Two Key Tasks that a Property Management Company Handles for You
Dustin Edwards • May 14, 2021
Processing Payments and Preparing a Property for Rent
Whether you are considering managing your property yourself or you are embarking on the journey of interviewing local property management companies
for your Long Beach or Lakewood rental there are many items to consider. While many property owners ask about the property management fee (and they certainly should) we feel it is helpful to understand details about the common tenant calls
and tasks that we handle to see if you truly want to handle it on your own or if you want to outsource to a property management company. Find out more about two key tasks that we handle regularly for our clients.
Processing Payments
In the era where transferring money between parties is easier and easier, this is one item that many people feel they can tackle on their own. Popular services such as Cozy.co and Zibo.co market the fact that collecting rent is easy (which it can be), but consider asking yourself the following:
- Are you notifying the tenant properly when they are late on their rent payment?
- How would you process a late fee?
- If a tenant pays for an item of repair and asks for reimbursement, how are you handling that item?
- Are you keeping their security deposit in a separate account?
You might be thinking on the “separate account” aspect that it isn’t required in California. And while a separate account for security deposits isn’t required by law, without a separate account you could end up co-mingling funds which can make it challenging to claim any of the deposit at a later date. While processing payments has become simplified over the years the tracking and accountability of receiving funds remains one where one must be prepared for solid documentation.
Preparing a Property for Renting
One of the largest tasks that property management companies handle on a regular basis is that of preparing a property for renting. While it might look like 30 minutes of magic on HGTV to make a property look stunning we all know that it takes more time to get a home in Long Beach to be rental ready.
When we prepare a property for rent, we focus on two major categories:
- Maintenance Items - These are wear and tear items such as new carpet, painting, fixing/replacing electrical sockets, etc. Each property can have items of different levels of need and our focus is to keep the property properly maintained to help each tenant stay as long as they would like.
- Upgrade Items - When a tenant leaves it is an opportunity to look for ways to upgrade that can help the rentability of the property. This might mean adding new appliances, putting in a new countertop, or even re-doing an entire bathroom. For upgrade items we provide our owners with options to help them understand what could be best for the property and the rental market.
When considering tackling property management on your own, consider these two categories and overlay the aspect of “time”. Each day your property isn’t rented is a lost income opportunity which is one of the reasons we have a team of maintenance professionals as well as a curated list of subcontractors to help us in every aspect of maintaining a property.
While these are only a few key tasks we handle for our property owners, the key is to ensure you find a property management company that you feel comfortable with in managing your asset. When you would like to find out about more of the tasks we handle for our owners we invite you to call us today at (562) 888-0247. 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.
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