Treat Your Rental Property like A Business
Landlords even with only one rental property should treat it like a business and not a hobby. Take it seriously and get all administrative aspects in order while remaining professional with your tenants. Owning and maintaining an investment property is a serious business and needs your commitment. Make sure that you and your property are compliant in relation to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986.
You are keeping your rental property as a long-term investment, so treat it as such as it’s not a quick financial boost, but a decades long commitment.
Follow a Strict Tenant Screening Process
With the main goal of tenant screening being to find high quality, reliable and trustworthy tenants who will pay rent on time and take good care of your property investment. You do this by following a strict screening process with credit and background checks as well as verifying landlord and employer references.
Ultimately what you really want is tenants who treat your property like it’s their own, be able to pay in full every week, who look after your property and not damage it. And when damages do occur, they notify you and make sure it is repaired and put right.
Make Sure You Use a Rental Application
A proper rental application goes a long way in binding your tenants to their responsibility towards you and your property investment. An application provides the landlord with valuable information like full names, current address, their employer, references and their reason for moving.
Asking the right type of questions helps you, the landlord, to make smart decisions about who you allow to live in your rental properties.
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Tenancy Agreement
Establishing solid guidelines for your tenants and applying them will give you two things; a tenancy agreement compliant with the RTA and tenants who won’t take advantage of you. Make the guidelines clear in the agreement and highlight a strict NO ARREARS policy. This policy will deal with one of the most important aspects of your property being an investment and not a liability.
Tenants are more likely to follow the law if you do, so set an example yourself. A law that you as the landlord must follow is a Notice of Entry rule, where you are required to give 48-hours notice before entering the unit. Respect the rules and your tenants will too.
Keep A Detailed Record
As a landlord it’s very important to keep a record of everything for each tenanting period like deposit receipts, rent receipts, maintenance receipts inspection reports and all communication between you and the tenants. And keep all records digitally for a cleaner environment and easy access like keeping record files in cloud storage.
In the unwanted case of legal issues, keeping record of everything goes a long way especially if things reach the inside of a court room.
Healthy Dispute Resolution
Create a permanent platform where your tenants can voice any concerns they might have. This can be via a phone call, email or WhatsApp channel. This will give your tenants the opportunity to speak openly about their rental experience while building and maintaining a healthy tenant-landlord relationship.
Do Your Part When It Comes To Maintenance & Repairs
You need to complete routine inspections on your rental property every three months as a requirement for your insurance. Although your tenants are required to report damage and maintenance they might not communicate or even spot issues around the property. When you make sure that you inspect and maintain the property, your tenants will feel that they are living in a rental property that is being cared for by it’s owner and landlord.
In the long run, your property will retain and grow on its rental value keeping up with other rental properties in the same market price range. Make sure you repair and fix any maintenance issues in and around the property as soon as possible. This will let your tenants feel valued and appreciated while maintain the value and useability of the property.
Keep Happy Tenants
If you finally have good tenants in your property, keep them happy! How? Well that can be done in a variety of ways. You can upgrade appliances, repaint walls, replace old carpets upgrade security and lots more all while they have not brought this up with you.
This way they get to enjoy new house modifications and upgrades without paying extra from their side. This will create a feeling of security with your tenants and will lead to healthier communication and appreciation.
Hire A Property Manager
But . . . and there is a ‘but’. If you just don’t have TIME or are NOT interested in being a landlord, but want to have successful property investments, The Rent Shop – Auckland City can make the journey much much smoother and effortless!
Contact Us and let’s start the journey to property investment success where all your landlord duties and responsibilities are taken care of by our experienced Property Managers.
