Real Estate Broker · Ashland KY · Member since 2018 · 57 posts · 71 votes
As you scroll through fackbook or other sites you see various life hacks about cooking, landscaping, etc. I want this post to be about landlord hacks( what are some simple tricks you use to make your life easier as a landlord).
1. I only use deadbolt locks on doors ( and non locking handle) because it prevents tenants from locking themselves out.
2. I buy a years worth of air filter for a property because the tenant will forget to buy the air filters and change them.
3. I only buy 2br/1ba houses to lower the chance of hoarding and stairs.
Open a 'rent' checking account and allow tenants to deposit into it (but set up transfers so the account always has a $0 balance). This allows tenants to pay with cash or check at any of the bank locations without having them (or yourself) incur any transaction fees.
Use quarterly air filter changes as an excuse to inspect all of your properties. (best $4 investment possible)
Give tenants a standard repair cost sheet during the lease signing. This way they will not be surprised by what they get charged when they move out.
Don't get in a rush to rent out a unit... wait for the best qualified tenant.
It is cheaper, and quicker, to pay someone to leave a unit than try to evict them.
Get a few Google Voice numbers (they are free) to use for different tenant purposes.. emergency, general questions, general maintenance. That way you can block out all after hour calls/texts that are not to the emergency line and set up the numbers to forward depending on your schedule.
1. Tenant Cloud is the best software I have found for the price. It allows you to collect rent. Tenants to file maintenance request and you to send them to your maintenance crews. It also allows tenants to sign forms such as leases, addendum‘s, and move-in forms.
2 we use show mojo for all showings. This allows us to coordinate showings without us being there. We use a digital lock box in conjunction called Codebox.
3. Make sure you figure out ways to drastically decrease your turnover time between tenants.
@Shane Craig I use Cozy, zero paper documents, tight screening, I only buy places to rent that I would personally live in, and all homes are less than 15 years old.
2. Rent collection software; I use Cozy and find it does what I need. Haven't found the need to move into a more robust application yet.
3. Provide deposit slips for the year to tenants who refuse online rent payment. They can go to the local bank and make their deposit. I receive notification when it is made and do not need to handle cash payments.
4. Calendly for scheduling property showing. This is an app that allows prospects to schedule a time slot for viewing the property based on my team's availability that was preset. Eliminates the back and forth of trying to find a common time to meet.
5. Keep an active ad for a unit even when you are at 100% occupancy. Build a waiting list of pre-screened prospects to reduce the time between tenants and maximize income.
6. For properties with common area utilities, reduce consumption with LED lighting, lighting on timers and reclaimed water for irrigation. For tenant improvements, install low-flow shower heads and toilets.
Most families around here really value a second bathroom, so my price difference for a 3/1 is only a little bit above the 2/1, and the turnover in 3/1s is almost guaranteed each year.
I got up this morning thinking how can I make Landlording easier. This forum is definitely needed for us newbies. What are some of the ways to make collecting rent easier? Thx
nothing on earth will make your landlording headaches get easier than by doing a lease option on a single family house . Stops the tenants toilets termites and trash ! Single family homes are lousy rentals in most cases for ROI ..but most people don't listen ..they'd rather run out there on a Sunday night to fix a drippy faucet or running commode lol
@Dennis M. Interesting strategy can you provide more information?
Its my understanding that a lease option is like a stock option where you give your tennant the option to buy at a predetermined price for a predetermined amount of time.
Do the tenants usually buy or does it just encourage them to to be nicer to the house in case they do buy it?
I definitely need to step up my digital game with leases and such. I'm still printing paper!
Screening. There is no automatic 'Is it available?' button on my ads. Before they ask me a question, they answer how much they smoke and how many animals they have for starters.
Showings. After pre-screening, they see the unit not quite complete while I'm there working anyway. Prevents me from wasting my time and weeds out nitpickers.
On the repair side, I don't offer fridges with water dispensers and I have vinyl under pretty much every sink amd dishwasher that runs up the back wall a bit to prevent not detecting slow leaks that turn into huge repair bills.
My people know all non-emergency repairs are taken care of on Tuesdays or Thursdays (depending on which complex) if we can't address it by text. Let me know so I can get you on the list.
Rents and accounting. Rents are paid at one bank or another by complex. I can quickly count the rents online. One management corp for all rentals, 2 rental bank accts, one bank for each commercial LLC with its own series of check numbers. I can look at any invoice paid by check (rarer these days, thankfully) and know which entity paid it by check # 2000s, 3000s, 4000s etc.
Plan for the future and don't be cheap. What may cost you a little more time and money now will pay for itself overtime. Example carpet on the floor. Instead of replacing it with carpet or cheap laminate, put a higher quality vinyl plank floor that looks good and more durable. This way you will be able to rent the unit faster and not require your time to fix it down the road. When you start to add more properties to your portfolio it will require more of your time regardless of having a PM.
