7 Fast Facts On Quality Property Management
Property management is not easy. You will have to deal with tenants, landlords, and property maintenance. If you are interested in getting involved in property management, then this is the article for you. We will outline seven fast facts on quality property management so that you know where you stand:
1. What Is Property Management?
Property management is quite simple. It’s all in the name. It is managing and maintaining any kind of property, from an apartment to a house. Property management is not just maintaining the property, but also finding tenants, collecting rent, and disciplining tenants who do not pay their rent on time.
Some property managers can even manage entire apartment buildings. To be a good property manager, you need to manage your time well, have an eye for detail, and must be able to communicate properly.
2. Marketing Properties
Something that most property managers do is market their properties. Property management involves understanding how marketing works. You will be solely responsible for advertising, and drawing in prospective tenants. You may have to offer special promotions and discounts to entice tenants.
According to the property management team in Charlotte, a good way to lease your properties faster is by allowing pets into them. Advertising a property with ‘pets allowed’ can draw in tenants ten days faster.
3. Monitoring Properties
If you are not leasing the properties you are managing, you will need to monitor them. Empty properties (wherever you are in the world) attract the worst type of person. If you do not monitor your properties, people might begin squatting inside them. They might also become hubs for drug activity.
There is also a strong chance that they will be vandalized. It isn’t easy to constantly monitor properties, which is why you should seal up the property properly and install CCTV and alarms. If people do gain access to the properties you are managing, you must ensure that nothing valuable is left on the premises. Some things you can’t remove, however, like pipework. Copper pipework is stolen frequently from empty properties.
4. Inspections
You will also have to inspect your properties. A property inspection is when you visit your tenant’s homes and check that the property is all in order. Ordinarily, inspections take place once every month. During the pandemic, property inspections have been taking place exclusively online.
As lockdowns begin to be drawn back all over the world, however, inspections are taking place in person again. Property inspections also take place to ensure that nothing is happening in the property that is not allowed, such as drug use and subletting. They also take place to check for pets that are not allowed.
7 Fast Facts On Quality Property Management
5. Managing Evictions
Property managers are also expected to deal with the more unfortunate aspects of tenancies; they have to handle evictions. Every landlord’s dream is to find a tenant who pays on time and is not irresponsible. Unfortunately, these tenants are hard to find. As a property manager, you will be expected to enforce an eviction.
Many governments stopped any eviction proceedings from taking place during the pandemic and offered mortgage holidays to landlords. Evictions are now allowable again, and thus, property managers are enforcing more evictions than ever before. Evictions can be avoided by finding perfect tenants and properly vetting them.
6. Facility Management
It is also a property manager’s responsibility to manage and maintain a property’s facilities. This could include fixing plumbing problems as soon as they arise, ensuring that the oven and fridge work, or replacing an extractor fan in the bathroom. If you do not manage your property’s facilities properly, then you can be taken to court.
A tenancy works both ways. If you expect your tenants to pay their rent on time and cause no problems, then you need to ensure that the property is habitable and that the facilities work as they are supposed to.
7. Communication
One of the most important elements of property management is communication. If you do not communicate, or your colleagues do not, you will struggle to find tenants. Property management agencies that fail to communicate are often ranked poorly and receive a lot of bad reviews.
When your tenants and landlords call you, get back to them on the same day or the next day. If there is an emergency repair, have it fixed quickly. Ideally, you should also have an out-of-hours contact number. Agencies that don’t in 2021 may have difficulty finding tenants for their properties.
Property management is a very complex, but lucrative line of work. If you can master it, then you can achieve financial independence. It can be as simple as finding a property to manage, whether it be friends or family members. Once you have a property, you are ready to start.
7 Fast Facts On Quality Property Management