At first glance, it may seem easy to maintain a rental property, but not all people are born with management skills and the means to learn how to effectively manage rental properties. Property management can be challenging and overwhelming, but having someone with experience and knowledge managing your commercial properties is one of the most important and beneficial tools to have as a real estate investor.
As the rental property owner and the landlord, you have to wear a lot of hats on a daily basis. It can be a demanding job as you have to juggle three main responsibilities – property management, tenant management, and financial management. There is always a risk of making mistakes when you own rental property. However, when you decide to take on the role of landlord AND property manager, you face the potential for more frequent mistakes because you likely do not have the experience that professional property managers have.
Some mistakes are simple and easy to correct. Others are expensive and can undermine your plans for a successful investment experience. The IPA Commercial Real Estate team has 30+ years of experience that will help you simplify property management to eliminate these mistakes and guide you toward quality property investment strategies that are effective, efficient and affordable.
One of the benefits to hiring the professional Inland Empire property management company, IPA Commercial Real Estate, is that you are protected from many of the common mistakes that self-managing landlords make.
The following mistakes are the errors we see most often when landlords decide to self-manage their properties.
Basic Responsibilities Involved in Managing a Rental Property
- Advertising your property
- Preparing and enforcing the lease
- Tenant screening
- Evicting (when necessary), and finding new tenants when vacancies occur
- Doing basic and preventative maintenance, making repairs as needed
- Handling complaints, as well as moderating issues between tenants
- Financial Management (establishing the right rent, collecting rent, calculating costs and taxes, pay invoices, etc)
- Overall Supervision
- Staying up-to-date with Landlord-Tenant laws and regulations
What Is Professional Property Management?
Property management means that you hire someone else to run a property you own for you, handling the day-to-day tasks that keep your investment prospering. A commercial property manager handles non-residential properties like offices, retail spaces, storage facilities, shopping centers and industrial buildings. Like residential property management, commercial management encompasses the tasks and responsibilities of operating an income-producing property.
Many property owners choose to engage a commercial property management firm to ensure all the day-to-day details of operating a commercial property are handled competently. The management firm is usually granted authority to make decisions that impact the amount of income the owner derives from the property. In many cases, the right management can result in a lower turnover of tenants as well as securing the best possible rental rates for the space.
Commercial property management involves being able to prioritize and execute a wide array of tasks such as the advertising, marketing and leasing processes. Property managers of commercial spaces must keep meticulous administrative and financial records, and keep all applicable maintenance, taxes, mortgages and insurance updated. They ensure rent is collected, and respond to tenant needs and issues.
What Is Self-Management?
If you decide to manage rentals on your own, you must be prepared to perform numerous daily tasks and spend much of your time running and managing the property or properties. Self-management requires marketing and advertising, as well as time management skills. Keep in mind that your job does not end at collecting rent. A landlord has many more responsibilities, such as inspecting the properties regularly, providing general maintenance on the property, fixing urgent issues, ensuring safety, communicating with tenants, trying not to lose your temper while interacting with difficult tenants, running background checks, conducting lease agreements and evicting tenants when necessary.
Self-management will save you money, but this savings comes at the expense of your own time and effort, and you also run the risk of violating a law you were not aware of. You have to ask yourself whether or not you are ready to sacrifice your time to a 24/7 landlord job.
7 Common Mistakes Self-Managing Landlords Often Make
1. Tenant Screening
By skipping or performing hasty background checks means finding the wrong tenants. Tenant screening is an important process, your second line of defense after a solid lease agreement in order to ensure that the tenant is the right fit for your rental property and will be a consistent, long-term paying tenant. Creating a solid tenant selection criterion allows you to avoid property damage, late rental payments and the long process of eviction in California.
Self-managing your property means screening all your prospective tenants. Without property experience, knowledge or resources, you could end up with a tenant that cannot pay the rent on time, is a nuisance to other tenants, or is destructive/neglectful of your property. A professional property manager has the resources and the technology to screen tenants fast and efficiently, especially performing thorough background checks and sifting through good potential tenants.
2. Rent Collection
As a landlord, you will be responsible for collecting rent, which is not always on time. This can be very frustrating, especially if you have scheduled payments to make, like your mortgage. Property managers have a specific system in place to manage rent payments, reminders for late payments and even when it is time to start the eviction process. Most self-managers do not automate rent payment, tenant communications, bookkeeping, accounting and maintenance requests. Automation, especially turning rental payments online, can free up your time and allow you to avoid lost receipts and documents, as well as important communications.
