Peachtree City, GA · Member since 2013 · 60 posts · 1 vote
Considering all things related to landlording, how much time do you spend per month per property?
If you own multiple properties, please disregard economies of scale and try to estimate how much time you would spend on everything related to owning and landlording a single property.
I have a tenant that I haven't talked to in about two years. I get the rent check on the first like clockwork. The husband has a job as a maintenance man and keeps the house up nice. The only time I spend on that house is stamping the back of the check, depositing it, and recording it in my Xcell spreadsheet which my wife calls the "nerd sheet". I have other houses that are more time consuming.
It's hard to answer your question. When you have a vacancy, you will spend a lot more time with showings, repairs, and paying utilities.
This is one of the only businesses that I know of where you make more money when work is slow. Right now, I have no vacancies. There is little to do, lots of rent comes in, and I don't have to pay any utilities, gas driving around, etc.
This depends ... on good months I spend 10 minutes driving to and from the bank to deposit the rent money. Other months I have to do some light maintenance so it may take an hour or two.
It will depend on the age of the house and the quality of your tenant. If you are picky picky for both, I am told the amount of time is pretty inconsequential. If your property is fling apart, or you have tenants who don't honor commitments, you could spend some time dealing with both of them. Some owners choose to do, or not to do certain things, so this can become what you want it to be. You can do the yard, require the tenant to, or outsource to a yard care crew. It's a little about the path you choose to follow. There is nothing you have to do that you didn't commit to up front.
I have a tenant that I haven't talked to in about two years. I get the rent check on the first like clockwork. The husband has a job as a maintenance man and keeps the house up nice. The only time I spend on that house is stamping the back of the check, depositing it, and recording it in my Xcell spreadsheet which my wife calls the "nerd sheet". I have other houses that are more time consuming.
It's hard to answer your question. When you have a vacancy, you will spend a lot more time with showings, repairs, and paying utilities.
This is one of the only businesses that I know of where you make more money when work is slow. Right now, I have no vacancies. There is little to do, lots of rent comes in, and I don't have to pay any utilities, gas driving around, etc.
To further clarify my question, I'm looking for the average, say, over the course of a few years (so that we capture some of the repairs, vacancies, move-ins, etc.) - including taking calls from tenants.
Brian W. - When occupied just an hour or two, every few months. When there is a vacancy, a good 15 hours or so, as we do a lot of the make-ready. We don't totally have our efficiency down yet for the make-ready...
Brian, you might change the question to what functions are necessary, how often are they required and the average time to perform? Age, size, rent level, location, market and government all influence the time required.
Age is obvious and has been mentioned
Size of the property, the bigger it is the more time to make ready
Rent level, higher income tenants usually take less time to deal with
Location, driving time, meeting tenants, repair trips
Market, higher vacancy takes more attention, ads, applications, etc.
Government influences, code requirements changing, the flavor of the courts and evictions and civic actions involving your property can chew up time.
Each property is unique, each tenant is different, your time expensed will be a guess at best.
I'd say that, on average, each property requires about 20 hours per year. A big chunk of that is turnover. I do showings once a week and try to get everyone there at once. Then the lease signing. A couple visits with the old tenant. Often a day of minor repairs.
Once in a while there is some problem that needs to be dealt with. But that's often as simple as calling the right person. Examples: furnace not working, call furnace guy. Fridge not cooling. Call used appliance store. Drains clogged, call drain cleaner.
I have tenants deposit the money themselves, so that's usually nothing more than a reminder text and checking the bank to see the money has appeared.
Once a year I have to gather up and organize all the info to give to my CPA.
Jon Holdman... so, pray tell... How do you have tenants deposit the money themselves?
For the OP... except for tax season and turnovers (less than 5%), maybe an hour a month, mostly around banking and bookkeeping, the occasional phone call, and rare craziness.
I give them deposit only ATM cards. That was suggested by the bank to a friend who's also a landlord. I think these cards are really intended for businesses where employees have to do deposits at the end of the day. There's some risk, of course, but for the most part it works fine.
