There’s no reason why you shouldn’t take advantage of this if you’re in the position to do so. You’ll need to manage your rental properties to do that properly, however.
While some people hire a professional to do this, it can often be worth being a little more hands-on with your properties. It keeps you in the loop much more and you’ll have more control over your property.
There’s no reason not to be hands-on, but that means being able to manage your rental properties the right way. As complicated as it seems, it shouldn’t be too difficult. It could be more straightforward than you might’ve thought.
Taking seven particular steps could be more than enough to help with this.
Manage Your Rental Properties: 7 Top Steps
1. Do Your Repairs
Before you can start renting out your properties, you’ll need to make sure they’re actually in a rentable condition. That could mean carrying out more than a few repairs before you start looking for tenants. Make sure you get these done as early as possible so you can start getting tenants in.
When you’re doing this, make sure you hire the right contractors for your needs. From an asphalt roofing service to a plumber and even an electrician, there could be more than a few of these you might need to hire. With a little effort, you could develop a long-term relationship with them.
2. Set Prices & Expectations
Setting rental prices is one of the first things you’ll need to do before renting out any properties you have. While you’ll naturally want these to be as high as possible, you’ll also need to be reasonable with it. Take the time to determine what the market rates are, and you’ll come to an informed decision before you know it.
Go with something you’re comfortable with and that covers any expected costs you’ll have. Add in a little bit more to make a profit, and you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. You’ll come up with a rental price tenants are willing to pay before you even know it.
3. Find Tenants
Going out and finding tenants is one of the more notable ways to manage your rental properties. You wouldn’t be able to generate a rental income without having them, after all. There are more than a few ways you can go about this, with one of the more notable ways being to advertise your property for rent.
You’ll have several ways you can go about this. There might even be local platforms you can use to go about this. Spend some time and effort taking high-quality photos of your property to help with these advertisements. You’ll end up with quite a few applications before you know it.
4. Perform Checks
As a landlord, you’ll need to perform some checks on your properties every once in a while. When any property is empty, this will be relatively easy to do. You shouldn’t have to notify tenants or take any additional steps. You’ll simply need to just go and check the property.
Make sure there isn’t any damage to the property that needs to be repaired. You should also do these occasionally even when there are tenants on the premises. Make sure you give them some notice when you’re doing so, as this could be legally required.
Doing this every six months can be recommended to make sure everything’s as looked after as you want them to be.
5. Collect Your Rent
One of the most notable reasons to become a landlord is the rental income. Every month, you’ll need to put a little time and effort into collecting this. While it’ll ideally come in automatically through your bank account, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes, you’ll have to put a little extra work into it.
That’s especially true when it comes to any late payments. In many cases, you might just need to send your tenants a reminder and you’ll have your rent within a few days. Even sending them reminders a day or two before the rent is due could be more than enough to avoid this.
If late rental payments happen regularly, it could be worth enforcing late fees. While these will need to be written into rental contracts, they could be more than enough to make sure everyone pays on time.
6. Keep Evictions In Mind
Speaking of late payments, there might come a point where you’ll need to consider evicting a tenant. This is an unfortunate position to be in for everyone involved, but it often comes up for landlords. It can even be one of the more complicated parts to get through and involves a decent bit of work.
Thankfully, the process involved in this is usually pretty straightforward. It normally involves:
- Giving them an official notice outlining why they’re being evicted
- Filing the eviction notice with the courts
- Not accepting rental payments anymore, as these could invalidate the eviction notice
- Making sure you don’t break any laws
- Wait for the courts to make a ruling and then use local authorities to carry out the eviction
While it could take a while to get through each of these steps, it could be worth doing in specific circumstances. If you have any problematic tenants, they’re more than worth removing from your property.
7. Don’t Overlook Accounting
You’ll naturally have a decent amount of expenses and income to manage when you’re looking after your rental properties. With how many of these there can be, it’s easy to be a little confused by everything. You could even lose track of more than a few things and overlook others.
That’s not something anyone will want to happen. You’ll need to focus on your accounting from the start, which can often be a confusing process. Thankfully, you’ll have more than a few ways to make this much easier for yourself. Hiring an accountant can be the most obvious way of doing it.
If that’s not something you’ll want to do, it could be worth investing in some accounting software to help you with it. It’ll let you manage your finances much better while also being able to keep track of everything. There’s no reason not to invest in this.
Tips to Manage Your Rental Properties
Each of the above steps can be more than enough to help you manage your rental properties. Sometimes, they mightn’t be enough, however. You might want a little bit of extra help and advice with it. That’s where a few particular tips and tricks come in.
Some of these can be more effective than others, making them worth focusing on. If you want to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible, you should keep them in mind. No matter whether you’ve one rental property or a dozen, they’ll be sure to help.
These include:
- Use Property Management Software – There can be quite a few things to look after when you’re managing your properties. It’s easy to overlook a few things if you’re trying to do it all yourself. With a property management software system, it’ll be much easier than you’d think. You can keep track of everything much better, making it easier to manage everything
- Invest In Insurance – Your rental properties will go through a decent bit of wear and tear, and you’ll inevitably need to get some repairs done. These can be quite expensive, especially if you’re paying for them out of pocket. With landlord insurance, however, it’ll be much more affordable. You’ll have an ongoing monthly cost, but this will be minimal compared to the cost of getting repairs and maintenance done
- Keep Your Rental Prices Fair – You’ll naturally want to make as much out of your rental properties as you can. That doesn’t mean setting sky-high prices, however. If you set them too high, you’ll drive away potential tenants and your properties could stay empty because of it. By having fair prices, you’ll make the properties far more appealing, and you’ll have a much more consistent income with them
By using these alongside the steps to properly manage your rental properties, you shouldn’t have a problem looking after everything. While it’ll take a little time and effort, it’ll be more than worth it. You shouldn’t have a problem maintaining your properties and generating a decent income with them.
Manage Your Rental Properties: Wrapping Up
If you want to manage your rental properties, you’ll need to be prepared to put some time and work into it. That doesn’t mean it has to be complicated, however. Instead, it could be more straightforward than you might’ve thought.
It’s simply a matter of focusing on certain areas and focusing on the right steps. You’ll be looking after your properties and generating a decent rental income before you even know it.
Add in a few particular tips, and you shouldn’t have a problem looking after everything.
