The best time to discuss things is when you are hiring a property manage. Here are the points that should be discussed:

• business setup
• management details
• automation and reporting
• management fee structure

Business Setup

• how many units they manage, what is their vacancy
• what property types and locations
• how many staffs,
• since when and how did they get into this job,

Management

• tenant screening,
• tenant turns, turn/vacancy length
• dealing with late or non-paying tenants,
• tenant calls/work orders,
• city violations
• what tenancy length do they achieve

Automation and Reporting

• do they have a payments' portal for tenants
• do they use appfolio or propertyware

Fees

• what is the annual fee (standard is 8% to 10%)
• cost of advertising (1/2 month of rent to 1 month of rent)
• any extra for lease renewal with same tenant?
• any extra for annual inspection ?

Paying 1 month of rent for a new tenant means that you are losing 8% of the rent of the year. This almost doubles the cost of management for that year.

Here is a good article from listenmoneymatters on how to evaluate a property manager