The idea behind income properties is simple-rent them out and make money — but the reality of owning and managing one can be anything but. Property owners and managers know that keeping a property safe and setting up effective and reliable legal arrangements with tenants and others can be time-consuming, taxing (often literally!), and risky.
Fortunately, landlords have tools at their disposal that can make owning a rental property more manageable and less risky. Smart landlords seek to simplify the renting process and other key processes related to income properties, thereby making their properties more efficient and their operation more scalable.
The Problems Rental Property Owners Face
If owning a rental property merely involved purchasing a property and handing it over to a tenant, handling income properties would be relatively stress-free. Alas, there’s a lot more to it.
Even after the complexities of a new real estate deal are behind them, a proud owner of an income property will soon find that new risks and legal hurdles arise. Landlord insurance is a must-have for a rental property owner. Managing and maintaining the property itself is a concern, too. So is renting it out: tenants aren’t always as easy to find as we imagine they’d be, especially when you’re limiting your search to those trustworthy tenants who can be relied upon to care for the property and pay rent (important distinctions, landlords know, because of how costly and destructive a bad tenant can be).
Ways to Simplify Tasks Related to Owning a Rental Property
Happily, landlords aren’t alone in the world. There are other individuals, businesses, and even software programs that are around to help manage the most difficult, annoying, and risky tasks related to owning an income property.
Take maintenance, for instance: hiring a property manager or farming the task out to a property management company can take a significant burden off of your time and focus, making the investment worth the price in many cases.
The process of finding a tenant that suits the property can also be made easier. There are real estate agents, of course, who will be eager to help in the hopes of earning a commission. For property owners who hope to keep the renting process more in-house, there are software programs and systems that streamline the process. Using a service that will help you set up an online rental application, for instance, can make things more attractive to potential renters by making it easier to apply for vacancies — and if the tool also manages background checks and other key steps, things will get a whole lot easier on your end, too.
Property owners and landlords are often hard workers and savvy businessmen and women, but they’re not superhuman. We all have limited time in our daily lives, and sometimes the best business decision is to make judicious use of outsourcing and software services in order to lighten our workloads and free up our time. Such solutions can help landlords run rental properties more efficiently, which in turn can make the rental operations more scalable — opening up the possibilities of new properties under the same management and the growth of one’s real estate business. Simplifying the renting process is a way to work smarter, rather than harder — and it can make a huge difference in the future of your business.
