When is it worth it to go in-house and vertically integrate?

In regards to a firm's strategy, why do some real estate firms outsource property management to a 3rd party versus building an in house property management/asset management team or hiring a leasing company versus hiring brokers in-house or even hiring a GC versus being the GC yourself? I know companies that do both? when would it make sense to delegate these tasks and think about it from an ROI perspective on the time spent to manage and lease versus outsourcing everything and paying slightly more but saving time?

would it make sense in NY Metro markets such as NYC, LI and JC with higher rents to lease yourself and save commission as well save the 6% property management fee once you scale and putting all these employees on payroll? pros/cons? thanks

 

I am but one data point, but here are two things I learned from working with a very large owner / operator in NYC:

  • both leasing and prop mgmt fees are much lower than they would be if those people were salaried (considering total cost of insurance, retirement plans, more difficult to fire unproductive employee vs firing outside contractor)

  • many large firms still do these in-house but in a slightly more obtuse way: they set up separate corporations for each responsibility you described, and bill themselves (their investors) the fees to carry out the work

“Doesn't really mean shit plebby boi. LMK when you're pulling thiccboi cheques.“ — @m_1
 

Property management is a business where profit margins are very thin at the entry level, and directly proportional to scale. In other words, you need to bring a ton of SF/units under the PM umbrella for the fee machine to start generating real profit. Think of it this way: in-house PM is still going to require management systems, a core staff (and their benefit costs), effective service contracts, etc. whether you have 5 units or 5,000. Many businesses are not interested in managing a business that requires that kind of scaling, as that in turn requires huge numbers of staff and overhead expenses.

 
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