Top Tips for the New Landlord

April 09, 2018

9 Tips To Help You Launch Your Landlord Career

By design or happenstance, you’re now a landlord and managing a few or a good number of properties. Yes, property management is a growing profession in a booming rental property market,.

Yet, it’s dynamic and challenging. Landlording has changed from decades ago and the next 10 years will be very interesting for new landlords.

Many investors and property managers alike are suddenly realizing that this is a business unto itself and you have to keep all the working parts synchronized and efficient. The ManageCasa team can certainly help you with that.

Starting off on the right foot means everything. You’ll be handing over the keys to some very valuable properties with potential high liabilities and costs. Any mistakes you make could have lasting repercussions to your business’s revenue.

Let’s find some ways to keep you smiling every day of the year and making your properties more profitable.

We thought we’d focus on this topic of the top things landlords and property managers need to prioritize and address. Because, it’s commonplace for any professional to lose sight of their goals, priorities, and relevant tasks. Chaos is the lack of a plan.

9 Quick Tips to Keep you On Top

This list of tips below is for landlords and not necessarily for property owners. We’re assuming you’re a new landlord hired to manage a growing number of rental properties for one or more property investors.

Ready to make ManageCasa your new property management home?

No obligations, sign up for free.

Join ManageCasa

For Rental Property Investors Today, Cash Flow is King. Make collecting rent your top priority. It’s when rent is late, that stress can grow for many small portfolio property investors. A seriously late payment can put you as the owner or landlord in some hot water. Eviction proceedings are something you probably should avoid. Cash flow and on time payments keep the financial wheels on, and ensures you get paid too. Have a process that helps make paying rent easy, to help you stay on top of a situation where the renter is late in paying.
Screen Tenants Professionally. Your cash flow, and success as a property manager or landlord comes down to the quality of tenants you bring in. Even the best landlords can fail when dealing with tenants without jobs or money, or who trash the apartment or break things, or who constantly pay late, or have no feeling of responsibility to pay the rent. Bad tenants can make your day go badly, every day. Use a good tenant screening process and avail yourself of services that help you guarantee any tenant you onboard, from tenant credit checks to personal background checks.
Use Simple, Modern Property Management or Landlord Software. Automate your tasks, collect information, process leases, manage maintenance tickets and communicate clearly with tenants. Property owners, tenants and contractors all prefer software today, because they’re busy. They just want to glance at their smartphone or tablet, keep informed, get quick permissions or notifications, and return to work. The era of the lengthy phone call is disappearing for a variety of reasons, so please avoid old technology and time wasting processes. Online, cloud based property management software is cheap and helpful if you subscribe to ones that are easy to learn and easy to use. You can automate communications, get tenants to pay online and get quick verification of payments, record your receipts/bills and share with the owners, all via one simple interface.
Don’t Allow Pets. The risk is too high. Dogs and cats can urinate on hardwood floors and carpet and if you have to replace them, you’ll understand why pets are a no-no. They also scratch surfaces, and create noise complaints. Urine smell is very difficult to eliminate, and even pet hair is troublesome for your ventilation system. Yes, there are a hundred million pets in North America, Europe and Australia, however your properties must be taken care of pristinely. They’re an investment you need to protect.
Help your Property Owner(s) Earn More Money. They’re in this for more than capital appreciation. Could you charge more with new appliances, solar panels, or renovating the bathroom? Take a look at these ideas for growing rental property income.
Stay up on Fair Housing Laws. It’s an era of low vacancies and tenants groups are pushing governments to help them. Government legislation could be ruinous to your investment and career. If you or your property manager should discriminate in advertising or screening tenants, raise rent too fast, fail to fix or maintain items in the apartment, you could face fines or restrictions.
Attract High Quality Renters. Conduct your rental apartment search well using meaningful, persuasive descriptions, with excellent photographs, and advertise on the appropriate apartment rental listing sites. Have a website that shows the property well and tells a little about you and the company. Transparency is important to trust and the willingness to pay higher rent. Where you advertise and what you say goes a long way to attracting good tenants.
Get Landlord’s Insurance. You need to be covered in the case of accidents and law suits. Read this post on landlords insurance and how affordable it is.
Stay on Top of Costs. Not knowing what your costs are, how they got so high, and not managing them against revenue could be deadly at some point. It’s not just a case of a reconciling a balance sheet. You’re responsible for keeping the investment working and profitable.When you know what your costs are, where losses are occuring, and what’s happening with repairs, you’re more confident that your business will continue to be successful. All sorts of emergencies and challenges will appear. Your property management software reports will help you visualize all that’s happening. From your payments to all the monthly bills, keeping it organized is professional and lets you focus on the major tasks.

Protect Your New Career in A Valued Profession

The rising salaries of property managers and landlords should inspire you a little to be at your best as a professional. However, that won’t be enough if the paperwork and costs tilt the table to unprofitability.

Look at being a landlord as the custodian of asset portfolio profitability. If they were your properties, you’d want to be ahead of the game.

Good luck in making your contribution a key one for the owners. This is how you inspire their confidence so you can earn more.

Take a test drive of ManageCasa the best property management solution for landlords, property investors and property management companies. You’ll understand why a simple, online, cloud-based property software solution is the way to go.