If you are weighing whether to hire a property manager for your rental in Gurnee, Libertyville, Grayslake, Mundelein, Antioch, or anywhere else in Lake County or in McHenry, the first question is almost always the same.
What does this actually cost me?
Here is the honest answer, with our own numbers on the table, plus the costs that aren't management fees but still hit your account before a resident ever moves in. Most owners get surprised by the second group.
The short answer
At Cruise Property Management, a single-family rental costs you two fees:
- Management: 9% of the rent we collect, with a $100 monthly minimum. On rent above $4,000, the formula becomes $200 plus 4% of the rent, which works out lower.
- Resident placement: 90% of one month's rent, with a $1,000 minimum. Above $4,000, it becomes $2,000 plus 40% of the rent.
That is the entire fee schedule. Placement is charged once, when we place a qualified resident in your home. Management is charged monthly on the rent we collect, with the $100 minimum covering months when we manage a home between residents.
And if the home is slow to lease, that minimum goes away. Under our 30-Day Leasing Promise, if we cannot find a qualified resident within 30 days of going on the market at our recommended rent, we waive your management fee, and we keep waiving it until a resident is placed. A vacancy costs us too, by design.
What is included, at no extra charge
This is where quotes stop being comparable. Our fee covers all of it:
- Marketing the home, professional photos, and showings
- Screening applicants, preparing the lease, and handling the security deposit
- Lease renewals (no renewal fee)
- Rent collection and monthly direct deposit to your account
- A pre-move-in report with photos, 360 panoramic images, and video
- Post-move-out inspection with photos
- Two walkthroughs a year, about every six months, under our Twice-a-Year Walkthrough Promise
- Handling every resident call and maintenance request
- Bidding out repairs and coordinating the work (you pay the vendor's cost and supplies with no markups)
- Bookkeeping, record keeping, and a monthly financial report with receipts available
- A 24/7 owner portal with statements, inspection reports, invoices, tax documents, and rental history
- Setting up utilities
- Village inspections and the training some villages require for a rental license
- HOA communication
- Handling an eviction if it ever comes to that (attorney and court fees are separate). No setup fee. No onboarding fee. No technology fee. No markup on maintenance.
The promises behind the price
A fee schedule tells you what you pay. It doesn't tell you what happens when something goes wrong. That is what our Cruise Promises are for, and every one of them is included in the fees above:
- No Resident, No Fee. You pay nothing until we place a qualified resident. We handle photos, marketing, showings, screening, lease prep, and the move-in inspection upfront, at our risk.
- 30-Day Leasing. Not leased in 30 days at our recommended rent? Your management fee is waived until it is.
- Stay or Replace. If a resident we placed does not finish at least 10 months of the lease, we find a replacement at no additional cost.
- Eviction Protection. If a resident we placed is evicted in the first 12 months, we cover up to $1,500 of legal and court costs.
- Pet Damage Protection. For any pet we approve, up to $1,500 in pet damage beyond the security deposit.
- Inspection Fee Protection. If a home we manage fails an official inspection and a re-inspection fee is charged, we pay it.
- On-Time Owner Draw. Your draw is processed by the 15th. If we miss it, we waive that month's management fee.
- Commitment-Free. Not happy? Cancel with 30 days' written notice. No penalty, no exit fee.
Read them in full on our Cruise Promises page.
One thing to watch for: the in-house maintenance division
A company with its own maintenance crew sounds like a benefit, and it is sold that way: faster, easier, one number to call. Understand what it also means. That division is a profit center, and the work is marked up. Every time. It has to be, because the crew, the truck, and the insurance all have to be paid for out of the invoice you get.
We don’t do it on purpose. We bid your repairs out to independent vendors. You pay the vendor's actual cost, and the receipt goes on your statement. When we have no stake in the size of the invoice, we can tell you honestly when a repair is not worth doing.
The costs that are not management fees
This is the part owners are not warned about, so here it is plainly. Before a new resident moves in, a rental almost always needs work that has nothing to do with our fee. Depending on the condition of the home, that can include:
- A full cleaning. A house that was lived in is not a house that shows well. Professional cleaning is close to mandatory between residents.
- Removing everything left behind. The rule of thumb: anything not attached to the house has to go. Furniture, appliances that are not staying, patio sets, paint cans, garage shelving, the boxes in the crawl space. The exception is construction material, such as leftover roof shingles, flooring, or matching paint, which is worth keeping on site for repairs. Hauling is a real, and often overlooked, line item.
