As a homeowner, you are a landlord. This means that you are fully responsible for your house only. As a landlord, there are numerous laws and requirements you should know.
As a landlord, your house is your business. This means that you want to approach the business in the best possible ways. The following tips will help you become a better landlord.
Before you rent out your house to tenants as a landlord
You will need a good banker to help you finance any available maintenance. Get a good lender to offer you favourable loans.
Know the local laws
You should make sure that your building complies with all local laws. Never cut corners when it comes to laws and codes.
Ensure that the house is in great order.
You want to make sure that before getting tenants in your house, everything is in order. The house should be in decent condition and move-ready with available keys.
Know the maintenance needs of the house.
Know what is in the house and what needs to be maintained. If it is a large residential apartment, you should employ a good handyman or team to take care of building management and maintenance.
This is an exciting part of being a landlord as you get to set what you will be paid regularly by your tenants. After setting suitable prices, you want to get a great accountant to advise on what rent you should be charging.
Opening your home rental business
Your renting business needs to be promoted or you will never get tenants – especially in a large market where there are numerous houses and few tenants. The following tips should help you as a landlord.
Advertise the building.
When promoting your house listings, you can leverage several options. Depending on the nature of the area, you can use rental agencies, local newspapers, community centres, school notice boards, and many more to get your property out there.
Prepare the rental paperwork.
Before onboarding your first tenants, you want to make sure that your rental paperwork is in order.
Accept all types of tenants.
As a landlord, you will have all types of people come up to you for housing. You should never discriminate against them or their statuses.
Referencing and credit checks.
You should be able to perform credit checks on your tenants (from 18 years and above). You may want to check out for red flags such as bankruptcies, poor credit histories, and late payments. These are signs that you are dealing with a tenant who is very bad with his finances, and therefore they may be unwilling to pay their rent on time.
Accepting tenants
Now that the tenant is being on-boarded, they should familiarize themselves with the property. The following tips will help the landlord during this phase.
Inspecting the house with the tenant.
This should come at this stage and show the tenant around the property. You both have to be there to make sure that most facilities are fully functional. Take pictures as evidence that the building components are in good working condition.
Let the tenant know their responsibilities.
Let the tenant know their responsibilities. You should let them know about how they should pay their rent and the deadlines for each payment.
Collect the security deposit.
Collect your first rent and security deposit before the tenant finally moves in.
Establish the rent collection process.
You should set a formal method of collecting house rent.
