Tips for Renting your Property

Being a landlord comes with many advantages, but its still not a decision which can be taken lightly. The great financial benefits can help you to reach more of your property investment goals, however you should consider a few things before taking the leap to landlord.

1. Understand and prepare for the responsibility

Renting a property comes with a range of legal and financial responsibility, so it is important that you are clear from the beginning how much work you want to put into being a landlord and what elements your property might be better outsourced. Before the property can be rented, you will need to ensure that it is habitable for tenants and equipped to stand rigours of strangers living in it. It needs to be prepared to attract the ideal tenant along with damage such as scratching floorboards, marking walls and other damage. While most tenants do the right thing, no-one will take care of your home as well as you would. On top of this, the more value added to your property – the more monthly rent you can realistically charge.

2. Prepare your property for tenants

Your first priority should be to make a checklist of the basic things which could be updated. Being able to list features such as ‘freshly painted’, ‘new dishwasher’ or ‘split system included’, could help you differentiate your listing from the rest in the market. Once you have your list of repairs and upgrades, your next task is to make your property is ‘tenant friendly’. You can achieve this by making choices about the kinds of heavy-duty materials you want to include in your property. This might be paint which washes easily, inexpensive and high tolerant low pile carpet, and appliances with low energy consumption. Landlords are also obligated to install and maintain smoke alarms. If you have high ceilings, consider the most efficient and practical lighting solutions, so that tenants can easily clean and replace globes.

3. Decide if you will recruit an agent or DIY

Once the property is ready to be rented out, its time to get started. You can contact a real estate agent to get an idea of what costs would be involved in their caring of the property, or you can simply ask them for advice about the current rental market. They will be well informed about what kind of monthly income properties similar to your generate, and whether there are any things you can change or add to get a competitive edge within the market. This conversation will likely teach you a few things and help you decide how realistic it is to manage the property yourself.

Once an ad is placed in the paper or online, various people will be interested. From here the preferred tenants are selected and all relevant paperwork including the tenancy agreements, bond lodgement forms and insurance to protect the specifics of your investment. Having a professional involved in your insurance is important to ensure you are completely covered.

In most cases, landlords discover the costs involved with having a property manager are more than worth the investment. Not only can they navigate the complexity of establishing the right price for your rental, they also ensure boundaries are established between you and the tenant, as well as take care of the important legal and financial details that are much better taken care of by someone who knows that they’re doing.