- Driveway and exterior cleaning. Pressure washing the driveway, walks, and siding changes what a home looks like in photos, and photos are what fill it.
- Lock changes and rekeying. Every home gets new keys before a new resident holds one. More on this below.
- Alarm and code changes. Security system codes, garage keypads, and smart lock codes all need resetting, so the previous resident, their family, and their friends no longer have access.
- Landscaping, paint touch-up, carpet cleaning, and small repairs, depending on what the move-out inspection turns up.
None of that is a management fee. It is the cost of putting a rentable product on the market, and it exists whether you hire us, hire another company, or do it yourself. We get you bids, we schedule the work, and we do not mark it up. What we will not do is pretend it is not there.
About the deadbolts, and why we rekey twice
We rekey a home twice at every turnover. Once right after the old resident moves out, so no one who held a key still has access to your empty house while vendors come and go. And once more right before the new resident moves in, so the cleaners, painters, and contractors who had a key during the make-ready no longer do.
That is two locksmith visits per turnover for most owners. Priced separately, every time, forever.
We use a rekeyable deadbolt instead. The hardware runs about $83 as of this writing. That is the deadbolt itself, not installation, which is billed separately when a lock needs to be swapped out. Once your home is on that system, we rekey it ourselves each time, at every future turnover, and you never pay a locksmith for a rekey again.
It is one of the few places in this business where spending more upfront is clearly the cheaper answer.
The $600 reserve
We hold a $600 reserve in your property account. It works like an escrow: it is not a fee, and it is not our money. It sits in your ledger so that when the water heater lets go on a Friday night, or the furnace quits in January, we can get a vendor out immediately instead of waiting on an approval and a bank transfer.
It is drawn down when a repair uses it and replenished from the next rent collection. If you decide to move on, whatever is left in the reserve comes back to you with your final statement. You will see it on your first monthly statement as a balance, not a charge.
How to compare quotes without getting burned
Before you sign anything, ask each company these six questions:
- What is the total of every fee I will pay in year one, in dollars, on a home renting for $X?
- Do you charge a lease renewal fee, and how often?
- Do you have an in-house maintenance division, and is that work marked up?
- What happens to my fee if the home sits vacant past 30 days?
- What do I have to pay to get out of the agreement?
- What do you need me to spend before the home goes on the market?
Get the answers in writing. A company that answers all six in one email is telling you something about how the next five years will go.
Frequently asked questions
Is a property manager worth it in Lake County?
It comes down to three things. Desire, time, and knowledge. If you have all three, manage it yourself and keep the fee. If you are missing even one of them, hire a manager. Most owners who struggle can't learn to manage a rental property. They are short on hours, or it’s just not their priority to learn the new laws or how to evict tenants for 1 to 2 properties they own.
Do you charge if my property is vacant?
Management is 9% of rent collected, with a $100 monthly minimum. But under our 30-Day Leasing Promise, if your home does not lease within 30 days of going on the market at our recommended rent, we waive the management fee entirely and keep waiving it until a resident is placed.
Do you charge a lease renewal fee?
No. Renewals are included.
Who pays for repairs?
The owner pays the vendor's actual cost and supplies. We coordinate, collect bids, and attach every receipt to your monthly statement. We have no in-house maintenance division, so nothing is marked up and nobody bills you hourly to manage the job.
What do I pay on day one?
The make-ready work your home needs, and the $600 reserve, which stays yours. There is no setup fee, and under our No Resident, No Fee Promise, the placement fee is not charged until a qualified resident signs a lease.
Am I locked into a contract?
No. Our Commitment-Free Promise lets you cancel with 30 days' written notice, with no penalty and no exit fee.
Get a real number for your property
Every home is different, and no honest quote starts anywhere but at your front door. Here is how it actually works.
We come out and walk the property with you.
We will not hand you a dollar figure for the repairs on the spot, because the vendors are not standing there with us, and we are not going to guess at numbers you would plan around. What you will get is a clear list of what needs to get done before the home can be marketed, and the rent we expect it to bring once it is.
From there, it is your call. Plenty of owners do the make-ready work themselves and hand us the keys when it is ready. Others would rather we line up the vendors and handle it. Either way, you will know what you are walking into before you spend anything.
Cruise Property Management serves Antioch, Grayslake, Gurnee, Lake Bluff, Lake Villa, Libertyville, Lindenhurst, Mundelein, Round Lake, Round Lake Beach, Vernon Hills, Waukegan, Zion, and the rest of Lake County and part of McHenry. Call or text 847.610.9919 or email info@cruisepm.com to set up a quick discovery call.