I give them deposit only ATM cards. That was suggested by the bank to a friend who's also a landlord. I think these cards are really intended for businesses where employees have to do deposits at the end of the day. There's some risk, of course, but for the most part it works fine.
1. Depends on age of the proerties, older properties require more work.
2. Depends on what other work YOU are doing. Many LL do other things besides LL like renovations, rehab, flipping etc.
3. Also depends if you have a non-real estate full time job. The less time you have available the less time you'll spend on LL.
4. depnds on your tenant mix, some tenants are needy, can't change a light bulb. Other tenants can easily get along with never seeing or hearing from you. I had a tenant who self showed the place to himself before renting. (I left the door unlocked and when he called gave him instructions and directions.) He went and looked at it called be back, and by noon had signed a lease and paid me. He rented from me for the next 17 years and I never saw him again. Maybe talked to him 5 or 6 times in 17 years. I spent hardly any time on that rental.
5. Whihc brings up another variable, vacancy and length of tenancy. The less vacancy you have the less work you'll have, you can write that one down.
I give them deposit only ATM cards. That was suggested by the bank to a friend who's also a landlord. I think these cards are really intended for businesses where employees have to do deposits at the end of the day. There's some risk, of course, but for the most part it works fine.
Another thing you can do to minimize your time involved is take out stuff that breaks down....garbage disposals, ceiling fans, etc and have them supply the washer and dryer. If I could get away with them supplying a dishwasher, stove and fridge, I would. And take out the sprayer too. Water is the ultimate enemy...besides the homeowner.
Another thing you can do to minimize your time involved is take out stuff that breaks down....garbage disposals, ceiling fans, etc and have them supply the washer and dryer. If I could get away with them supplying a dishwasher, stove and fridge, I would. And take out the sprayer too. Water is the ultimate enemy...besides the homeowner.
It all depends on how you run your business. If you want little turnover and great long-term tenants then offer a little lower than market rents. I did this when working. When I retired I have been raising rents more aggressively and going through places more when vacant. Have also been doing much more myself and being present when any work is done. Last August I was at a unit every day for a month, went through it top to bottom.
That's a very good question. I do my own maintenance so it's much more time consuming. Also don't forget updating quicken and the spreadsheet where the repair calls get recorded. I'd say 1-2 hrs per property. Maybe not even that much.
All depends on whats going on, like some people mentioned about an hour invoicing and cashing checks if all is working good.
If there is a vacancy, I would say 20-40hrs to clean and paint a unit.
Up here in the Northeast folks generally do maintenance before and after winter. So maybe a half a Saturday spent in October and again in April.
I have been averaging 1-2 visits a month just to walk the place and make sure all is working well. I have a good rapport with my tenants, actually give one of them $20 to cut the grass or clear out the snow. Saves me from doing small things around.
Charles Baisden I use a variety of spreadsheets. For income and expenses, I have one for each property. There are only four columns. The first has the date, second is for money coming in, third is for money going out, and last is a total. It's similar to a checkbook. Easy to set up. Many people here use Quickbooks. I'm not familiar with it, but I hear it's better. At any given time, I know to the penny how much of my money is sitting in a property or how much I've pulled out. If I purchase a house and have $20,000 into it when it's all said and done, the $20,000 figure will be in red to show that it's negative. Every month that rent comes in, that number will go down a little until eventually, the number is positive and turns black. That's what I like - when I've gotten all my money back from a house and everything else is gravy.
For properties with mortgages, I have a spreadsheet to do an ammortization. At any given time I know how much is owed on a house. I also have a spreadsheets to record electric and gas bills on my primary house. If I needed to know how much my electric bill was in June, 2009, I could find out in about two seconds. I've also got spreadheets to keep track of my net worth, debt, monthly rent totals, schedule of real estate owned, etc.
I can send you mine if you want, but I think you would be better to make your own so they are custom to what you need. I'm old school and they are probably not as efficient as Quickbooks. If you know how to run Excel, you can set up your own in minutes and fine tune them. I'm a huge Excel fan, but I've been using it since the 90's.