Should You Manage Your Properties Yourself?

Whether through smart investment choices, inheritance, or by some other circumstance, thousands of property owners have become landlords.

The revenue is good for some and for others its amazing. While most start out in the property management business with a few houses, duplexes, or apartments and do the work themselves to save on costs, they discover how complicated owning income earning properties can be.

And the growing time and work involved become an issue which of course is why most have to adopt a cloud property management software solution.

A few breakdowns and bad tenants, and your whole profit picture can become dark. And the promise of ROI from owning more properties is enticing, yet for the self-managed, the challenges are concerning.

The alternative to self-managing rental properties is to hire a professional. A professional might not only manage it with ease, but actually help you earn more revenue and cut operating costs. The skill, tools and experience of a good property manager can make a difference.

When Events Force Your Hand

At some point when the work becomes difficult and some costly events take place, the fun of property management might disappear. And self-management has its bookkeeping, tenant management, and record keeping law element which can be taxing in time and energy.

If you’re not familiar with the complexity of bookkeeping, taxes, contractors, and tenant laws, these tasks can be too much to bear.

And if you’ve had several after hours calls to respond to in person, you might be stressed by the effort and time all of that can take.

If you haven’t had that big financial mistake yet, had to deal with issues you’re not good at, or had multiple tenants move out, had a rent non-payer, and been unable to raise rents, or been able to manage tenants in a professional, responsive manner, it might be time to hire a property management company.

What Do Property Managers Do?

Property managers manage your tenants and property assets with a mind to keep them in optimal condition to grow your income. That means keeping cash flow positive, keeping tenants happy, and helping you find ways to improve the value of your assets.

Here’s a list of benefits Property Managers provide:

1. advertise vacancies with eye catching, persuasive ads
2. interviewing and checking applicants background
3. writing professional and legal complying lease agreements
4. personally onboarding new tenants
5. collecting rent
6. responding to tenant inquiries and after hours inquiries
7. handling maintenance and repair incidents in your units
8. hiring and vetting good contractors
9. managing income and expenses professionally
10. reporting on your property ROI and trends in financial results
11. advising you on industry trends and opportunities
12. ensuring tenants adhere to lease agreements and not damage your unit
13. advising the tenant on how to use equipment and not damage anything

If you’ve got one or two units, you can use ManageCasa’s handy property management software and keep your investment performing well.

Once you get past 5 units however, the paperwork, decisions, tennt turnover and transactions might begin to create some stress. It might be the time, energy, and stress that creates a tipping point.

Since property management isn’t something you’ve dreamt about, nor see as part of your lifestyle, it makes sense to turn the properties over to a manager who does love to do these things.

The Pros Have Systems and Experience

Property management isn’t as much of a stress to property managers, because they have automated systems for bookkeeping, tenant management, online marketing, and financial management. And from tenant finding and screening to ongoing tenant relations, they know how to make it as smooth as silk.

So they have the training, the system, and the business to make property management a good thing.

Some property managers have a lot of experience. They see trouble before it arrives. Those issues can come in thousands of different forms, which means experience has value.

You can do your pros and cons about whether to hire a property manager, but for most it wil come to an emotional tipping point where you’ve had enough and you see the end dollar value of handing things over to a property management company.

The Software Platform Generates Value Many Different Ways

And most property management companies worth their salt will be using a cloud-based property management software platform like ManageCasa. If they aren’t, they’ll be switching to one soon. If property managers you’ve spoken to aren’t using this type of solution, reconsider hiring them, because it really is all about the software and how easy it makes their work.

They appreciate how much value they bring at a low price. These software systems are a bargain, priced on a per property basis.

Check out ManageCasa, and set up a time for a FREE demo. This way, you can see first hand the power of the system, ask some questions. You’ll understand what kind of system your property manager needs to be using. That’s for your peace of mind!

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