Risk-Free Property Management – The Free Trial That Actually Eradicates Fear

By Brian Bean | October 7, 2025

Risk-Free Property Management – The Free Trial That Actually Eradicates Fear

Part 6 of 8, Our Service Guarantees

Brian Bean, Dream Big Property Management

Rental investors benefit financially and personally when they hire a property manager. But finding, vetting and picking one can be scary and expensive if you choose wrong. But there is a better way to find a great partner, risk-free.

Free trials are fairly common these days in a lot of services. Streaming services, gym memberships, software, even try-before-you-buy. In most cases, you’re dealing with fairly innocuous offers. … WANTS, not needs. Amenities, not necessities. And certainly, low-risk offerings vs hiring someone to take over what might be your most valuable asset.

Most are designed to introduce you to their product or service, hoping you’ll like it and stick with them. But it’s rare to encounter free trials in more mission-critical services such as property management. For instance, attorneys, financial planners, or CPAs. If you’re hiring one of  them, you’re most likely paying. And if you don’t like their work, you have to fire them, move on, and count it as a lesson learned.

The High-Stakes Decision

Similarly, hiring someone to oversee your rental property is like hiring a business manager. And it can seem daunting. People fear hiring the wrong person — they’ve heard horror stories and they’re afraid to get locked into a long-term contract for such an important job. I don’t blame them. I would be, too.

It’s why several years ago we implemented our Risk-Free Service Guarantees. One of them is called the No-Upfront-Fees Guarantee. Essentially, you can hire us to manage your rental properties, and you don’t pay us until we are collecting rent on your behalf. The only expenses you might have on a new rental property would be if the home needed repairs or improvements – those costs go to the vendors, not to us.

And when combined with our Satisfaction Guarantee, in which you can fire us at any time for any reason, you essentially have a free trial to put us to work and make sure that we are the right fit for you and your property.

What Constitutes Upfront Fees?

So, what might be considered an upfront fee in property management?

Some companies charge hundreds of dollars at contract signing for such items as setup fees or onboarding charges. Some charge advance property-evaluation fees and will provide a punchlist of repairs to make your home rent-ready.

Some want reserve funds in advance, and that money is held in trust in case of repairs in the future. These would not be considered fees, but it’s still money out of pocket, in advance.

Others might charge a markup fee in advance to oversee repairs to make that home ready for the market.

By the way, there’s nothing wrong with requiring up-front fees. Those companies are doing important work for their clients, providing more value than they are probably being paid for. We just choose to work a little differently.

The Difference Between Free Trials and Traps

The local gym offers a free trial just to get you in the door for an introduction, and they hope you’ll be too lazy to cancel the monthly credit card charge. The software service wants to lock you into a long-term contract, but they hope you’ll miss the cutoff date for the free or discounted service, and then be handcuffed for the duration.

That’s the opposite of what we want.

Our version of their free trial is designed to start a conversation, educate, and in so doing, calm people’s fears. Because the stakes are much higher, the dollars are much greater, and the legal consequences are much more severe. The margin of error is tiny. And frankly, rental owners are gun-shy because they’ve been burned in the past.

Our Dual Guarantee Approach

So we have a No-Upfront-Fee and a Satisfaction guarantee, and they are geared to remove those risks.

We want investors to not worry about:

  1. Whether we really do what we promise.
  2. Being held hostage with a long-term contract.
  3. Not being able to find another property manager if they aren’t happy with us.

And so with our No-Upfront-Fee Guarantee, we do not require you to write a check to us for anything in advance. Not for a setup fee, onboarding fee, admin fee, technology fee, portal-access fee. … not even for a deluxe undercoating fee.

When you get paid, we get paid.

Important Clarifications

Let’s be clear about what this means and what it doesn’t mean. Our guarantees don’t cover actual expenses for getting your property ready to rent — things such as repairs, cleaning, or renovations. Those are legitimate costs that benefit your property directly, and they’re due to the vendors who do the work. You’re responsible for paying those vendors when the work is performed.

But for our oversight of any repairs, to get you set up in our system, to create your marketing materials and hire the professional photographer, to process your paperwork — all the administrative tasks and behind-the-scenes stuff that we do — showing your home to applicants, vetting prospective residents and facilitating their move-in … you’re not paying up front anything for that.

Our fees, which are all transparently communicated in advance, don’t get paid until the first month’s rent is received. If we do what we say we’re going to do, and then perform, your rental will produce income. If we don’t do what we said we’d do, you can cut us lose and hire someone else.

Core Values in Action

This is how we do business. And three of our five core values apply here:

1. Put the Client First. We protect your cash flow during vacancy and onboarding.

2. Own the Outcome: We take responsibility for our performance and the results.

3. Live in the Truth: We keep our promises.

This is an alignment of interests, yours and ours. We work hard to put a great resident in your home who pays rent on time and takes care of your property. You now have a well-maintained asset producing income and growing in value, with little of the daily stresses to keep it running smoothly. And our business grows because you stay with us, and we even show you how to grow that portfolio.

The Bigger Picture: Two Fundamental Philosophies

The bigger picture, however, is showing wary rental investors that it’s actually possible. Our No-Upfront-Fees Guarantee and all of our other service guarantees — communication, satisfaction, performance, transparency — are built on two fundamental philosophies:

  1. Professionalism and peace of mind for our clients. We guarantee our performance. If we don’t perform, we don’t get paid and we lose clients. It gives our investors a sense of security and at the same time keeps us focused and productive.
  2. Reducing fear. Our industry has a bit of a black eye, so we must overcome the fear about hiring a property manager. We do that by reducing your risk so that someone … might just give us a try. Once they see the possibilities, the performance, the lower stress, they become long-term clients.

The Bottom Line

Hiring a property manager doesn’t have to be scary or a leap of faith. If you work with someone who has the confidence to prove their value, it makes it easy for you to test-drive the service and confirm that it’s everything promised.

And that’s about as risk-free as it can get.

Have questions about our No-Upfront-Charges Guarantee or any of our other service guarantees? Call Brian Bean directly at 951-314-5402. I’m happy to share.

 

About the Author: Brian Bean is President of Dream Big Property Management, serving rental property investors throughout the Inland Empire of Southern California. With decades of experience in risk-free property management approaches, Brian specializes in removing barriers that prevent property owners from accessing professional management services.

Series Navigation:

8-Part Service Guarantee Series:

 

Meta Description:

Keywords: no upfront charges property management, risk free property management, property management free trial, no setup fees property management, no onboarding fees, Inland Empire property management guarantees, test drive property management, property manager satisfaction guarantee, risk free trial property management, Brian Bean Dream Big Property Management

Posted in 5 Profit Centers, Managing Your Property, The Purposeful IE Investor and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,