The 3 Ways To Be A Good Landlord And Still Make Money
There are many landlords out there that, unfortunately, think that if they are good landlords, that will mean that they will make less money or be pushovers. The reality is that if you are a good landlord, you make more money, and your life is much easier. Absentee landlords that disappear thinking they don’t have to do anything end up with big avoidable problems.
1. Stay professional
It’s ok to have a friendly relationship with your tenants. There’s nothing wrong with being friendly and likable. However, you do need to also stay within bounds and not be too friendly and cross the line from being professional. If you are too friendly, it becomes tough to have hard conversations with tenants.
Try to avoid going to their place to hang out and turn down invitations to go to parties there. This will ensure that you can keep the relationship on a business level. You won’t ever overlook bad tenant behavior to avoid a confrontation since you feel more like friends.
You also need to make sure that you send formal requests for information or that you email anything type of correspondence. This leaves a record, so you are always covered in case of a problem.
2. Make it easy for tenants to pay
Getting rent on time requires a landlord to be flexible with payment options. Not everybody uses the same ways to pay these days. If you are rigid and only accept one way to pay, then this can be a point of friction for some tenants. For instance, if you request to only be paid in cash, this will be an issue for people who never have cash. Look for ways to accept credit card payments or payments by apps like Paypal or Swipe.
Buying a rental property for investment carries with it some responsibility. However, when you face up to the fact that there are things that you need to do, you will end up avoiding a lot of those big problems. Before you buy one of the many homes for sale In Tennessee to be rented out, you need to understand how to be a good landlord and your responsibilities. In this article, we will go over several you should know.
3. Keep property maintained
All too often, landlords will neglect their property so they can save money. This will cost you far more than you can imagine, so keep your property maintained and up to date. If you let things fall apart and are slow to make repairs, then these issues will be bigger problems later that require much more expensive repairs.
You’ll also save a lot of money by keeping your tenants longer. People come and go quickly when they realize their landlord is neglectful and doesn’t care for the property. This results in lost months of rent coming in and the cost to replace tenants.
