Your rental properties are beginning to keep you up at night.
You’re beginning to worry incessantly about protecting your investment, your selected tenants, and the mounting responsibilities. You’re over stressed and questioning if being a landlord is actually worth your time and energy.
Does any of this sound familiar? If you answered yes, it might be time to take the next step and hire a property manager.
Reasons to Hire a Property Manager
You’re only one person, and even though you try, you can’t do everything yourself.
If your rental properties are stretching you thin, it might be time to hire a property manager. A good manager can be a blessing for a busy landlord or real estate investor.
They can assist you with duties such as screening tenants or making sure rent is collected on time. However, if you’re still on the fence about whether or not you actually need one, consider the following list.
Below you’ll find five tell-tale signs that yes, it’s time for you to finally hire a property manager.
1. You Own Multiple Properties
If you own multiple properties, great! That means you’ve moved forward from your humble beginnings. Your one rental property has now multiplied and is scattered across a greater area.
While this is an encouraging sign of successful investments, it’s also a sign that it’s time to hire a property manager to assist you. Owning property in multiple locations not only adds to your stress, but you likely don’t have the time or the resources to ensure each property is given the attention it needs.
The upkeep of your rental properties might be the compromise you make with yourself. But there are other reasons why multiple properties should be of concern to you.
For example, getting the most from your investment requires you to be well informed of local laws and housing markets. If your properties are strewn across a large area in different municipalities, keeping up with the changes in the different markets might be a challenge. By hiring a property manager to help maintain your investment, you’ll be free to keep up with the markets.
2. You Live In a Different City
Much like owning multiple properties, living in a different city can quickly become problematic.
First and foremost, living in a different city creates challenges for delivering timely service to your tenants. Also, it prevents you from being able to respond to problems quickly, potentially damaging your property, and thus your investment.
But these issues must be addressed because, well, you’re the landlord. When these issues do come up, you’ll likely have to drive further than you’d like, which requires both your time and money.
Hiring a property manager, however, is an excellent way to solve this problem. By having someone in close proximity to your properties, you not only ensure your tenants are receiving prompt service, but you’re better able to protect your investments.
3. You Can’t Keep Up With Tenant Needs
In addition to the issues created by owning multiple properties and not living in the same city, the two usually combine into even more problems. Problems such as not being able to keep up with the needs of your tenants.
Perhaps you’re neglecting your tenants because you don’t have the time. Or maybe it’s because when an issue arises you’re in another city taking care of something at a different property. Whatever the reasons, however, your tenants still need tending to.
In this instance, hiring a property manager could be your saving grace. Not only will they be able to tend to your tenants, but they will alleviate this duty from your responsibility.
4. Too Many Rent Checks
As if maintaining multiple properties wasn’t time-consuming enough, now you have to collect rent checks from multiple tenants, too.
As a landlord, you know how difficult this task can be sometimes. Depending on your tenants, of course. Some of them are likely on time with their rent checks every month or at least are in communication with you regarding any delay. Not all tenants are created equal, though.
Too many rent checks might be indicative of another problem, though. As your resources are stretched thin by the increasing responsibilities, you will have less time to devote to properly screening your tenants.
If a few bad apples fall through the cracks, it will be you that’s left to deal with the aftermath. That is, problems with the law, paying rent late, not paying rent at all, property damage, and potentially eviction.
Another problem area that arises from this situation is not knowing your rental rates. If your properties are in varying areas, knowing exactly how much to raise rent could become a challenge. Hiring a manager will help you focus on the areas of business which need tending to the most.
5. Duties Interfere With Your Life
Becoming a landlord used to be an attractive idea. But now it’s creating more stress than you care to handle and is requiring more time than there is in a day.
And your family is starting to take notice. The demands of being a landlord can sometimes be exhaustive. If you’re the only person available to call at 4 a.m. when a water main breaks, it means you can’t guarantee when you’ll have off time, too.
Before you think about selling your property and jumping ship, consider hiring a property manager. As your manager takes on more of your responsibility, you’ll find that you’re better able to manage your time.
You’ll no longer have to worry about being called away from plans with family or friends. A manager might be exactly what you need to get back to the ideal property owner scenario: sitting back and collecting on time rent checks.
Conclusion
Owning rental properties is a smart investment, but managing them by yourself can be a lot of work. However, the time and energy needed to recover from unforeseen events such as problematic and destructive tenants will likely be much greater.
We understand protecting your investment is your number one priority. To learn more about how to protect your properties besides hiring a property manager, contact us at Insurance by Castle today to see just how much hassle we can save you!
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