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When you own Lehigh Valley rental property, there are a few essentials to know and priorities to keep at the top of your lists. And knowing what aspects of property management to focus on will help you make the best decisions for a strong NOI and portfolio growth. Today, we’ll cover the shortlist of essentials you need as part of your strategy and in your toolbox for rental property management success.
Armed with all the right resources and strategies, you can look to improve every aspect of your operations, including resident engagement, cash flow management, and portfolio oversight. Consider these key elements of your investment business now and explore how you can make improvements to each and contribute to your bottom-line results.
An Effective Communication Strategy
With any business, you’ll want to have a communication strategy in place to ensure the flow of relevant information disseminates correctly to all involved parties. For rental property investors, having platforms, tools, and plans in place outlining how you communicate with residents and vendors is essential to your investment success.
For residents, you’ll want to communicate lease policies, payment timeframes, and contact preferences. For vendors, you’ll need to communicate expectations for services and requests. Consider leveraging resident dashboards and scheduling routine follow-up messaging. Prioritize routine conversations with your vendor partners to make sure you’re all on the same page. Just remember to prioritize a communication strategy and follow through to continuous improvements to ensure you’re effectively engaging with those related to your rental investment business.
Ever-Improving Organization
Managing a rental property requires that you wear many hats and juggle rosters of to-do lists. The best way to maintain profitability is to stay organized. Another property management essential element involves using all the resources available to maintain organization. Keeping track of your residents, your property maintenance, your finances, and your hired contractors will require an effective scheduling software and data management. Explore options for storing and analyzing expenses and resident data. Stay on top of every to-do list and best practices tasks with the right organizational tools and processes. Be looking for more efficient methods of organization as you go, too, so you can always keep your investment finger on the pulse of your property and portfolio.
Budget-Conscious and Savvy Resources
Being savvy about a personal or household budget is one thing. But when you embark on the rental property ownership journey, you’ll need to take those budgeting skills to a whole new level. Monitoring daily and weekly expenses is, of course, part of it. But then there’s a long-term investment strategy to consider and spotting spending trends to look for, too. And staying in tune with your cash flow requires continuous supervision. If you intend to profit from your investment and grow your NOI, you’ll need all the resources and support professionals in your corner, including software solutions and accounting specialists.
Marketing Strategies
One aspect of rental property ownership involves marketing. And it’s a skill many feel they could stand to improve. No matter how incredible your property is, no one will be signing leases if you don’t know how to get your rental in front of people. An essential part of your journey requires an arsenal of marketing tools and strategies. You’ll need to be comfortable with online listing platforms and drafting engaging listing descriptions. You’ll need to create visuals, using images and video, to help sell the aesthetics of your property to potential applicants. Signage, advertising, and email marketing will all need to be part of your marketing strategies to be effective.
Vendor Management
You won’t be able to manage your rental property all on your own. You’ll develop strategic relationships with vendors and contractors. And the roster of potential partners is long when you consider legal help, bookkeeping assistants, maintenance contractors, inspectors, and software solution partners. Another essential element of your property management strategy involves vendor management. How you track services and payments will require diligent effort and organization. Vetting new vendors and evaluating existing partners should both be part of your routine.
Customer Service Elements
You can follow all the right rental property management tutorials and heed all the expert advice. But if you don’t have a strong strategy for delivering a customer service element, you’ll continue to experience resident turnover. Consider developing a strong customer service approach to everything you do, including resident pre-screening, lease signing, and communication. Follow up with residents periodically to verify their satisfaction. Make it easy and convenient to pay rent by having multiple payment channels in place. Be available and responsive to repair or maintenance requests. And use software solutions to put all of their valuable data and answers to their questions at their fingertips.
Rental Property Condition Management
If you want the best residents and have goals to grow your portfolio, you’ll need to develop a plan for ongoing maintenance and property condition improvement. Think curb appeal, remodels, repairs, and upgrades. And since you can’t necessarily afford all those investments at once, you’ll create a strategy that allows you to keep up with emergency repair expenses and routine budget-friendly updates. Make sure this strategy also includes thorough processes for making your property move-in ready upon residents moving out of the space. And you can lay in long-term improvements, so you always have an updated element of your rental to promote to potential residents.
Contingency Planning
As prepared as you are with all the right tools and resources to manage your rental property in the black, things happen. Tree limbs fall. Pests invade. Storms cause damage. Aging pipes burst. And when they do, it’s your contingency planning strategy that will keep you from going in the red. Get proactive about insurance coverage and create methods for assessing and reducing your risks. Prepare an emergency fund to address surprise costs. And have a strategy to connect with a robust support system and network of providers to help you overcome any obstacle.
Commitment to Continued Learning
You may have come into your property management experience with certain areas of expertise and strengths. But because the investment ecosystem constantly changes, it’s essential that you commit to continued learning. Those who can shift and adapt their strategies along the way will be better positioned to face challenges. And there’s never a point where you’ve learned everything there is to know about rental property investment. Prioritize efforts to meet new people, explore new insights, and adopt new ideas, so you can stay ahead of the curve.
Property Management Partnerships
If you want to really improve and level up your rental property experience, work with a property manager. When you have someone like Axel Property Management in your corner, you’ll have expert advice and professional management of all of the above and more. Our dedicated team will oversee all aspects of your property operations and can provide valuable insights into developing the best essential strategies. Imagine having a delegated partner to handle everything, including communications, vendors, resident pre-screening, rent collections, and marketing efforts. It's having the right property management partner that can significantly enhance your investment journey and results.
If you feel any of these rental property essentials are lacking in your efforts, it’s time to call Axel Property Management!
