Please welcome international guest blogger, Sharon Freeman, who shares with us three very good reasons why a professional property management company (aka a “landlord service company”) is an absolute necessity to an investment property owner. _Trevor
Landlord Services – Why a Property Management Company Is a Necessity
As a landlord, should you be using professional services or is it good enough to just manage the building on your own?
To answer this question, you will have to take three things into consideration: your time, your experience, and your budget.
1. A Property Management Company Saves You Time
Handling a building and everything that goes along with it can take up a lot of time – more than you could ever imagine. If you are renting out an apartment building to others, you’ll need to be prepared to handle a never-ending stream of complaints, comments, advice and even threats from the renters. A building can hold a mixed bag of personalities and you may encounter a few people who have signed the lease who will never be satisfied.
With a landlord service company, all of these problems can be solved without your direct involvement. You’ll be able to take a bird’s eye view of what’s occurring and will only be asked to interject when necessary. The management company will essentially manage all aspects of your investment property, so that you don’t have to worry about the day-to-day operations. Property management services can include:
- Collecting rent checks
- Showing the property
- Qualifying and screening new tenants
- Ensuring the cleanliness of the building
- Cleaning and upgrading apartments for new tenants
- Lease preparation and execution
- Handling the turnover of keys
- Working with any complaints or issues
- And many more
If it’s your first time operating a multi-family complex, you’ll need to be available to handle emergencies when they arise. If you work a regular 9-to-5 job, it can be extremely difficult to handle this type of workload on your own.
2. Property Managers Are Rental Experts
There is a learning curve that you should understand when it comes to being a landlord before taking the functions that come along with it on your own. For example, the qualifying/screening process is very structured when it comes to finding the right tenants for the building. You don’t want to have a problem tenant that pays his rent late on a regular basis or damages the apartment.
A landlord service knows the exact procedure to follow in order to pre-screen possible tenants to come up with the best and most reliable people to live in your building.
3. Property Managers Save You Money
How much can you afford to pay a property management company? Take a look at your budget to figure out how much you can reasonably afford to pay a management company for landlord services and then take a second look to see how much you could lose by doing everything on your own.
At the end of the day, a landlord service company will end up saving you money by providing quality tenants, keeping your building maintained and doing all of the routine tasks that would eat up a large chunk of your time that could be better spent on other more important investment projects.
Sharon Freeman is a professional freelancer who writes about real estate and the latest housing trends in the real estate world