Becoming A Landlord
You own a home that you would like to rent. The arrangement seems like a simple one: You provide the residence, the tenant pays the rent and bills. Yet there is a gap between the perfect home and the perfect tenant – and the space in between is where you become a landlord.
These are three basic truths of being a landlord:
1) Things Break
As a homeowner, you understand that a residence requires maintenance. If it’s not the big-ticket items – the roof, the water heater, the HVAC system – it’s the smaller things. Faucets leak, doors squeak and outlets go out. A landlord is responsible for maintaining their property from the foundation up, and part of homeownership is owning that responsibility as well. Even new homes have their issues, and the phrase “it’s always something” will be said more than once as you find yourself once again getting a call on a relaxing evening on your day off.
2) People Aren't Perfect
Although there is an ideal tenant – someone who is self-reliant and pays all their bills on time – there is no such thing as the perfect tenant. Life happens to everyone. Beyond that, you are almost certainly guaranteed to come across tenants who can’t or won’t pay their rent on time, who ignore or cause damage to your property, and who can and will contact you for every single issue they have – day or night. Your interpersonal skills, as well as your patience, will be tested as you interact directly with your tenants. How you handle your disagreements can greatly affect your experience as a landlord – it’s easy to become chronically frustrated and fatigued by less-than-perfect tenants, but it’s part of the job!
3) Resolutions Take Time
As a landlord, you will become very familiar with resolving issues. Whether you’re rolling up your sleeves in the middle of the night to do emergency plumbing, going back and forth with a tenant over non-payments, or filing (seemingly) never-ending stacks of insurance, taxes, and invoice paperwork – it falls on you, as the landlord, to take care of these issues. All of these things will cut into your free time.
Of course, you don’t have to go through the hassles of being a landlord.
There is a way to rent out your property without having to deal directly with repairs or troublesome tenants, and without having to spend hours of your life making phone calls and filing paperwork:
HIRE A PROPERTY MANAGER.
A Property Manager is someone who will be your middleman. Property Managers find and screen tenants, collect payments, and deal with every hassle and phone call on your behalf. They can even help you sell your home or increase your portfolio. They are your hands in the field and eyes on the ground and go to work for you to facilitate a smooth renting experience for you and your tenants.
Frontline Managers do all that and also benefit from a full staff of support! The Frontline Family works as a stellar team to ensure that every step of the process is taken care of, down the very last detail. Working with Frontline Property Management is not only hiring a Property Manager, it’s gaining an accounting department, a team of tenant coordinators, a corporate office and managers with years of real estate experience! Sleep better at night knowing that your property and your business is safe in our hands!
