Rental Property Management Hacks You Need to Know

Whether you’re just starting out or have been at it for a while now, rental property management can be pretty difficult.

The return on investment in such property can be great. Just ask these millionaires who found that out themselves. But they achieved their success through hard work. That means ensuring their real estate is not only operated successfully but also well-maintained.

With maintenance issues being one of the most common reasons tenants move out, yours will leave in droves if you don’t keep their homes in the best condition possible.

Keep your properties in good shape—and your renters happy—with these need-to-know rental property management hacks.

Similar Rental Units = Lower Maintenance Costs

You might think making all your rental units look the same is boring, but doing so is actually a clever way to keep your maintenance costs low.

Having all your rental units look pretty much the same way means it would be okay for them to have similar features. The same doors, the same windows, the same bathroom fixtures, etc.

Only needing what could probably be a handful of different features for all the units you have lets you buy each one in bulk whenever they need to be repaired or replaced.

One of the advantages of buying materials in bulk is getting discounts. The less you have to spend on buying materials for your rental units, the more money you’ll have in the bank.

Track Your Cash Flow Regularly

As the saying goes, things that can’t be measured can’t be improved upon. This applies to a lot of things, including your cash flow. If you don’t keep track of it on a regular basis, it’s practically impossible for you to find out where you can manage your money better.

Good thing there are tools that let you do it easily and effectively, like a rental property investment calculator.

A rental property investment calculator is a free online tool that you can use to crunch the numbers on investing in a piece of short-term rental property.

Say you want to add Airbnb to your portfolio. The digital calculator lets you find out your rental’s potential cash flow, cap rate, and yearly cash-on-cash return—effectively making it a cash flow calculator for rental properties, a cap rate rental property calculator, and a rental property return on investment calculator all rolled into one.

Here’s a useful rental property cash flow calculator to help you get started right away.

Get Your Business Online

Everybody can get almost anything through the internet these days. From food and clothes to medicine and household appliances, we can get nearly everything we need to be delivered to our doorstep with just a few clicks.

The expectation is the same with information about the stuff we need or want. That’s why most potential tenants do their research about the rental properties they want or would like to move into online.
To get in front of these prospective customers, you need to start doing business online as soon as possible.

Some of the Most Common Ways to Get a Rental Business Online

Get added to online real estate and rental marketplaces. Such marketplaces are massive, ever-growing databases of available real estate and rental properties. Buyers and tenants can find the ones they want or would like by just typing in an address, neighborhood, city, or ZIP code and then clicking search.

Use social media. With hundreds of millions of people using social media each day, there’s arguably no better way to reach them directly than to get your business on these sites and apps.

Once you do, you can connect with potential tenants, post about your business, and engage with those who might be interested in it, giving you a good chance of creating a large customer base.

Launch your very own website. If you aren’t that keen on having so much competition vying for your customer’s attention, you could have your own website instead.

The visitors would see nothing but the content you’d post, so you’d have a better chance of getting the attention of those who might be interested in your rental properties than if you’d chosen to duke it out with numerous others for customers’ attention online.

Conduct Regular Preventive Maintenance

If you’ve ever heard the saying “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,” know that it doesn’t just apply to staying healthy. You can also use it to keep your maintenance costs from getting out of hand.

As everybody knows, a problem only gets bigger if it’s ignored. That’s why you need to make sure all your units’ features are always in working order.

To do so, you need to conduct regular preventative maintenance. You need to check all your units regularly and repair the features that are worn out and close to breaking if there are any.

Otherwise, they could all suddenly break at the same time, forcing you to pay for costly major repairs.

Keep a Documentation of All Disputes

No matter who your tenants are, you’ll almost surely have disagreements. Each person has a different way of looking at things, regardless of how small the difference is, so we’re bound to have our differences.

There’s no avoiding that, but you can settle things easily with your tenants by documenting all your disputes, whether it’s in writing or as photos or videos.

Doing so might sound a little extreme, but it will actually be a smart move on your part. Having such documentation keeps things from getting hostile, increasing the likelihood that the disputes will be resolved as quickly and peacefully as possible.

But if worse comes to worst and you get sued, the documentation can serve as proof that you tried to handle the issue or issues amicably, lessening the damages.

Create a Plan for Low-Occupancy Seasons

Just like with hotels, there will be times when most, if not all of your rentals will be idle. Such periods are called low-occupancy seasons.

Hotel owners have learned when their low-occupancy seasons are since they come regularly. They have to learn this because they’d be at risk of going into debt or even bankruptcy if they don’t.
Avoid these issues by learning when your low-occupancy season is and figuring out how to keep your cash flow going during it.

Tenant Screening Is Important

There are rental property owners who only entertain a certain type of tenant. They believe such tenants are the only ones who could be trusted to live in their properties.

You don’t have to go to such lengths to protect your assets, but you do need to make sure the tenants who’d like to move in won’t be more trouble than they’re worth.

To avoid such a hassle, screen each tenant thoroughly, and write off those who might cause you problems without a second thought.

Final Thoughts

You might not be the one who actually lives in them, but your rental properties are home to your tenants. That’s why it’s so important to them that you keep their homes safe and sound.

The only way you can do that is through proper Cincinnati rental property management. Aside from allowing you to enjoy peace of mind, your finances will thank you.

Check out our website to learn how to better manage your finances.