Whether you’ve taken on landlord responsibilities yourself as a real estate investor or you’ve hired a property manager, there are things people dislike about property management.
It’s not all petty griping —there are some good reasons to complain. When you invest in real estate, It's a job that takes enormous patience, sacrifice and interpersonal and organizational skills. Add the responsibility of managing your properties and it’s not for the faint of heart.
An investment property can come in all shapes, sizes and values. As a real estate investor, it’s within your power to change the property value of your investments. There are many ways to measure value — and some that you think are helping may actually be hurting.
Real estate investing is all about knowing how to make the right improvements to raise the value of your investment property. Often times investors either make the wrong improvements or they hire the wrong team that spends too many dollars on the areas of a property that actually hurt the value.
We’ve already established that there is no such thing as hands-off real estate investment. “Passive” real estate investment doesn’t usually mean sitting by while other people handle your investments for you as you enjoy a tasty piña colada on the beach of some tropical island (though if you've figured out the secret to this method, please share!).
Well, we are halfway through the year and we are looking at a cup that is ready to over-flow not only for our company and our team, but for every real estate investing client we work for. And...make no mistake about it, we WORK FOR over 800 clients around the country every day!
As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you’ve been letting property maintenance slide, you might be throwing money away. Property management isn’t something that real estate investors really like to deal with — but it’s a necessary element to any investment.
In the years following 2006, urban living was on the rise. People were flocking to the big city, whether attracted by jobs or the bustle of metropolitan life. 2006 saw a massive spike in suburban populations and a low in urban areas, only to hit a spike in the opposite direction a few years later.
"They just aren’t built like they used to be."
People say it about practically everything that’s been around for more than a few decades — cars, houses, furniture, blue jeans. Usually it's said disparagingly in reference to a lack of quality and a nostalgia for “the good ol’ days,” but there have been improvements to some of the old ways. After all, we used to have lead in our paint.
As much as we all want our real estate investments to go smoothly all the time, reality is full of setbacks, missteps, pitfalls and even disasters. Real estate investors won’t experience success all the time. In seasons of troublesome tenants, complications and the losing of bidding wars, even profitable investments might seem like they’re not worth the headache.
Real estate investing, at least investing successfully, has always been about finding good opportunities and understanding what is driving that opportunity. We always hear about investors who land the big deal and take home an enormous payday. Sometimes those scenarios are luck and others they are a mix of luck and skill.
A good property manager can be enormously beneficial for your real estate investments. He can keep you from becoming overwhelmed with taking on too many responsibilities when you’re looking for passive income in your investments or if investing isn’t your full-time job. She plays a vital role for investors buying real estate as a method for diversifying their over-all portfolio. Many invest in real estate for passive reasons and they really have no desire to be an actual hands-on "landlord."