As a landlord, you need to keep track of everything like repair requests, property damage, and receipts, so you need to have them all in one place that you and your tenant can access to also avoid legal disputes in the future. You must know what is going on at all times, which takes constant communication.
3. Creating a Solid Lease Agreement
Creating a solid lease agreement that fits your property and local state laws can help keep you out of serious legal trouble. The rental or lease agreement is the most important document a landlord and a tenant can share, which outlines both of their responsibilities. It is a good idea to hire a lawyer to write the agreement or have a lawyer check the contract before it is presented to the tenant for signing.
4. Not Enforcing the Lease
Drawing up a formidable lease agreement is just the first step. You also have to enforce it and hold both yourself and your residents accountable to what is included there. If rent is not paid on time and your lease includes a rent collection policy with late fees, make sure you charge those late fees. Tenants need to know you take the lease agreement seriously. Be sure you are clearly communicating, sharing your expectations and enforcing the lease.
5. Vendor and Contractor Selection
Many owners and property managers use new contractors every time or just take the “low bid,” without properly analyzing the bids and scope of work. Not working with licensed and insured professional vendors and contractors can rack up a pretty hefty bill and may not meet your state’s health and safety requirements. Working with professional vendors and contractors who are licensed, insured and bonded is an important part of protecting your Inland Empire commercial property. A lot of self-managing landlords will try to save some money by doing the work themselves or sending a friend over to address an issue. This is a terrible idea. Professional vendors do better work. They are also protected if there is an injury or damage caused to the property.
6. Legal and Legislation
Lack of market awareness and landlord and tenant laws may result in legal troubles. As the landlord, you will handle all the legal responsibilities and this means staying on top of any landlord-tenant law updates in your state, as well as on the current property and local authority laws and regulations where your rental property is located. While self-managing allows you to learn and experience a lot of things, some mistakes can be costly especially when it comes to the legal side of owning a rental property. Having a property manager to rely on the ins and outs of the rental industry is a big advantage.
7. Separation of Work and Personal Life
Self-managing a commercial property means you will be responsible for all of the finances – from collecting rent, paying taxes to maintenance and repairs, and with the long list of responsibilities – time commitment is a requirement. This can create a huge impact on your personal life especially if you have a family on your own. Lack of a consistent schedule to perform regular inspections and address emergencies and repairs can ensure that you violate laws. Putting off routine checks can be a costly problem. So, have a schedule and be consistent in checking your property. Addressing maintenance requests as quickly as possible will help you preserve the property and your reputation with your tenants.
Should You Hire a Property Manager or Do It Yourself?
In order to decide whether you would be better off to rent by owner vs. using property management, you should consider the pros and cons for your own situation with relation to your rental properties, career goals and personal priorities.
Time
Your time is probably your most valuable asset, aside from the investment itself. The more time you spend managing, the less time you have to look for other potential properties to buy or other business opportunities — and you lose out on time to simply to enjoy life.
Opportunity cost comes into play here; everything you do means you cannot do something else at that given moment. Hiring a quality management company like IPA Commercial Real Estate can undoubtedly save a lot of time.
Maintenance
Maintenance can be extremely time-consuming. The biggest complaint from tenants is lack of communication and follow-through on maintenance. It is the single biggest reason they move out. Also, not having a good list of reliable vendors will waste time and money. A good property management company has an extensive and exclusive list of the best vendors in the area. Not only that, they can get discounted pricing from the vendors in most cases, which saves you money!
Paperwork
Having proper documentation is extremely important to protect both you and the tenants. This includes the lease, applications, guarantors, rules and regulations, etc. If you do not have this on hand, you will pay the price in legal fees and lawsuits later down the line.
A quality property manager has all the necessary paperwork to keep your liability at a minimum. A conscientious manager will make certain that you are covered legally with the proper documentation and ensure that your property is kept up to code to avoid those nasty lawsuits. Although hiring a property manager comes at a cost, the overall savings you will realize by having a quality manager is far more beneficial than self-managing.
Why Choose IPA?
Choosing the right commercial property management company can make real estate ownership a breeze. For people who own commercial and industrial properties, working with a respected property management company can be a great resource. With 30+ years of experience in the Inland Empire, the experience of the IPA Commercial Real Estate team provides a depth of knowledge regarding maintenance and project costs.
Just like management in any other business, a respected management company can monitor the care and financial requirements of any property. We can also help evaluate your rent structure. IPA Commercial Real Estate very focused on client properties and tenants and we have the skills and knowledge to make your ownership experience easy and pain-free.
We offer 24/7 Service from our team day or night! Call IPA COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE at (951) 686-1462 to discuss how we can help you. Let us show you how to add value to your property.