Starting the journey of owning and managing rental properties can be both exciting and nerve racking.
We do
property management in Long Beach
on a daily basis and we get asked questions regularly from owners who want to manage their own properties. They want to try being a landlord first before engaging a property management company.
Many of the calls we receive from these new landlords have similar questions. We wanted to share three key aspects that we mention on nearly any call when someone asks us “so what should I be prepared to do if I want to manage my own property in Long Beach?”.
Interviewing Tenants
After you have screened the candidates (i.e. evaluated the same metrics for each possible tenant) then you have the task of interviewing tenants.
Interviewing tenants, much like interviewing candidates for a job, takes patience and skill. Be careful to avoid asking questions that could lead to a discriminatory complaint.
Ask each prospective tenant the same questions to help you make the best possible decision.
The interview should give you additional information above and beyond the screening process. It should help you develop a well-rounded view of your next tenant.
As a property management company we can perform 100’s of interviews for prospective tenants in any given year and we are the first ones to say it takes practice. When you are managing your own property be patient with yourself and take the time to interview tenants with a goal of finding the best fit for the tenant and property.
Collecting Rent
Gone are the days where you visit a tenant at your property to collect rent. Today, for property management companies, there are numerous solutions that allow us to efficiently collect payment from tenants and some of these solutions are also available when you want to manage your own property.
A key method to collecting rent on time is to make it easy for your tenants. While the professional property management solutions can be expensive there are low cost and even free solutions when you are managing your own property. Take into consideration the following options:
- https://cozy.co/
- This free property management solution gives you the ability to easily collect rents online. There is a delay in receiving your payments but if you want your payment faster you can pay for that as an upgrade.
- https://www.zillow.com/z/rental-manager/collect-rent-online/
- The property listing behemoth provides a rental manager for landlords. Their objective is to get you to list your rentals there to attract tenants where there can be costs. It is a powerful tool and like Cozy.co there is a delay in receiving payments but it does make it easy on your tenants.
When deciding on how to collect rent we would encourage you to leverage technology as this is what will help you and your tenants the most to have a long lasting relationship.
Property Repairs
Property repairs can occur while a tenant is occupying your property or when you are preparing your property for rent.
Generally speaking the repairs when a property is vacant are much easier as you don’t have to coordinate around a tenants occupancy, nor do you have to worry if the repair is something major (i.e. a mainline, water leak, heater, etc.).
If you choose to manage your own property the key part is preparedness. Long before you ever need a repair on your property identify 1-2 trade professionals for each item that is associated with your property.
It is also a good idea to have a handyman ready as well for smaller items that a tenant could call about. Repairs are inevitably going to be needed and in order to reduce your stress and the tenants stress being prepared ahead of time will help you the most.
If you’d like to find out more about the variety of tasks we can handle on your behalf when we manage your Long Beach rental property we invite you to call us today at (562) 888-0247 as we’d be happy to help. When you want a quick check to see how much your property could fetch in rent we invite you to fill out our Free Rental Analysis where we perform a comprehensive comparison to share your rental stacks up to the competition.
