If you own your own rental property, you know what a hassle it can be dealing with legal issues, complaints from tenants, and weekend repairs. There are many advantages to having a trusted and competent property manager take care of your property for you.
1. Stress!
Property management is stressful. Many people who are in the position in life of owning a rental home or two, are also in a stage of their lives where they do not need/want to deal with the stress of collecting rent, dealing with repairs and complaints, deposits and so on and so on.. A good property management company can take a huge load off of your shoulders and make your life so much less stressful when it comes to issues with your rental property.
2. Legal Issues...
Being a landlord exposes you to a variety of legal liabilities. California is an ever changing state of legal mazes. The population has become more and more paranoid and more and more likely to sue over any minor inconvenience or perceived threat or offense. Covid-19 has brought on a new level of rental related legislation, that was changing monthly and sometimes even weekly. If you are not well versed in landlord/tenant law and accustomed to dealing with the myriad of situations that can arise with your tenant, you can easily end up in legal hot water merely by saying or typing the wrong words. A competent property management company can shield you from many of these liabilities.
3. Tenant Screening
Most private landlords are not equipped to screen a prospective tenant adequately and efficiently. You need to be able to run credit and background checks, verify job status, income and residential history. A savvy property management company will have an electronic system already in place to quickly and accurately screen your prospective tenant.
4. Midnight and Weekend Maintenance Calls
You wouldn’t think that you would get many midnight emergency calls or maintenance issues on weekends or during holidays, but trust me, they happen! And more often than you would think. We have had instances where there was a gas leak at a home, and we had to rush out at 11pm on a Friday night to meet the fire department, then had to wait at the property until 2am to close it up! Who wants to do that? Hire a property manager to do it for you.
5. Marketing Your Property
Similar to the tenant screening process mentioned above, most owners are not equipped to market a property well enough to give it the exposure that it could and should get. A well-equipped management company can take professional pictures and videos, and get them placed on over 20 different websites very quickly. They will also know the key phrases that will attract people to your property, as well as the key phrases that will keep you out of any trouble. Just saying the wrong thing in a marketing ad can quickly get you into legal trouble.
6. Accounting
Who wants to deal with all the numbers, figures and tax preparation associated with renting out a property? If you don’t have software set up to do this, you’ll spend hours on a spread sheet every month, and even more hours at the end of the year to make sure you have all your ducks in a row for the IRS. Most management companies have sophisticated software that keeps track of every penny (incoming and outgoing) related to your property. You get a statement every month showing your income and expenses, and a full report at the end of the year that you simply hand over to your tax person. No complicated spreadsheets to deal with!
7. Out of State Owners
Many of our clients live out of the state, some even live out of the country! Even more live in-state but live hours from their property. This leaves you in a position where you are not able to easily drive by the property or physically get your eyes on a maintenance issue. Let us be your eyes and ears. In addition to having trusted vendors to evaluate issues, we live and work near all of our properties and are easily able to go look at an issue in person. It is very important to be able to visit the property in person on occasion to make real-time assessments about critical situations at your property.
All this being said… why wouldn’t you hire a property management company?!
We can take all the burden and stress off your shoulders and you can just collect your check. We can help you get more money from your property, to the point that it will cover the cost of hiring us! It’s a win-win… you make as much or more money, and you deal with none of the day to day hassle of being a landlord!