It’s a good time to be a rental property owner IF these important considerations line up!
It might seem counterintuitive. With interest rates rising and home sales prices plummeting, you might be thinking buying and renting out a property might not be the best move right now.
For some, this is certainly true. But for those committed to the long-term value of a real estate asset, it’s the perfect time to buy and rent out a property. But there are some considerations you should analyze before closing on your first property. Here are just a few to think about:
- There are costs associated with renting property. As the famous line goes, there are no free lunches. Rental properties need to be maintained. Refrigerators stop working, faucets start leaking, and furnaces need cleaning. You should go into the rental property business with your eyes wide open. Despite these issues and sometimes paying more than you made off the rent, your asset is often still appreciating value much faster.
- Managing a rental property takes time and energy. There’s a fairy tale that’s told to a lot of property owners that they can just rent their property, maintain it themselves and collect the checks without lifting a finger. That’s just not reality.
Managing a rental property requires real work. You have to list the place for rent, show the property, call vendors to complete work on the property, clean the property, account for the money collected for tax purposes and so much more. Whether you have one rental property or hundreds of apartment units, it’s work. If you want to live the fairy tale, you have to hire a quality Denver Metro Area property manager. - Residents have expectations… and they may not align with yours. Just because you’ve lived in the home for the last 15 years doesn’t mean it has zero issues that need to be addressed. More often than not, you’ve overlooked a lot of issues, because you own the place, and the cost of repairing it was higher to you than the inconvenience of dealing with it. A resident won’t overlook those issues. They’ll want them fixed and expect them to be done in a reasonable amount of time.
These considerations only scratch the surface of what you should be thinking about before choosing to be a rental property owner. But they’re important considerations because owning a rental property is an important responsibility.
After all, your hard-earned dollars will be tied up in the asset, and you’ll be responsible for the living experience of residents. That’s why it’s so important to consider hiring a property manager in Denver Metro Area to assist you in the process.
If you take this responsibility seriously and understand that the asset is more valuable than the cash flow, you’re ready to jump into the world of rental properties!