Buy to Rent property in Issaquah can be extremely profitable, especially if you’re lucky enough to find a low-cost investment property which you can start profiting on in only a few years. However, learning to manage property is difficult, especially in the Puget Sound area, where a plethora of local laws and city regulations mean paying extra attention to your property, and the tenants in them. If you don’t have a professional Issaquah property management company helping you out, then you might be making some of these mistakes with managing your property.
Not Running Complete Background Checks on Potential Tenants
Most of the time when a new tenant makes an application, you will run at least a cursory background check or at least a quick Google search of their name. This isn’t enough. A full background and credit check, plus calls to references and family or former/current employers is important if you want to ensure that your tenants are not only good for paying their rent, but also not going to damage your property, make a lot of noise, or otherwise cause trouble.
Not Securing Deposits Before Tenants Move In
While everyone knows that you have to charge a deposit when tenants move in, a surprisingly large number of beginning property managers actually allow this to slide, sometimes to the point of never collecting it at all. Generally, you want the deposit and at least the first month’s rent before the tenant actually moves into the property, to ensure that they are good for it, and that you have a security in case something happens.
Skipping Property Inspections
Skipping property inspections might save you time, and money, when a new tenant moves in, but it is one of the worst decisions that new property owners make. Without an initial property inspection report, you have no way of proving what condition your property or appliances were in when the tenant moved in, which means they can basically do anything they want and claim it was already like that when they moved in. If you have the inspection report, you can take them to court and force them to pay for the damages.
Not Being Professional with Tenants
Whether it’s constantly calling, not calling enough, invading their personal privacy by inspecting the unit when tenants are out, or failing to keep a certain amount a professional distance between yourself and a client, many new landlords have difficulty with being professional. This can drastically damage your relationship with your tenants, even if your mistake is being friends with them.
Avoiding Landlord/Tenant Responsibilities
Landlords have a lot of responsibilities, especially in Issaquah. With basic duties including paperwork, maintenance, staying on call for emergencies, repairs, and communications, you have a lot to do. The more units and the more individual investment properties you have, the more work this is, but you have to keep up with it and do it, or your tenants can take you to court.
Managing your own property is a lot of work, and if you’re like a lot of people with investment properties, then you have your own job and responsibilities to take care of as well. If you don’t have the time to properly take care of your investments and your tenants, then your best option is to hire an Issaquah property management company to do the work for you, so that you can relax and make money.