Taking the stress out of property management

When you buy a rental property, you’reinvestinginyourfinancialfuture.This means you want its profits to outweigh its expenses.

For this reason, some people decide to manage their investment properties themselves, thus avoiding the need to pay rental management fees.

While self management does indeed do away with the expense of management fees, this is probably the only ‘pro’ in the situation compared with a number of ‘cons’ for people who elect to do their own management work.

The main need, once you’ve bought theproperty, is to find good tenants who will look after
it and pay their rent regularly. If those tenants leave, you also need to be able to replace them as quickly as possible, to ensure your property continues to bring in the money you’ve budgeted for.

Finding such tenants yourself involves the cost of advertising as well as the loss of rental income while the property is empty. A professional property manager, on the other hand, has a list of prospective tenants and theexpertise to find appropriate people quickly.

Time is also a major factor in managing your property.

You need to be aware of how much time you will spendnot only finding tenants but showing them the property,checking their credentials, managing the receipt of rental payments and record-keeping.

You will also be faced with the loss of time involved in carrying out any necessary maintenance or repairs, or organising for this to be done. There is also the possibility that you will sometimes need to deal with tenants in relation to issues such as late rent and damage to the property. If you already have a full-time job,it could be difficult to find time todo all these things with the speedand efficiency required to keep yourinvestment property functioning on a profitable basis.

Before taking on property management yourself, therefore, think about whether you will have the time and expertise for such matters or whether you would prefer to have them handled by a professional property manager who has experience in all those areas.

In the long run you’ll save yourself time and money, and will be free to enjoy your investment without any of the stress associated with self management.