8 Ways Landlords Can Save Time Every Day

Investing in property and becoming a landlord is one of the best ways to make money. With the right property and good tenants, you can reliably generate income every month – and with a few properties in your portfolio, you might be able to collect enough to fund your retirement. You can also benefit from the long-term growth in your property’s value.

The one drawback is that, as a landlord, you’ll have many responsibilities to handle. You’ll have to find new tenants for a vacant unit, screen tenants, collect rent payments, follow up on late payments, respond to requests, issue maintenance and repairs, and even manage tenant evictions (in bad situations).

If you’re not careful, managing your property could take up a ton of time – and jeopardize the profitability of your entire operation. So what are the best ways for landlords to save time every day?

How Landlords Can Save Time

Use these strategies to save time and keep your property running smoothly:

1.       Find a consistent rental application. One of the most difficult and time-consuming things you’ll have to do as a landlord is find new tenants for a vacant property. But you can save time and make things simple once you find a solid rental application. With a consistent, thorough rental application in place, you can collect the same information from all your tenant applicants and review that information more thoroughly. Not only will this help you keep your paperwork straight, but it will also help you find better candidates for your property.
2.       Screen your tenants carefully. Collecting information is valuable, but it’s also important to verify that information. Tenant screening is a time-consuming process, but in the long run, it can actually save you time. Check your candidate’s credit score, job history, current job, current income, criminal history, and other factors to make sure they’re a good fit for this property. If it doesn’t seem like they can afford to pay rent consistently, you can reject the application and move on – sparing yourself countless later headaches.
3.       Create an airtight lease agreement. Your latest applicant may have gotten through your screening process, but before you immediately bring them in, make sure they review and sign a thorough, airtight lease agreement. It’s a good idea to work with a lawyer to draft and improve a lease agreement that protects your interests and prevents misunderstandings in the future.
4.       Automate rent collection and follow-ups. If you’re still manually collecting rent from your tenants and cashing physical checks, you’re doing something wrong. You can save hours of time by simply transitioning to an automated system of rent collection. With automated withdrawals, your tenants will save time, you’ll save time, and your incoming rent payments will be more consistent. There’s no reason not to change.
5.       Work with a partner and split responsibilities. If you’re overwhelmed with your responsibilities as a landlord, one option is to partner up with someone and split the duties. If you know another property investor in the area, you can split the profits and split the work evenly. It’s not the ideal arrangement for everyone, but it could easily save you time.
6.       Inspect and maintain the property regularly. Taking the time to inspect the property and maintain it efficiently can spare you a lot of effort in the future. It’s almost always better to spend time and money proactively preventing issues than to respond to problems once they’re already fully developed.
7.       Communicate efficiently. Some landlords waste a lot of time because of poor communication. They don’t respond to tenants promptly, they don’t set proactive expectations, and they allow conversation threads to drone on inefficiently. Instead, be as concise and clear as possible in all your outgoing messages and set expectations with your tenants for how they should be communicating with you.
8.       Hire a property management company. If you find that property management is taking over your life, it may be in your best interest to hire a property management company. You’ll pay a fixed percentage of your gross rent for someone else to handle the day-to-day operations – and you can sit back and collect the profits hands-free.

Improving Upon Your Existing Process

Many landlords suffer simply because they’re unwilling to change. They know that they’re spending more time than they’d like on managing a given property, but they don’t do the work necessary to understand the root causes of that time loss – nor are they willing to tweak their approach to make things better.

Instead, you have to be proactive and keep improving on your existing processes. Track your time, analyze your habits, and keep looking for new ways that you can increase your efficiency or save time and effort. With a bit of extra awareness, you’ll be amazed at what’s possible.