If you have investment property in Florida, landlording can be a very financially rewarding endeavor. If you do it right, it is a fantastic way to generate passive income from your investments with a low level of involvement. If you do it wrong, you’ll probably endure lots of headaches and lose money. As a broker for a company specializing in property management St Cloud, FL, I have had years of experience in this arena. That being said, I am not a lawyer and this advice is intended to be just that, advice. I am in no way qualified to provide you with legal advice, if you need legal advice, please seek advice from a professional in that field.
Here are my Top 5 Tips for First-Time Landlords
5. Be Picky
Don’t rent to anyone before checking references, credit history and having a background check done. If you need help performing a background check, hire the services of a licensed Realtor who specializes in rentals or our property management St Cloud, FL company to do it for you...but it needs to be done.
Don’t rent to family members or friends—that is the quickest way to destroy your relationship with them—acquaintances are a different story. They can end up being great tenants because they already sort of know you and are as a result are not overly expectant of favors nor demanding things from you very often.
Don’t cut corners during your screening process or make any deviations from your screening criteria. Have your criteria written out and make sure it adheres to fair housing standards and doesn’t violate the rights of any protected classes. (You can find an appropriate screening criteria to use through a quick Google search for free!)
Cutting corners often leads to problems. You could wind up with a tenant who trashes the place, a tenant who habitually pays rent late or not at all, or someone who invites all of their unsavory friends to move into them. To see more about how to pick good tenants, I recommend checking out an article I posted about that last week.
4. Be Available
Pick the mode of contact that you would like your tenants to use to reach you and then stick to it; address their concerns in a timely fashion. We recommend an email address or some other automated system that can be monitored regularly and where you can receive all requests in writing. Having all requests and your replies to them in writing is a “best practice” that will cover you as the landlord in the event of a dispute. Our property management St Cloud, FL uses an online system for prioritizing tenant requests. When tenants call our offices directly to notify us of repairs, we remind them politely that we need all requests in writing and defer them to our tenant website, www.tpmhomes.com to submit all requests.
3. Address All Requests
You may not make every repair or alteration your tenants request…but tenants, just like everyone, need to be heard. Listen to your tenants—if you don’t listen they may resent it and seek ways to make you miserable for it. Make sure that the property is kept in good repair so that you don’t alienate a good tenant. Remember that certain repairs may be required by law or by your lease with the tenant. Anything superfluous from that, the best practice is to try to work with the tenants and keep them happy.
Inspect any damages to your property quickly to determine if the repair is an emergency or if you can set up repair visits at a later time. Rather than spend your time brokering tenant availability for repair visits, contact your repairmen directly and let them know that you need to authorize repair costs and then give them the tenant’s contact information so that they can work with the tenant directly. A good company specializing in property management St Cloud, FL can do all of this for you!
2. Respect Tenant Privacy
Tenants want privacy, and in Florida, it’s required by law for you to give tenants notice before you show up to inspect your rental property or to enter the property while they are out for any reason. That being said, don’t just abandon the rental to the tenant, especially if you have reason to suspect they may be causing damage to it. Best practice is to inspect the property once or twice a year depending on the tenant and give them at least 24 hours notice before you plan to show up—or even a few days notice—that way everyone will be on the same page. Our property management St Cloud, FL does interior inspections on all of our properties at least twice a year and drive-by inspections on our properties about once a month. Drive-by inspections can be done quickly without invading the tenant’s privacy and will help you infer as to how the tenants are maintaining the interior of the property. If the exterior looks well kempt the interior is likely to as well.
1. Hire Someone to Handle the Legwork
Landlords who use a professional company specializing in property management St Cloud, FL are less likely to stress about their rentals. They are less likely to rent to unqualified tenants. They are less likely to have landlord-related headaches, property-management-related hair-graying or loss, or bad-tenant related ulcers and less likely to die young from self-landlording related stresses. Additionally, landlords with professional property management St Cloud, FL are more likely to have occupied units year after year. They are more likely to command the highest rents that the market will allow. Hiring a practiced property manager will ensure that you are finding qualified tenants that have a track record of good tenancy and paying rent on-time. A seasoned rental management company avoids the pitfalls of bad tenants all together by doing their best to keep them out of your unit(s), they use concise lease agreements drafted by lawyers with the intent of protecting you—the owner. Landlords with the support of a proficient property manager are more likely to retire early and move to the Keys, and let someone else deal with their rentals for them so they can just earn money and drink piña coladas on the beach…well, more likely to if that’s their goal.
Toni’s Property Management, LLC is licensed to practice property management St Cloud, FL, Kissimmee, Davenport, Poinciana, Orlando and Celebration, Florida. We love to help people find and place great tenants into beautifully maintained rental properties with our extensive background and tenant screening process. Our specialty is helping investors interested in acquiring properties to rent and getting them the best return on investment that the market allows. If you’re looking for rental properties in Kissimmee, Saint Cloud, Davenport, Poinciana, Orlando or Celebration, our property management website has a fully automated search of all rentals available in those areas.
Contact us by phone 407-933-2357, or email office@tonisrentals.com
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