Property management is an activity involving everything necessary to maintain rental properties, handle tenants’ issues, and collect rent. It also involves making money from renting properties out to people that are engaged in by landlords who own houses, apartments, or other residences for rent, individuals who are hired by landlords, or businesses that specialize in carrying out the management of rental properties.
Everybody – and every business – from first-time landlords to experienced, full-blown property management companies make mistakes in the practice of managing rental properties. Considering that there are about 50 million properties up for rent across the United States, countless mistakes are made in the field on a daily basis.
Here are some of the most common mistakes that property managers make.
Thinking Like a Tenant Is Key
Every good property manager constantly imagines living from the perspective of their tenants.
For example, assume that rent is due on the first of every month. A tenant is unable to pay rent on the first. The property manager talks down to the tenant and makes them feel bad for not paying on time without taking into consideration what it’s like to be in a poor financial situation and unable to make rent on time.
The tenant already feels bad enough about himself. Berating the tenant does nothing but the distance the tenant from the property manager and decrease the likelihood that he will be a reliable, quality tenant for years to come.
Being understanding and lenient – as long as payments haven’t been consistently late for months on end, that is – is the best move a property manager can make in such a situation.
Keep Up With the Current Condition of Properties
Over time, properties in need of minor improvements can find themselves in structural squalor, all because the property manager failed to perform regular upkeep on her rental property. This can even result in bodily or financial injury to the tenant, spurring a lawsuit, complaint, or something else bad that’s in between a lawsuit and complaint against the manager.
Show Tenants How Clean Properties Should Be When They Move In
If a property isn’t kept well when a tenant moves in, he is not likely to keep the property very clean. Property managers should thoroughly clean their properties before new tenants move in to set an example to tenants.