Why Hiring a Property Management Company for a Single Rental Property is a Good Idea

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For many rental property owners, a common question that they ask is if they need to hire a property management company for a single rental property. The answer from property managers and rental property owners alike is a resounding “Yes.” The fact is that a professional property management service can be a real asset and the services offered are likely much more complex than you might imagine.

Property management companies do much more than simply collecting rent checks and fixing broken appliances – their real value lies in risk mitigation, which should be your top priority when renting out a property. For example, Simply Residential signs the lease with the tenant, taking on some of that risk and allowing our owners to remain anonymous to our tenants. We also offer protection services like our Eviction Protection Plan and our Quarterly Furnace Filter Change and Lease Violation Walk-Through. These services protect our clients from the dangers of evicting a tenant, and help us identify any problems with their property before they become full blown emergencies. This also allows us to provide an efficient and regimented way to ensure that our properties are fully protected.

Choosing a property manager for a single rental property, or even for multiple rental properties, can be a challenge for first timers. The key to this choice lies in knowing what you want and need from a property management company. Some of the specific services you should look for are:

  • Finding high quality tenants.
  • Determining how to advertise your rental property.
  • Screening all tenants, including background checks and credit reports.
  • Drafting legal leases that will hold up in court.
  • Collecting evidence and documentation to reduce chances that property owners will have to pay for tenant caused damages.
  • Maintenance of the rental property.
  • Handling tenants who don’t pay.
  • Evicting tenants without violating their rights.

While property owners can complete their own research and learn how to do the things listed above, this is an extremely time consuming and legally convoluted process that can often land owners in a difficult situation, especially when evictions are a factor.

A knowledgeable property management service can also ensure that rental property owners understand legislation changes and how it will affect them, as well as their tenants. This can be extremely complicated and difficult to understand, and keeping up with the changes requires dedication and time. However, when you hire a property management service, they will know what the legislation means and ensure that you, and your property, meet all new or changed requirements.

One of the most important services offered by a property manager is the ability to respond to emergency situations in a timely manner. This will prevent property owners from having to halt their day – or night – in order to handle a tenant issue or emergency.

Hiring a property manager can eliminate the possibility of your rental property turning into one of the horror stories you have likely heard. In fact, a reputable property manager will handle all aspects of managing and maintaining your property. If you have questions, we’re happy to help. Call us today at 952-831-5300 or email me!

[Photo credit: Rental Realities on Flickr]

How Online Rent Collection Improves ROI

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Have you ever met an investor who wasn’t interested in making a profit from their investment? It’s highly unlikely. The abbreviation ‘ROI’ (Return on Investment)  is practically punctuation in the financial circle. Our clients are no different, they own a rental property and that’s an investment. It would be foolish for them to not be primarily concerned with turning a profit. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons that our clients hire us — they want to make a profit from their rental property. Their time is valuable, and the more of it they have to invest in late night maintenance calls and following up on late rent, the smaller their return.  After all, it’s a busy world. How much is your free time worth to you?

Of course, the bulk of the profit that our clients make from their rental properties is gained by collecting a larger amount of money in rent than what is spent in expenses. In addition to a positive cash flow, they also reap benefits from the appreciation that is able to be accumulated from their property.

If you’ve decided to invest in real estate, ensuring you’ll make a profit takes on a slightly different form than you may anticipate, with a more specific set of challenges. To make a profit, investors have to ensure that all rent is collected in a timely manner. Every day that rent is not received will cost more money. If the tenant fails to pay their rent completely, then they may have to pursue legal action, which will cost more and begin to erode profits. That doesn’t include the time that needs to be invested in any legal action on the part of the investor — especially one that isn’t represented by a property management company.

One way to reduce the stress of collecting rent is to hire a professional property management service. After all, it’s not always easy to collect rent on time. There are a number of reasons that this may be true. For example, your tenant may be facing financial issues, or you may just have a hard time tracking them down. It may even be due to your tenant having the thought that requested repairs have not been made, so they are withholding rent. Luckily, with a property management company there’s documentation and signed agreements to protect owners from claims like these. No matter the reasons, when rent is due, you need to ensure you are collecting it. That’s one of the key benefits of using a property management company, we collect the rent on behalf of our clients so they get to sit back and collect their earnings.

One way to encourage on-time rent payment is to make it as easy as possible for tenants to get their rent to you. In many cases, this means offering an online portal. This prevents you from having to hunt down tenants, or wait for their checks to arrive in the mail. Since most bills can be paid online now, your tenants may even expect this option. If they can schedule recurring payments, that takes all the stress away from all parties involved. Online payments, in that regard,  allow a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ mindset when it comes to rent. When you give your tenants an alternative option for paying their rent, you will likely have much more success when it comes to receiving it online.

Another benefit of offering this payment method is that you will be able to more efficiently track the payments that have come from your tenants. For example, you will have real time access to the payments that have been made. This means you will always know if a payment is late, and be able to track which tenants pay on time regularly and which ones don’t without having to do much extra work. A good property management service will have an online portal for owners that allows this kind of tracking.

While collecting rent can be frustrating and sometimes tedious, with the help of a property management company like Simply Residential Property Management, and online rent acceptance, you can streamline the payment process and reduce the instances of late payments.