PropertyZar

Many homeowners and property management companies do not consider home maintenance until something breaks. Is that the best way to maintain your investment? Whether you are a new landlord or seasoned one, you should establish some maintenance protocols.

Here Are Some Tips For Protecting Your Investments:

Establish A Home Maintenance Plan

A good place to start is by establishing a maintenance schedule. A good property management software will assist you in creating reminders for asset maintenance. Things like changing air filters, water filters etc.

You’ll need to plan on cleaning your gutters and trimming trees from time to time. Pest control is another item that is often overlooked. Depending on your lease agreement, you may need to spray or have ground treatment performed a few times a year.

When it comes to assets such as appliances, make sure to send in any warranties and follow the maintenance recommendations in your owner’s manual. Upload the warranty information along with purchase

The choices for multi-family investors continues to grow for 2019. Sure, there are concerns about higher interest rates, property values and high inventory but that doesn’t seem to affect the availability of capital sources. This is good news for property management companies. As the real estate market remains strong, more investors will rely on property managers and property management software to support their portfolios.

Debt Funds

There are several equity funds that are providing financing for developers by way of debt funds.

These ‘bridge loans’ can go as high as 85% of the property value with competitive interest rates.

Once the property has been completely leased, the developer can move to a more permanent type of loan.

Interest Rates

Even though there have been some recent rate hikes, rates are still considered low for traditional permanent loans.

In 2018 Q4, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been in the area of 4.25% – 4.50%. These loans also cover up to 75% of the property. That is

You know the saying, a picture is worth a 1000 words. There is no denying the fact that great looking photos will help your marketing efforts. Renters are more inclined to choose a property that has a lot of photos with high quality.

What most renters do, is shop for rental properties and then imagine what their life would be like living there. Photos help the renter ‘imagine’. It’s a good idea to take multiple professional quality photos of each room from different angles. This helps paint a broader image for the renter to see and imagine living there and seeing the rooms from all angles.

Professional Quality

Notice I said ‘professional quality’ photos. Are these only produced from professional photographers? Not necessarily. With the higher quality cameras on the market and with a little practice, you can take decent quality photos yourself. If you are ‘camera’ challenged, then I recommend hiring a professional.

Your property class also should factor into your decision about a

Raising rents is a question we see a lot. Should you or shouldn’t you. For those landlord’s or property managers that do raise rents, 2-4% seem to be the typical range.

Good Tenants

If you have good tenants who take care of your property, pay on time and all-around good tenants, raising their rent may push them to look for another place to rent.

Finding new tenants, especially good ones, is a costly endeavor and may not be financially prudent for an extra 2 or 3%.

Not So Good Tenants

However, on the other hand, if your tenants are not the best, maybe it’s worth losing them if you raise their rents. If they stay, fine. You gain a little extra profit for the extra work they bring to you.

Progressive Rent Increases

Residential leases vs Commercial leases are different. Commercial leases are more common for regular rent increases, but not always. Many commercial leases include progressive rent increases stipulated. If you use a property management software, often it will have the ability to

We all know that one of the challenges facing property managers is communications with tenants and owners. According to a CNN poll, a person between 18-29 years if age averages 88 text messages a day. SMS messages have hit main stream.

The best online property management software will include the ability to communicate via email or SMS.

SMS Availability

Whether you are a professional property manager or a property owner/landlord, you need to make sure you are accessible via SMS texts for many reasons. More often, emergencies are now sent via text messages than any other means. Many tenant mobile apps include the ability for the tenant to easily send the property manager a SMS message.

With a web-based property management software, the manager’s mobile phone is not seen by the tenant so you shouldn’t be too concerned with receiving SMS messages.

Better Communications with Tenants & Owners

When your tenants and property owners know that they can text you easily, it builds better relationships

Property managers have a lot to deal with. It’s not an easy job. Old challenges remain while new challenges arise due to new regulations and social media.

Here are some challenges that we have identified

Managing Time

With all the responsibilities that property management companies and landlords face, time management skill is a must. Along with this skill, a good online property management software is essential. Why? Because a property management app does so much to take the mundane tasks and automate them, reducing the managers work load and thus providing more time. In addition, a web-based property management software allows property managers to work from anywhere 24/7. This ability alone greatly increases productivity.

Criminal Tenants

Meth labs, drug dealing, and other criminal activity present a big problem for property managers and property owners. From police presence, quarantine for meth labs and heavy foot traffic, there is nothing in these scenarios that is good for your