As a landlord, you may have questions about the value of a property manager. If you’ve been handling your affairs as a landlord, you want to know that property management subtracts from your overall workload while providing additional benefit to you. Acquiring a property manager is one of the most valuable ways you can improve your landlord business. A simple question can help you solve this problem here in Texas: What do San Antonio property managers do? The answer to this question can help you determine if a property manager is right for you!
1. Advertise to Find You Tenants
Landlords may get lucky by finding tenants through word of mouth at first. However, it gets harder to find great tenants as you add rental properties to your business. As a busy professional, you may like the idea of having someone else—someone with proven advertising experience—to find potential tenants. Getting a robust variety of tenant applications requires widely circulating an effective rental listing. Everything from photographs to wording to location of the advertisements can affect how many people ultimately apply for your rental. Your application fee can also make a big difference on whether people choose to apply or not, and a savvy property manager will know the sweet spot where a price will be low enough to encourage applicants while being high enough to defray the advertising costs.
2. Screen for the Right Fit
Once that first stack of tenant applications arrives, a great property manager will screen your tenants carefully. They will work diligently to avoid choosing tenants in a way that discriminates; both because they are ethical and because it is illegal to do so. Instead, they will look for:
- A solid track record of on-time payments.
- Excellent references from past landlords.
- The ability to pay the needed security deposits.
These factors allow your property manager to do the detailed work of accepting the perfect tenant who will be a good fit long term in your rental. They also evaluate things like whether your rental is pet-friendly.
Performing this process with little attention to detail makes it is easy to miss red flags that result in later hassles like:
- Missed or late rent payments
- Needing to terminate a lease early through eviction.
No landlord wants to be in that situation or to put tenants there. Screening carefully from the beginning is a wise way to ensure that your tenants are a good fit for the property you have available.
3. Collect Rent on Time
When you think, “What do San Antonio property managers do?” you probably think of rent collection. This aspect is correct; property managers often manage the receipt of rent and contacting tenants who haven’t paid on time. However, this is far from the only way in which they benefit landlords. You’ll find that even tasks like collecting rent would take up a lot of time if you didn’t have a property manager to work with. You’ll be especially busy as you gain more properties over time!
4. Maintain Your Investment
This process is also a significant part of the general perception of property managers. They either handle maintenance and repair requests themselves, or they have a network of vendors and contractors who respond to service calls for the company. This may mean:
- Maintaining landscaping
- Fixing small plumbing or electrical issues
- Responding to significant, ongoing problems that tenants encounter.
It also involves making the rentals look great after a tenant moves out so that a great new tenant will choose the rental and accept a competitive rental rate for that property.
5. Keep Tenants Happy—and Vacancy Low!
While all of the above are definitely in the wheelhouse of “What do San Antonio property managers do?” the most significant goal that property managers have is to keep your tenants happy. After all, their long-term compensation is tied to your success. Any worthy San Antonio property manager wants to help you cultivate long-term tenants.
Ideal tenants make minimal impact on the rental property and pay their rent on time. Any tenant can become one of these wonderful long-term tenants, so creating positive relationships with tenants is a major priority for your property manager. They want to reduce the vacancy rate in your properties by being known as an easy-to-work with, positive company. This way, even tenants who are moving out will recommend this location to their peers, adding to that tenant application list.
Real Property Management Campanas wants to be your source for San Antonio and Alamo Heights property management. We work not just to meet but instead exceed your expectations for what a property manager can do for you. We have seen countless landlords struggle to maintain a small number of properties on their own. These same landlords prosper when they get Real Property Management Campanas on their team!
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