subject: Making a Rental House Work for You [print this page] Making a Rental House Work for You Making a Rental House Work for You
Owning rental property is a lot harder than it sounds. The idea of letting someone else pay the mortgage on your house while they live there is certainly appealing, but there are a lot of different things you will have to consider when you put on the landlord hat. Simply dropping off the keys and the lease won't do if you're really planning to use rental property as your real estate investing plan. You will have to remain actively involved in the process, or you may find that you are losing money in the long run.
First of all, you will have to find some great tenants, and the pool is pretty shallow. It's sad to consider it, but the truth is that many people rent houses because they aren't able to buy one. This often means bad credit history or low income, and that usually translates to tenants that cannot or will not pay the rent. When your tenants don't pay rent, you are still liable for it. This can get expensive pretty quickly if you are already paying a mortgage on your own home, and even worse when you own more than one rental property. A good way to weed out the bad tenants is to conduct a background and credit check on each applicant. You still may run across some bad eggs, but you will find that your renters are more likely to keep up with the monthly payments when you carefully select them.
Maintenance can be quite a hassle, too, but it is extremely important to keep your houses in the best possible shape. You can lose out on great renters if you refuse to keep up with standard maintenance. It can also be hard to convince quality tenants to rent your properties if they don't like what they see when they view the house. By regularly checking on plumbing, structural issues, and electrical issues, you can ensure that your homes are always in the best possible repair. By adding fresh paint to the inside and outside between tenants, you can also keep everything looking fresh and new.
If you find that you can properly manage one rental home, you may find the urge to purchase more and make a living with real estate investing. As long as you remain diligent in your management of the properties, there is no reason that you can't make the most of real estate investing as a career or retirement plan.
