Civil Code 1950.5) gives 21 days to return or itemize; a manager that does not know that number cold is a yellow flag.

Group 5: Photography and Listing (Questions 15 to 17)

The listing is the storefront. Quality varies wildly.

15. Do you hire professional interior photography, and is it included or extra?

Real interior photography in LA runs $350 to $1,200 per home. Some managers include it. Some bill it back. Some use phone photos. The difference shows up in occupancy.

16. Where do you list the home, and which platforms drive your bookings?

For nightly stays: Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com. For mid-term stays: Furnished Finder, Blueground network, Anyplace, Corporate Housing by Owner, and direct corporate relocation desk relationships (the highest-paying segment, see corporate housing demand). A manager whose entire pipeline runs through Airbnb is leaving the corporate market on the table.

17. Who owns the listing accounts, the reviews, and the photography?

This is the question almost nobody asks. If you decide to leave, do the photos come with you? Does the listing? Do the years of accumulated 5-star reviews? In most contracts, the answer is no. The manager owns the listing infrastructure. Negotiate this before signing, not after.

Group 6: Maintenance Handling (Questions 18 to 20)

Maintenance is where small annoyances compound into big breakdowns of trust.

18. What is the approval threshold below which you spend without asking me?

Common: $250, $500, $1,000. Below the threshold the manager fixes and bills back; above, they call. Confirm the number and how emergencies (water leak at 2 AM) are handled.

19. Do you have in-house maintenance staff or third-party vendors, and what is the typical response time?

In-house is faster but often comes with a higher hourly billed rate. Third-party is slower but transparent. Ask the typical response time for a non-emergency (24 to 72 hours is reasonable) and an emergency (2 to 4 hours).

20. Do you provide a monthly maintenance log and an itemized statement?

Without an itemized log, owners have no idea where money is going. A monthly PDF statement showing every visit, every part, every hour, and every markup is the baseline.

Group 7: Exit Terms (Questions 21 to 23)

The exit clause is more important than the signup terms.

21. What is the lock-in period, and what is the early-termination fee?

Many LA managers ask for 12-month minimums with 2-to-3-month early-termination fees. Some ask for 24-month minimums. Some have month-to-month with 30-day notice. The right answer for the owner is the shortest lock-in the manager will accept, with a clear written notice period.

22. What happens to active bookings if I leave?

Two paths: bookings transfer to the owner or new manager and the outgoing manager keeps their commission on already-booked stays; or bookings get cancelled and refunded. The first is owner-friendly; the second is destructive. Get the policy in writing.

23. Do I take the data with me?

Tenant lists, contact info, booking history, financial records, photography, listings, and reviews. By default, most contracts keep all of this with the manager. Negotiate data portability before signing.

Group 8: Owner Access and Transparency (Questions 24 to 25)

This is the test for whether a manager actually believes the owner is the boss.

24. Can I stay in my own home, and on what notice?

Some managers require 30-day notice with restrictions during peak season. Some require 14-day. The owner-friendly answer is "your home, your call, give us 7 days so we can coordinate around bookings." Confirm in writing.

25. Do I have real-time access to the calendar, the bookings, the bank statements, and the maintenance log?

A 2026 management platform should give the owner a dashboard. If the only way to see what is happening with your own property is to email and wait, you are working with infrastructure from 2014. A modern manager runs an owner portal with live calendar, live revenue, live maintenance, and live statements.

How Short Stay in LA Answers These

We built Short Stay in LA around the answers we wish we had received as homeowners ourselves. The summary version:

Fee transparency: single headline commission on gross rent, no setup fees, no marketing fees, cleaning and vendor work passed through at cost with the invoices attached to every statement.
Compliance: we handle LA HSO registration on owner's behalf for owner-occupied properties, hard-block sub-31-night stays in restricted cities, and own the TOT filings for every direct booking.
Payout: monthly on the first business day, funds held in segregated California trust accounts, statement attached.
Screening: ID verification, employment or sponsor verification, signed lease, and security deposit on every 31-day-plus placement.
Listing: professional interior photography included, listings across the full mid-term and corporate-relocation network, owner owns the photography and the data.
Maintenance: $300 owner-approval threshold, monthly itemized log, 2-hour emergency response.
Exit: 60-day notice, no early-termination fee after month 3, all data and active bookings transfer to the owner.
Owner access: stay in your home with 7 days notice, live owner portal with calendar, revenue, and statements.

For the underlying economics, see how much you can earn. For furnishing standards that win corporate placements, see how to furnish your home for corporate tenants.

What This Means for Your Home

The 25 questions above take about 30 minutes to walk through with any prospective manager. If a manager will not answer in writing, or hedges on more than 3 of them, the answer is to keep looking. The LA furnished rental market has enough good operators that owners do not need to settle for vague terms. Short Stay in LA answers every question above in writing, in the management agreement, before any signature.

Run your address through our earnings calculator to see what your home would generate under an owner-first management model, or list your property and we will walk through this checklist with you on the first call.

The Owner-First Property Management Checklist for LA (2026)