Whether you're a long time landlord and real-estate investor or you've just closed on your first investment property, the same goal likely drives you: you want to make a smart investment that will earn you money in the long run. You may have previously hired or considered hiring a property manager to help you with your investment—if you haven't, you may be missing out! Here are some of the reasons why it may be worth looking for a property management company in the Jacksonville area as a second smart investment.
What Does a Property Management Company Do?
Let's talk a little bit about what property managers do: just as it sounds, they take on the work of managing your properties. This idea covers a lot of ground—but you can expect a property management company to handle the following services for you:
- Advertising your property
- Placing (and screening) tenants
- Collecting rent
- Handling tenant complaints
- Addressing maintenance problems
- Evicting problem tenants
In addition to this, excellent property management can help connect you to a broader network of other landlords, possible tenants, and maintenance services. All of these services are reasons why landlords turn to a property manager for help—not to mention the incredible savings in time alone!
Money Saved Is Money Earned
Time is often said to be your most valuable asset—is it worth spending on your property? If you aren't a full-time landlord, you may feel that your responsibilities take you away from things that you find more important, or maybe handling the day-to-day operations of managing your rental properties doesn't interest you. Perhaps you're missing time with your family or finding yourself distracted from your day-job. If the late-night calls about maintenance issues are getting to be too much, and you don't enjoy the process that goes into managing your tenants or their problems, a reliable property management company is the right choice. They can help you step away from being on call and provide a more "hands-off" style of investment.
If you live close to your properties, it's easier to handle a lot of the responsibilities that come with property management on your own, but if you live outside the Jacksonville area, it could make sense to hire someone nearby to handle issues for you. A capable local property manager can keep you from spending hours in the car and hours more researching your property's market.
Reducing Your Workload—and Your Stress!
Many other stressors come with the property management mantle: you may find yourself dealing with a sudden influx of maintenance problems, or perhaps end up on the wrong side of some changes to local laws or ordinances. You may need to provide accommodations to a tenant with a disability or service animal, and you're unsure of where to start. You may even find a formerly excellent tenant suddenly late on their monthly rent payments.
These sorts of issues will always be a part of real estate investing, especially if you have multiple properties. More properties bring more tenants (and complaints), more advertising work to keep potential applicants interested, and more maintenance issues to manage. Hiring a Jacksonville property management company to take on these tasks for you can save you priceless personal time—step back, and focus on your long term plans. You may be surprised to learn how affordable a property manager can be!
Can I Even Afford a Property Manager?
Even if a property manager sounds like an excellent investment, you may be wondering if it's something that you can afford. Typically, a property manager will charge from 10 to 15 percent of the monthly gross income that the property brings in—this rate is surprisingly affordable, and may be worth the cost if you have many properties to manage or find the time and labor savings to be worth the trade-off. Many landlords just like you have faced the same choices and found the benefits to be well worth the cost.
You Don't Have to Do It Alone
While you are no doubt a competent landlord, just because you can do everything on your own doesn't mean you should—a property management company will tackle things that will suck away your valuable time and energy. They can handle all the monotonous (yet crucial) tasks that make you question whether you even want to be a landlord—even the tenant complaints! Free yourself from the drudgery of your "second job" and find the right property manager that will keep you engaged with your investment at the level that suits you.
Maybe you're interested in all of the services that a property manager has to offer, ready to take that next step, but you're unsure of where to start. If you're looking for a Jacksonville area property management company to help you get the most out of your investment, contact us to learn more about how we can help.
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