Cleaning behind the fridge, doing yard work, or fixing a clogged toilet wasn't on your Google calendar. Yet here you are, on a Saturday, doing the repair rounds of your Fort Worth rental properties.
According to a 2018 American Time Use Survey, renters spend 23 minutes less daily on household chores than their homeowning counterparts. The tasks they don't do end up becoming yours. Add in rental analysis (ugh, accounting), tenant screenings, and fielding tenant complaints, and it's another weekend gone.
Read on to pinpoint where you're going wrong and how you can reclaim your weekend from drudgery.
Doing (or Organizing) Repairs
Did you know that houses typically require a 50% replacement within a 30-year timeframe? Rental properties in Texas are no different.
You probably think DIYing the repairs on your rentals saves you money. However, it's also stealing your time. Time, as they say, is money.
Even if you hire professionals, you'll have to coordinate all the maintenance, resulting in wasted weekends.
Chasing Rent
There is no such thing as free weekends. If you're a Fort Worth property owner who spends all your time collecting rent and personally hunting down rent arrears, this likely rings true.
Tenants miss their payment dates for many reasons. Sometimes they're innocent -- an auto-payment gone wrong. Other times, they're more nefarious.
Either way, you're spending your weekend chasing that money.
Or do you still insist on collecting rent via check or cold hard cash? That's a guaranteed time-waster.
Reviewing Applications
When it comes to the best landlord tips, handing over the complicated, time-consuming tenant screening process to a Texas property management company trumps them all. After all, if you want tenants who pay their rent on time, respect your property, and abide by the rules and guidelines, you'll have to spend weekends reading piles of tenant applications, checking references, and running credit reports. It takes even more time to meet a potential tenant in person -- multiple hours are eaten up by matching schedules and, well, actually meeting.
Managing Tenant Issues
Once the tenants are in your rental property, you have to keep them happy if you want that rental income to continue flowing. This means keeping an open channel of communication with your tenants.
If you're the point of contact instead of a property manager, your tenants will come to you with complaints about emergency repairs that need doing, lease renewals, rental contract concerns, and more. Fielding these, whether by email, phone, Zoom call, or social media messenger, takes more time than you'd imagine.
Tenants are often busy working during the week; expect these queries to come on the weekend.
Hand Rental Analysis and More to a Trusted Third Party
Tired of giving up your weekends to drudgerous rental analysis or fielding yet another maintenance call? Turn those tedious tasks over to a property management company and finally book that weekend getaway with your partner.
1st Choice Property Management is a family business founded in 1993. With over 40 properties, owner Darryl Kazen and his team specialize in full-service property management in Fort Worth and surrounding Tarrant County cities.
Contact our team today to discuss your options.
