Here is part two to our previous post on how to improve your skills as a landlord!
Continued:
Make friends with your handyman
For those repairs that are more than a DIY job, it’s always good to have reliable people on call to help you. Part of being a landlord is finding the right balance between things you can and should do yourself, and things that are more beneficial to everyone if you hire out to get the job done quickly and efficiently.
Organisation is key
Keep up to date with your accounts and numbers, have a clean office and a have a way failsafe way of knowing where everything is. My advice would be that you get the biggest, most efficient, cross referencing, neatly organizing file cabinet you can. Have subheadings for everything: vacancies, repairs, contracts, maintenance procedures. Organization will lead to success!
Charge a late fee
This should be something else that’s put in your written policy and you should be as ruthless with the late fee as you are anything else. Tenants have easily taken advantage of me in the past when I’ve faltered at their latest poverty story that has resulted in rent being a little late. However, from the moment I started introducing a late fee its remarkable how often tenants can suddenly come up with the money on time. Strict deadlines always gives you less financial grief!
Keep rent between strangers
We’re all human and it’s natural when a family member or friend comes to you asking if you can give them a place to rent to try your best to help them out. I can advise that you stay clear of doing so because it can quickly become disastrous. It’s hard to keep to your ‘strict policies for all, no exceptions’ rule when people you have a connection with are involved. Suddenly you feel obliged to answer that phone call at 7pm even though its out of office hours, you let that late fee slip one month because you know how much of a financial mess your cousin’s friend’s daughter has landed herself in. Renting has to be a game that’s fair for and the moment inconsistencies creep in, you open the floodgates for tenants to start taking advantage of your services. I know I’d be more likely to falter whilst renting to friends and family members. As my advice goes, leave your renting business between you and strangers to avoid sticky situations.
