SELF MANAGING – When buying your first rental property, you may be tempted to assume that your investment journey is going to be an easy one. After all, how hard can rent collection be?
If that’s so, you may be in for a rude shock. Owning a rental property is very different from managing your own rental property. Owning a property and renting it out is a great way to increase your income. However, especially if you are a first time property owner, there may be a limit to how effective you can be and it’s not wise to stretch yourself to thin. Here are a few reasons you should not self-manage your properties.
- You Must Wear Many Hats – One of the biggest reasons why it’s smart to have a property management company handle your properties is the sheer number of hats that you will be forced to wear. These will include being the owner, manager, handyman, customer rep, accountant, and marketing expert. One of the things that can also become tough is the amount of knowledge that you must know about the laws and regulations. Do you know the laws and time frames the owner/manager is required to operate within?
- Set Up – Are you set up to receive tenant payments and maintenance requests online to make it more convenient for the resident? When there is a vacancy, what is your marketing strategy? How do prospects complete applications? Are you able to properly run credit, background, criminal, and eviction checks? Do you use a proper lease? When and who performs inspections? Do you have vendors in place for quick responses?
- Tenants Take Advantage of Owners – Have you ever had a tenant promise to pay rent and the deadline comes and goes? Do you know when to serve the Pay or Quit Notice for non-payment of rent? This is an all too often statement we hear from self-managing owners. It’s hard for owners to sometimes be tough on their tenants when they need to be and it causes stress and loss of rent.
- It’s Demanding – There are many tasks involved in managing a home from maintenance requests to dealing with bad tenants. Without proper experience and screening you may end up with bad tenants who don’t pay rent on time, don’t take care of your home, is a nuisance to the neighbors, make it difficult to enter the premises for repairs, you may see an increase in HOA violations and fines, etc.
- Face Eviction Issues On Your Own – DIY rental management means that you’ll be responsible for collecting rent and can also mean playing “cat and mouse” with some of your renters every month. This can be frustrating, tiresome, time consuming and costly. You’ll have to deal with lengthy and expensive legal proceedings if you must evict a bad tenant and the cost associated with placing another tenant.
Contact A & M Management for our competitive pricing and services!