Hiring a property manager to take care of your Merced rental can save you a lot of time and money in the long run as you can offload several responsibilities such as rent collections, maintenance, inspections, and others, and focus more on growing your investment.
Nevertheless, it should not be a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. As a property owner, you should expect regular updates from your property management company about the state of your Merced rental and what they are doing to increase your ROI. Here are some of the most important things that your property manager should be communicating with you.
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Maintenance Requests for Your Rental
Your property manager should inform you about any maintenance requests that the tenant raises. As a general rule of thumb, property managers take care of minor maintenance and repair issues on their own, such as leaking roofs, broken windows, or malfunctioning appliances, while keeping you in the loop.
However, in the case of any major maintenance concerns, such as mold or pest infestations, they are expected to promptly inform you about these issues, to give you an idea of the expenses that will be needed to resolve them. If these issues aren’t addressed in time, they can worsen the condition of your Merced rental and cost you more later. Hence, all tenant maintenance requests should be conveyed to you well in time.
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Status of Rental Payments
Your property management company is responsible for rent collection and owner disbursement. It is crucial that they inform you about the details related to the rental payments such as the reasonable cost of rent, monthly payment collection dates, late fees if any, and the limit of the security deposit. You should also be given timely updates regarding rent payments by tenants, delayed rents and the reasons for the same, and if there is a need for issuing a past due rent notice.
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Damages Caused by Tenants
The manager is expected to supervise your rental asset carefully during every routine inspection, that is usually carried out on an annual basis. There could be minor or major damages to the appliances, walls, faucets, or furniture. The manager is supposed to conduct move-in and move-out inspections, take pictures as proof of the damage and share the relevant information with you right away. After every routine inspection, they should be notifying you if there are any damages or if the house has been maintained well.
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Lease Renewal Updates
When the current lease agreement between you and your tenant expires, and you don’t sign a new agreement or don’t make any amendments in the lease, the old lease is renewed automatically. In such a scenario, you should expect your manager to inform you about the lease renewal and make changes in the lease if necessary. These could include increasing the rent or adding, altering, or removing a clause.
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Tenant Vacancy in Your Rental
Your property manager should notify you as soon as the tenant sends a notice to vacate your rental home. In addition, if your property is on the market for a long time, they also need to communicate why the rental is not being leased quickly and give you advice about the condition of your home, required renovations, advertising strategy, and the screening process.
Effective and transparent communication is essential for building trust. Your property manager should understand what your rental investment means to you and should accordingly communicate every important detail about it.
For the best rental management experience, you can consult a professional property management company, like River Drive Properties, which ensures you will stay informed and in the loop at all times. With over 26 years of expertise in handling landlord-tenant relations, it is second nature for us to make you a part of every conversation we have with your tenants. To know more about detailed communication reports, connect with us at River Drive Properties.