If you decide to relocate, you’ll have a vacant property on your hands. If you’ve thought of converting it into a rental rather than selling it, then there’s no need to fear. Technology has aided a lot of remote landlords in managing their rental units from afar.
Operating a rental home while you’re located far away does not come without its own set of challenges though. It’s essential for long-distance landlords to know what makes for good property management to achieve rental success.
Choose Your Renters Wisely
Having occupants that you can depend on takes major stress off you. But getting the right occupants is necessary if you’re a long-distance landlord. Picking an unreliable tenant will create a lot of problems since you don’t have the luxury of dropping by your property often to check on things.
If your visits are normally stretched to several months apart, then you may be surprised what awaits you when you arrive in your rental home.
Landlords can focus on improving their tenant screening process to filter out high-quality tenants from not-so-great ones. This requires doing the proper background checks and reviewing the credit history of applicants.
When you’ve evaluated the rental history and see that a tenant has a good record then you gain more peace of mind. Performing extensive screening may take a lot of time and energy but nothing puts your mind at ease than knowing that you have a tenant you can trust when you’re based a good distance away.
Encourage Open Communication
After accepting a high-quality tenant, it’s now time to practice regular and open communication. Given that you’re located from far off, you will be relying a whole lot on your tenants to report what’s happening on the ground.
If they discover mold problems, pest infestations or water leaks, it’s essential that you should know about it right away. This ensures that you’ll be able to find solutions as soon as possible. If not, you could end up with costly repairs given that you don’t know the issues plaguing your property.
To achieve this, always send your tenants your latest contact information so they can always reach you. This includes your phone number so they can call you anytime they want. It also encourages them to report problems they encounter.
Another way you can keep an open communication is to contact your tenants to check in once a month. This allows you to learn how your renters are faring and the state of your rental property. Remember to respect boundaries and not to pry into personal areas of your tenants’ lives overly. This ensures communication lines are always open and your tenants are receptive to your calls.
Find Time for a Property Visit
Conduct a visit to your property at a minimum of once a year. The US tax law deems visits from long-distance landlords to their properties as tax-deductible.
You can benefit from this since all your expenses from plane tickets, hotel stays to meals can be subtracted from your rental’s profits. As a long-distance landlord then, you should maximize this benefit by visiting your rental place at least once a year.
Visiting your property makes a lot of difference. By physically being there to see the condition of your rental unit, you can see the reality for yourself. You can also talk with your renters to gauge their satisfaction with staying in your property.
Without regular visits to your rental, you can be oblivious to the actual state of your home. Since you’ve invested a lot financially, it’s essential to not leave a lot of things to chance.
Be Aware of Your Competition
Being a long-distance landlord can leave you out of the loop about what’s going on in your neighborhood. It’s best to stay connected with the local community. A lot of factors can affect your rental business.
New rental homes may be constructed, taking a huge slice of prospective renters away from you. The business environment is dynamic and government policies may also change. These can have a huge effect on the rental market.
Without your presence, you can’t be responsive to the current market situation. If you were living close by, you can quickly adjust rates. If your competitors charge lower rent in response to a slow economy and rental demand, you can also follow the strategy.
If rental demand is strong with new infrastructure constructed, you can also raise your rents. But if you’re not updated with the present situation in your neighborhood, you could face tenant turnovers or fail to maximize your rental income.
Long-distance landlords should make more effort to be updated with local news and keep track of the rental market. They can then proactively respond and make their property stand out.
Make Use of Local Resources
Repair requests are bound to happen. When this occurs, you must have a network of local resources that you can tap. Long-distance landlords can’t easily make their way to the rental place and resolve the issues on their own or engage a nearby contractor. It’s advisable to be prepared.
You want to avoid trying out repair services that you have not vetted. Landlords who are ready for the upcoming maintenance requests of their renters can contact the best local maintenance professionals.
Long-Distance Landlords Can Benefit from the Support of Local Property Managers
A good alternative that long-distance landlords can consider is engaging the services of a local property manager. The team is more flexible and agile when confronted with daily necessary management tasks from marketing the rental, performing tenant screening, getting the leases ready and collecting the rent.
Another advantage of property managers like East Bay Property Management is that we act as your professional representatives. Renters can directly go to them for immediate assistance. In addition, professional managers have also built up their own solid network of vendors that focus on maintenance. This provides a lot of advantages to long-distance landlords.
