subject: 6 Helpful Tips for New Landlords Looking to Rent Their Property [print this page] 6 Helpful Tips for New Landlords Looking to Rent Their Property
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Being a landlord over the years, I'm often sought out by friends and family on advice for managing rentals, especially now since its so difficult to sell and many are looking to rent out their own homes.
The first question to ask yourself is if you are looking to manage the property yourself or if you are interested in hiring a property manager. If hiring a manager, the selection process that goes into this could involve an entirely separate article in and of itself. However, I'd like to offer some helpful tips that would help out any potential or active landlords in simplifying the process if looking to rent a property on your own.
1. Once you've found your renter(s) and you're ready to sign the lease, try to meet them at the house instead of an alternate location. This gives you the opportunity to familiarize them with the home and to also walk the home together while you take pictures of all the rooms throughout the home that will help document the property's current condition. At the end, you will want to make notes that you will both sign in any areas that you are aware of that already have defects or damage such as a gash in the sheetrock or a stain in the carpet. This will help show that you care about the property's condition and are aware of some of its flaws and it will also help to prevent any finger pointing later when the lease is up and the deposit is due should they have caused damages to the property that were not present at the time the lease was signed.
2. Try to keep a list of all model and serial numbers and color finishes within the house. This could include all the kitchen appliances, the furnace, the water heater, and even the faucets or fans if you've replaced them recently. This will help tremendously when you need to order a part or schedule service for things that aren't working properly or for warranty claims and may help save a trip out to the house as you can't expect your tenants to climb into a crawl space or attic to retrieve these things, assuming they are even home to do so when you need to make the calls. This list can also be handy to supply to a property management company as well if you have hired them to handle these issues.
3. Purchase and leave specific items in the house for your tenants in order to promote safety and keep service calls to a minimum. These are things such as a good toilet plunger, a fire extinguisher, air filter replacements for the furnace, labels for the electrical panel box, specialty bulbs for fixtures such as pendants or other lights (that normally must be custom ordered) and even touch up paint and caulking. You can't expect tenants to buy these things on their own but good tenants will be more apt to maintain and handle these things if they are easily placed within the home and this will help to keep service calls to a minimum.
4. When the time comes to replace your toilets, it will be in your best interest to get the best available. Not only will this better prevent clogged toilets but also help minimize service calls to a plumber that will constantly have to come out and replace minor parts within the tank due to the poor quality of a cheap toilet. Better to spend the extra money and save in the long run and to also rid yourself of constant tenant phone calls. You may also find you are saving money if you are the one responsible for the water bill and you replace toilets with high-efficiency models since toilets use more water per fixture throughout the year than anything else within the home.
5. If you can afford it, offer a quarterly pest control service on the house. Typically, you can find these for as little as $200 per year if done on a regular basis. This is good for two reasons. The first being that you likely won't get any calls from tenants complaining about bugs being in the home. The second is the prevention of any bug infestation within your walls. Since some tenants could actually attract bugs into the home by leaving trash around, you wouldn't want that to grow into a more serious problem. This would be especially important later when looking to re-rent or sell the property.
6. And lastly, treat your tenants right and handle all their concerns as quickly as possible, even in 24 hours or less if you can. Do this and they will take better care of your place and will likely want to continue to rent from you year after year. Just one or two months of lost rent due to tenant turnover can cost you thousands while looking for new tenants. For instance, if your current tenants want you to steam clean their carpets after living in the home 6-12 months, go ahead and spend the money. Better to spend a couple hundred dollars now and to keep them than to lose a month or two in rent and have to start all over trying to find good tenants again because they decided to look for a nicer place and one in which their landlord takes better care of them.
I hope these simple recommendations will help you to be a less stressed and more effective landlord. And I wish you the best of luck in all your real estate endeavors!
If this has been helpful and you would like to learn more, you can find many more resources for landlords as well as real estate related information athttp://www.CharlotteRealEstateLoop.com
Rory Cummins is Charlotte NC real estate investor and operates the Charlotte Real Estate Loop. You canTake a Look Here to find him on his forum.