Hi :) I use property management to manage my properties, but reading through this post, I go curious about self-management. What's the hardest or painful part of it? And what have you done to make it easier?
Rent to the elderly that did well for themselves financially and rather rent than own. They are easy on the property, they will stay for the long term, they are respectful, noise is minimal and they pay on time all the time.
@Shane Craig thanks for sharing. I’m excited to see the other ideas in this thread, but just wanted to add that Mike Butler’s “Landlording on Autopilot” is full of hacks like this to make life easier as a landlord for anyone interested.
@Shane Craig we use the same color paint in all rentals;however, we allow tenants to do reasonable paint modifications if they return it back to the original color. To protect ourselves, we state this in the lease, include the paint name and serial number and put a clause that if the paint job isn’t as good as when they leased the unit, we charge a repainting fee. I’ve never had an issue and tenants seem to appreciate this.
All rents are due on the 1st and tenant receives $50 discount for on-time payment. Payment after the 1st results in lost discount. Payment after 10th incurs additional 10%. No excuses accepted. We prefer debit\credit card payments and can also set up auto-draft. No cash. Check or money order, okay.
Security deposit and 1st month rent due when lease is signed and before tenant is allowed to move-in, no exceptions. Prorate second month's rent based on move-in date.
No co-signers, ever, under any circumstances. Never. Never. Never.
Typically, they can't afford rent that's more than 28% of gross income. Don't consider child support or alimony in the gross income total. We sometimes will allow child support to count IF it's being paid through a state agency AND they can prove via a report from that agency they've received it timely every month for more than 18-24 months.
We require W2 and paycheck stubs for income verification. If they are self-employed we ask for 2 years of tax returns.
If they aren't married, our lease is only with the person who qualifies.
Do a background check on everyone age 18 and older that will live in the property and a credit check on the leasee(s). It's inexpensive.
Check rental references. Past performance equals future performance.
We have 20+ years of owning rentals. Just these steps alone, in the beginning, help lessen your stress in the long run.
We've had less than 5 evictions (and I really think it's only been 2) with 25+ properties.
1) A few weeks prior to tenant move-out I send them a cleaning checklist as well as the two pages they signed listing damage and cleaning fees
2) I use the same paint colors in all my properties.
3) My Clean Magic Erasers are amazing and will remove wall scuffs and random stains.
4) When buying larger items I utilize the Lowe's 10% off trick (spending .99 on eBay to buy a Lowe's 10% off digital coupon and using the code online or in store - this hack has literally saved me thousands).
5) At my multi-family properties I include various items near my coin-op washer and dryer: a laundry table for folding, a roll of paper towels and a bottle of cleaner so the machines can be wiped off; I also include some laundry-related items such as stain remover, starch spray, etc (I buy it from Dollar Tree and it lasts a while - I think the tenants appreciate the gesture).
6) At the Dollar Tree they have a toilet cleaning gel product called Lime-A-Way. It's BY FAR the best product I've ever used. If I'm turning over a unit and the toilet bowl is stained, all it takes is 10 minutes of Lime-A-Way and then some Ajax or Comet and that commode is sparkling like there's no tomorrow. Seriously... it's the best thing at Dollar Tree.
7) Check a potential tenants' Facebook page. 99% of the time the page is public and you'll learn A LOT about their character.
8) Add to your lease: 'All toilet and drain clogs are the responsibility of the tenant.' Once I started doing this I've had ZERO phone calls regarding drain or toilet clogs.
Much like @Greg Jeanfreau, we use the exact same paint colors in all of our rentals. Interior and exterior. We also use the same materials for flooring, roofing, doors, toilets, doorknobs and deadbolts. That way we can easily estimate costs on a rental based on the size of the home. Material costs and labor may vary slightly based on the location, but it gets us close enough.
@Terrell Garren I'm on the same page with almost all of your suggestions. But I'm curious about the use of month-to-month leases. I presume you do M2M so that you never have to deal with renewals, can easily terminate problem tenants, and are still able to raise rents if/when appropriate. Are there any downsides to M2M?
One that I can think of is that it might complicate or even preclude cash-out refinancing, but that may not matter to you.
@Mary Mitchell regarding ACH: do you get your tenants banking info and initiate auto draft on their account or do you give them your routing # and account # for them to initiate electronic payment?
@Mary Mitchell regarding ACH: do you get your tenants banking info and initiate auto draft on their account or do you give them your routing # and account # for them to initiate electronic payment?
I love the "schedule SMS" feature on phones. The evenings are usually when I send out text messages to my contractors, business colleagues, and tenants. Since I try not to bother them outside of normal business hours, I just type the text messages and schedule them to automatically send the next morning.