Reduce Your Stress as a Landlord With These 5 Tips

When you become a landlord, stress levels can get very high. There may be tenants who vandalize property, are habitually late with the rent, or just disappear without notice. In general, though, the good tenants outnumber the bad ones, and you’ll able to manage your property profitably. You can cut your stress by finding ways to reduce or eliminate issues. Here at DFW Properties, we wanted to offer some tips for making your property management experiences go smoothly.

1. Use the Internet to Collect Rent
2. Collecting rent from difficult tenants is one of the most stressful aspects of the business. Automating the process can make this much easier. Whether you buy an online solution pre-made or hire a developer to create it, set up a payment system that accepts credit or debit cards, or even automatic bank transfers. You can use any one of the digital payment processing services online. This is more convenient for both you and your tenants, and provides a transaction history for bookkeeping purposes. Your solution should also have reporting features so you can see at a glance what’s happening. Here at DFW Property Management.com, we include both an Owner and Tenant Login, so that Tenants can pay their rent online and property owners can easily check their finances.
3. Outsource Maintenance
4. Anything beyond a few units can be a headache in maintenance, including painting and cleaning up after sloppy tenants. Hiring a crew to take care of this involves all the problems of recruiting and training employees, managing payroll and benefits, and other concerns. Hiring even a minimum-wage employee can cost you over $9,000 before they’re up to speed. If you don’t want those additional stresses and don’t really need full-time help, outsource these routine maintenance tasks to another company. It may cost a little more than doing it yourself, but you’ll have more free time and less anxiety. Here at DFW Property Management.com, we use qualified independent contractors to handle all repairs and maintenance, and our property owners can rest easy knowing that aspect is covered.
5. Keep an Emergency Fund
6. Whether you opt for employees or contractors or want to do it all yourself, you’re still going to pay for repairs and upkeep. Some routine maintenance you can budget for, but events such as careless tenants, storms, litigation, or burst pipes are something else. If your insurance policy won’t cover it, or units are not inhabitable, you’re losing money. It’s best to set aside what you can from the very beginning so that one major setback doesn’t cripple your cash flow.
7. Find a Property Manager
8. You could also pass on your landlord troubles to someone else by hiring a reputable property management company or professional. Those with special training and significant experience may be more suited to handling maintenance, budgets, and bad tenants than you are. They will definitely cost you, but they’ll eliminate all the difficulties of being a landlord while you sit back and take the profits. You can check out 25 Reasons why Hiring DFW Property Management.com is your best bet!
9. Screen Your Tenants
10. Better tenants means fewer missed rent payments, less property damage, and longer tenant retention. Getting good tenants requires screening each applicant to weed out those who may represent a high risk. Screening requires verifying employment, conducting background checks, checking credit scores, calling references, and anything else you consider a good indicator. You have to careful in how you turn prospective renters down to avoid discrimination charges. Make it clear to them why they were rejected. You also don’t want to be too fussy. If you reject one applicant after another you’ll wind up missing out on rent. No tenant at all for months on end is going to cost you more than a bad tenant. Tenant screening is something we take seriously at DFW Property Management.com, in order to find the most qualified tenants for our rental properties. Being a landlord can be profitable and rewarding if you are thoughtful in spending your time and money.

DFW Property Management.com manages properties in the entire Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex. We offer three property management packages: Gold, and Platinum. Please click on the links to read more about each one, or check out our comparison page. Give us a call at 682-200-6700 if you have any questions.