You may think it’s only the tenant who has a hard time paying the mortgage, but as a real estate investor or landlord, there may be times when it’s hard to pay the mortgage on your end as well. Here’s how you can avoid facing difficulty in paying your mortgage each month.
Keep your properties full. While it may sound overly simplified, this is the most obvious method to make sure you’ve got rent money coming in each month to cover your mortgage payments. Don’t allow yourself to get slack on advertising for new tenants. And don’t put off screening applicants or filling your properties because you get busy or overworked. Understand filling your vacancies as a major part of your REI business success and deal with it quickly and efficiently every time.
Though it’s now always easy, do your best to find quality tenants. While you want to keep your properties full, finding good quality tenants is key. By “good” it means they pay their rent on time, keep the property maintained and don’t abuse the lease. By using background and credit checks, you can find the best tenants available and thereby do what’s possible to keep your rental fees coming in regularly, which will help you pay the mortgage when it comes due.
Look for longer term tenants. Never assume that quality tenants will necessarily be longterm ones. Some good renters may know they can’t stay longer than a few months at most. They may be students or just working a temporary job. They may just be living in an area waiting to move or retire somewhere else. Whatever the situation, opt for longterm renters when the choice is available. Doing so will mean that you won’t have to fill a vacancy as frequently.
Keep the property well maintained. If you want good tenants, longterm tenants and tenants who pay their rent on time, do your part to keep them. Deal with maintenance issues quickly. Make repairs as necessary. Upgrade appliances or at least ensure the ones you provide are in good working order. Respond to your tenants’ calls quickly, or if you can’t respond quickly, try your best to make sure they know you’ll be unavailable and for how long.
Being a good landlord will go a long in way in developing lasting relationships with your tenants, which will in turn, help you keep them in your property longer. Often a tenant and landlord relationship can turn an average tenant into a great one simply because both you and the tenant want to keep the relationship intact.
In a tough economy, it’s important to do all you can to avoid facing the difficulty of having to pay the mortgage yourself. That applies just as much to an REI professional as it does to the average renter. These tips can help as you work to develop lasting, longterm, rent paying tenants AND to keep your properties bringing in the income you need every month.