Owning rental property has become one of the most popular ways to invest in real estate and make income over time. It allows you to take advantage of home value increases and receive income. That’s why it’s no surprise that 10.6 million Americans earn income from rentals yearly.
Knowing how to manage a rental property is vital if you want to get the most out of your rentals. Keep reading to learn the basics of becoming a landlord and managing tenants.
Screen Tenants Carefully
Your tenants will make or break your success as a landlord. You want people who are reliable, take care of your property, and pay rent on time. If you don’t screen tenants carefully, you risk placing bad tenants who create hassles in your life.
Take time to come up with a tenant screening process. Look at a tenant’s current job, past rental history, credit history, and other factors.
Craft a Great Lease
It’s essential to lay out each party’s responsibilities before entering a rental agreement. You may have things you don’t want tenants to do on your property, such as painting the walls and making significant changes. These are the types of things to include in a lease.
Spend time determining who will be responsible for what in your rental agreement. This means coming up with responsibilities for you and your tenant. Just make sure you comply with any local rental laws during this process.
Create a Maintenance Schedule
Things will work great most of the time with your rental property investment. But over time, your home will degrade and require work.
You can minimize the impact of these things by creating a regular maintenance schedule. Maintaining your home will ensure problems don’t worsen and cause more severe issues.
Manage Communication Channels
It’s on you to be on call when a tenant needs help. You may do a great job of keeping things in shape, but there is still a chance of things going wrong in your rental and causing problems for tenants.
Keep your communication channels clear for when this happens. Inform your tenants how to contact you, whether through text message, email, or phone call. Ensure you respond quickly to ensure your tenants get the help they need.
Look for Help
As time passes and you acquire more rental properties, you may spend more time than you want managing things. If you want to keep scaling and save time, it pays to hire help.
You can start small with general contractors to hire maintenance tasks or outsource the entire management process to a property management company like Lehi property management.
Now You Know How to Manage a Rental Property
Investing in real estate doesn’t guarantee you income. If you decide to become a landlord, you must also find tenants and manage your rental property investment during your tenant’s stay. And doing this successfully is sometimes easier said than done.
But now that you understand how to manage a rental property, you should know more about doing it successfully. Remember to follow the guidelines above to make managing a rental property easier.
Do you want to learn more passive income ideas that will let you put your money to work? Learn more about investing by checking out the rest of the blog posts.
