How it works
How Property Management Works With Harvest
How Harvest manages a San Antonio rental, step by step: rental analysis, onboarding, leasing with fair screening, and monthly management with inspections.
Short Version
Owners usually call us after something went wrong. A home sat empty for two months. A tenant stopped paying. A repair request went unanswered until it became a bigger repair. Or the owner was the one answering the 2am call and decided they were done.
Every property Harvest Real Estate Property Management takes on goes through the same four steps: a rental analysis, onboarding, leasing, and ongoing management. The steps are the same whether your home is vacant, rented by you, or coming over from another company. Only the starting point changes.
The whole thing runs under one license and one broker, Betsy Nava-Flores, TREC #9004826. That is the point of hiring a broker instead of a call center. The person who priced your home is the person who answers when you call about it.
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Step 1: Rental Analysis
Every property starts with a number: what the home should rent for. Betsy builds it from current and recent comparable rentals near your home, then adjusts for what makes yours different, such as size, updates, condition, yard, garage and the street it sits on.
Price is the single biggest lever on how fast a rental leases. Too high and the home sits, and every empty month costs a full month's rent. Too low and you give money away for the whole lease. The goal is a price that leases to a qualified tenant without leaving money on the table.
The analysis also covers what the home needs before it is ready to rent, and which updates pay off in a rental and which do not. You finish this step knowing the rent range, how it was reached, and what management would cost you in dollars. It is free, and there is no obligation. Ask for your free rental analysis.
How Property Management Works With Harvest
Step 2: Onboarding
When you decide to go ahead, you sign a management agreement that spells out the fee, what is included and how either side can end it. Our pricing is posted on the site: 10% of rent charged each month and a leasing fee of 50% of one month's rent when we place a tenant, or 8% per month for active-duty service members, veterans and military retirees.
Next come the practical pieces. We collect keys, garage remotes and gate codes, HOA contact details, and warranty information for the home's systems. You give us your bank details for direct deposit of owner draws. The standard repair approval limit is $250, which means a small repair gets fixed without waiting on a call to you, and anything larger comes to you first.
If the home already has a tenant, onboarding also means collecting the existing lease, the tenant's security deposit and payment history from you or your previous manager. We introduce ourselves to the tenant, tell them where rent goes now and who to call for repairs, and time the switch around the rent due date. Read how switching from another manager works.
Step 3: Leasing
A vacant home gets ready, gets marketed and gets shown. That means listing photos, the listing itself, and showings handled by us, so you are not fielding calls from every person who sees a sign.
Applicants are screened against written criteria, and the same criteria are applied to every applicant. That is the fairest way to choose a tenant and it is what Fair Housing law requires. The screen looks at whether an applicant can afford the rent and how they have handled past rentals. It never looks at who they are.
The approved applicant signs a Texas REALTORS® residential lease, the standard lease form used across Texas. Before move-in, the home is inspected and photographed room by room. Those photos become the record of the home's condition, and they matter most at move-out, when they show what changed during the lease.
The leasing fee of 50% of one month's rent is charged when we place a tenant. If you only want help with this step, tenant placement is available on its own by quote.
Step 4: Ongoing Management
Once the tenant has the keys, the monthly routine begins. Rent is collected, and your owner draw goes to your bank account by direct deposit with a monthly statement showing every dollar in and out.
Repair requests come to us, not to you. Repairs up to $250 are handled without waiting on your approval. Anything larger comes to you first with what is wrong and what it will cost. Texas law requires a landlord to make a diligent effort to repair conditions that affect a tenant's health or safety, and a manager who answers repair requests promptly keeps you on the right side of that rule and keeps good tenants from leaving.
Every six months during the lease, the home is inspected with photos. Those visits catch the small things a tenant may not report, like a slow leak, a failing seal or a filter that has not been changed, before they turn into large bills.
Before the lease ends, we look at current rents and talk with you about renewing the tenant or re-leasing the home. When a tenant moves out, the home is inspected and photographed again and compared with the move-in record. Texas gives a landlord 30 days after the tenant surrenders the home to refund the security deposit or provide an itemized list of deductions, and we handle that accounting for you.
Where You Fit In
Your part is small by design. You decide on the rent with Betsy's analysis in hand, sign the management agreement, approve repairs over $250, and decide on renewals. Everything else is ours, and you can always call and ask about your property.
Owners in different situations start in different places. A family on PCS orders usually starts with timing. A first-time landlord usually starts with whether to rent at all. An owner with several properties usually starts with the multi-property rate. All of them end up on the same four steps.
Ready for Step 1?
The first step is free. Call 210-889-7495 or send us your property address and Betsy will get back to you with what your home should rent for.
This page describes how Harvest Real Estate Property Management generally works. It is not legal, tax or lending advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the repair approval limit?
The standard limit is $250. Repairs up to $250 are handled without waiting on the owner's approval. Larger repairs are approved by the owner first.
How often do you inspect the property?
At move-in, every six months during the lease, and at move-out, each time with photos.
How do owners get paid?
Owner draws go to your bank account by direct deposit, with a monthly statement showing every dollar in and out.
What lease do you use?
The Texas REALTORS® residential lease.
What kinds of properties do you manage?
Single-family homes and small multifamily properties such as duplexes and fourplexes, across San Antonio, Bexar County and the surrounding counties.
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Ready to make your move with Harvest Real Estate Property Management?