The 5 Most Important Tasks of Rental Property Management

If you own rental property, you need to manage it. You can hire a professional property management company to handle most of the important activities, or you can choose to manage it yourself. What matters is that certain tasks are taken care of to ensure happy tenants, on-time rent payments and maximum profitability. Here are the 5 most important rental property management tasks:

1. Maintenance

This is easily one of the most important aspects of owning and managing a rental property. You want to keep it in good shape. This creates a better tenant experience, meaning you can keep quality tenants in your unit for longer lease periods. It also keeps the property ready to rent out when you need to find new tenants. Good tenants can also help keep the place in better shape, but you have to make the effort to ensure it is properly maintained at all times.

2. Finding Quality Tenants

You could have the best rental in the world, but it means nothing if you can’t get quality tenants in it. You want to minimize any vacancy periods and have good tenants in there who will take care of the place and pay their rent on time. This is easier said than done. You have to be able to market the unit, screen tenant applicants and choose the right people to live in your property.

3. Rental Pricing

One other factor of finding and keeping good tenants is pricing. Setting a rental price can be tough. You don’t want to underprice it and lose out on potential earnings. You also don’t want to overprice it and make it too hard to find those quality tenants. Keep in mind that an occupied unit always makes more than a vacant one. There is almost always a “sweet spot” for rental pricing that will make it attractive and affordable for your ideal tenants without undercutting your own profitability.

4. Responsiveness

In addition to property maintenance, another way to keep good tenants in your unit is to be responsive. They should always be able to get a hold of you or someone else representing the property fairly quickly. Communicate with them honestly and directly to build a better long-term relationship. Property management is largely customer service, so consider your tenants very important customers.

5. Financial Management

Owning a rental income property is more than just collecting rent each month. It takes a lot of work, and your books need a lot of attention. Track all expenses associated with the property ownership and management. Make sure your rent is collected on time each month. Build a sustainable budget to cover repairs, maintenance and other unexpected costs. Ideally, you should be making some profit from month to month while also gaining equity over time through appreciation. Taxes are also an important consideration. These are the cornerstones of buy and hold investing and rental property ownership.

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