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Property Management 101: Break These Bad Habits to Boost Rental Property Success

ByDave Stopher

Sep 27, 2020 #property

Many people who are into real estate investing would often start with rental properties. Who would not want to earn passive income while enjoying tax incentives and deductions and generating value from appreciation? But before you start looking for rental prosperities you can buy and rent out, know that there are certain habits you need to quit first. This is especially true if you plan on managing the property on your own.

A business owner’s habits can either make or break their business. If you don’t make the effort to start changing your bad habits for the better, you can unknowingly use these while managing your business. Whether you already own a couple of rental properties or are still thinking about investing, you will find more success in your business venture by ditching the following practices.

You Like Being Reactive

Reactive people choose to deal with issues after they arise. They focus on fixing the problem but fail to think about the future. If you are the reactive type, then chances are you only tend to wait for problems to arise before moving. Once you try to fix the issue, you got for the temporary fix.

If you use this habit in managing your rental property, chances are you can end up paying more than necessary when it comes to rental upkeep. You can end up chasing away your current tenants and scare quality tenants. You can even be held liable for failure to uphold your obligations.

Proactive property managers, on the other hand, believe in planning for the future. They don’t simply wait for issues to arise before taking action. For example, they stick to strict maintenance and property inspection schedules to quickly address issues to prevent it from growing. Whenever a tenant reports a problem such as a clogged drain or two, a proactive manager won’t only hire competent plumbers for drain cleaning services. They will also make sure their contact plumber will do further inspections to prevent future issues from bothering their tenants.

You Tend to DIY Everything

There are certain property management tasks you can’t do on your own. This is especially true if you own and manage multiple properties all at once. You may be able to DIY some tasks, but to ensure efficiency, you need to accept that you can’t handle everything. This is not limited to property repairs and maintenance.

Communication is extremely important to property managers. If you fail to keep an open communication with your tenants, you can’t win their trust. This can also lead to many complications. If you continue to DIY your communications with them, there is a big tendency that will fail to effectively communicate every single issue that needs to be discussed.

Streamlining your communications allow smooth and efficient communication. You can avoid delays in sending and receiving the necessary information, thus enabling you to satisfy your tenant’s needs. You get to address their issues on time and you can avoid costly consequences for simply missing an urgent text or call. This also allows you to collect your rent in time since you no longer need to manually remind your tenants that it is the time of the month to pay their rent.

Screening tenants is another tedious and time-consuming task. But if you automate tenant pre-screening, you will find it easier to screen quality leads. You can save time since you no longer have to deal with bad leads who don’t meet your minimal tenant requirements.

You’re Obsessed with Micromanagement

As a real estate investor, it only makes sense that you want to maintain your property to its best health. Your tenants may love you for your diligence when it comes to maintenance and repairs. But if you have unreasonable demands that make you look like a micromanager, then they may find this habit to be extremely annoying.

Showing up without prior notice to do maintenance and inspections and telling your tenants to maintain the yard in a very specific way can quickly turn them off. Not giving them enough privacy and controlling their every move shows your control-freak tendency. Know that as a landlord, you should keep a proper distance. Let your tenants be as long as they abide by your lease agreement, do their duties as a good tenant, and don’t cause any damage or disruption in your business.

There is no easy way to manage a rental property. If you focus on the things you can control, then your work will be a little less stressful and more manageable. The earlier you start changing your bad habits, the better success you can experience with your rental property.

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