How’s your sleep?
We hope it’s peaceful and restful, but we also know that it’s a bit stressful to rent out a Santa Rosa property. Especially now, with new tenant laws and changing markets and higher prices on everything from maintenance materials to insurance premiums.
If you’re losing sleep because you’re worried about your rental home, we have a solution.
Hire a Santa Rosa property management company.
Maybe you never felt like this was necessary. If you’re renting out only one or two homes, what’s the big deal?
Well, it is a big deal. As smart investors know, partnering with a property management company can lead to better investment returns and lower costs. It comes with a lot of protection against property deterioration, liability, and risk.
Property management can also help you sleep better at night.
Here’s how.
Stop Stressing About Tenants and Let Santa Rosa Property Managers Place Them
Tenants are a great way to lose sleep.
Where will you find them? How can you make your home attractive to them? What if you place them, and they stop paying rent?
You need a solid plan for identifying, attracting, placing, and retaining well-qualified tenants who will take care of your property, pay rent on time, and generally be pleasant to deal with. Property managers happen to be very good at this, and then you don’t have to worry about the tenants or your relationship with them.
We start by limiting vacancy. It gets expensive when your property is unoccupied. You don’t have any rent coming in and on top of that, you’re paying to keep the utilities on and the grass cut and the home clean. Those expenses will not only eat into your ROI, they’ll cause you a lot of stress.
Property managers will almost always rent your home faster, and that saves you money in both the short term and the long term. What makes our tenant placement plans so reliable and effective?
- We market more strategically.
- We offer more flexibility to tenants for showings.
- We provide easy online applications.
- We provide fast and thorough tenant screening.
- We can sign the lease, collect the move-in funds, and prepare your property for your new tenants in less time and with more efficiency.
Not only do property managers reduce your vacancy rate by finding you tenants faster, we also reduce your turnover rate by keeping tenants longer.
We make sure to provide a great tenant experience so your tenants are less likely to move at the end of their lease term.
Reducing turnover is one of our goals as Santa Rosa property managers. But, not all tenants will stay from year to year. There will be turnovers. And when you do have a tenant moving out, the turnover process is efficient and cost-effective. Your property manager will oversee the cleaning, repairs, and marketing to find a new tenant in far less time than if you had to do it on your own.
Turnovers don’t have to be stressful or expensive, and they don’t have to keep you up at night. You can expect your property manager to take care of the entire process.
Property Management and Rental Values
If you’re losing sleep because your property isn’t renting, you might need to investigate why it isn’t renting.
Our first suspicion will be that you have not priced the home accurately or competitively.
You want to earn as much as possible on your monthly rent. But, if you are overpricing your home or committed to a specific number that is much higher than what other homes similar to yours are renting for, you’re going to face a longer vacancy period. You’re going to lose money.
You need a competitive, accurate, and profitable rental value. Property managers have access to reliable and current data about the local market and what competing homes are renting for. You won’t have to guess or use outdated rental listings online.
Property Management and Tenant Relationships
While we’re talking about tenants, let’s spend some time thinking about tenant relationships.
Are you losing sleep because of tenant disputes, conflicts, or a specific renter who simply refuses to pay on time, and then ignores your notices and your late fees?
This is a great reason to partner with a property manager.
Once you have a great tenant in place, your property manager will manage the entire relationship. There isn’t any need for you to be the point of contact or the resolver of disputes. We take care of everything, including rent collection, lease enforcement, and emergency maintenance.
If you don’t love the idea of tenant conflicts and disputes and you don’t have a process in place for dealing with unauthorized pets or negotiating lease renewals, you can certainly benefit from having a property manager do those things for you. Professional property managers will also communicate well with your tenants. This is an important part of establishing a good relationship, which leads to higher retention and better ROI.
Leverage Technology and Resources from Santa Rosa Property Managers
Technology can automate a lot of processes that would otherwise cause stress and waste time.
It also makes the management of your property more efficient and transparent.
Property management technology does a lot for your investment, your tenants, and our entire process. By offering online rental payments, for example, tenants are more likely to pay on time. When you can provide an online system for reporting maintenance, there’s less of a risk that you’ll have deferred or unreported repairs piling up at your property.
If you’re struggling to find a platform or a program that’s scaled to your unique needs, stop looking. Instead, you can turn the leasing, management, and maintenance of your property over to a management company. We have good technology. Why not use it?
With great tech, we can also provide more transparency. A faster leasing process. More reliable tenant screening, and a system for documenting all your income, expenses, and inspections. When you partner with a property manager, you don’t have to worry about accurate accounting, tracking maintenance invoices, or other processes that are automated with the tech we use.
Don’t Lose Sleep on Maintenance and Repairs
Up late worrying about what you’ll pay for plumbing, painting, and property prep?
We get it. Maintenance costs are rising, and you may find yourself waiting longer than you’d like for simple repairs.
That’s less of a concern, though, when you’re working with a management company that has immediate access to licensed and insured vendors and contractors who provide a high quality of work as well as competitive prices.
By partnering with a professional property manager, you can expect the condition and value of your property to be protected. We’ll focus on preventative maintenance so you’re not left overpaying for deferred work. We’ll talk to tenants about what we expect from them. We’ll conduct inspections and make reports about what we find.
We’ll also recommend updates and upgrades as they become necessary. Whether it’s an appliance that needs to be replaced or some flooring that looks iffy, we can talk to you about which updates and renovations will add value and which can wait.
Paying less for emergency repairs and routine maintenance is a great way to achieve peace of mind. Most vendors and contractors offer discounts to professional property managers because of the volume of work we provide. You won’t have to worry about overpaying for a repair or hiring the wrong, unlicensed vendor to tinker around on your roof.
California Rental Laws are Challenging
Even experienced real estate investors can lose sleep over fair housing laws, rent control, and just cause eviction.
Owning a rental investment property in Santa Rosa or anywhere in California requires you to pay attention to all state and federal laws that pertain to housing.
- You need to know what to put in your lease agreement to protect yourself and your property.
- You need to understand security deposit regulations – how much you can collect, what you can use that money for, and how you’re supposed to return it.
- You need to know the federal fair housing laws and the state fair housing laws, which are actually stricter than those federal regulations.
- You need to understand Section 8 tenant protections.
- You need to know the difference between a pet and a service animal.
- You need to know the difference between a service animal and a companion animal.
It’s easy to become overwhelmed as a landlord, even if you have a good tenant and a well-maintained rental home.
Something, it seems, always needs to be done. Maybe there’s a vacancy that needs attention or a tenant who is complaining about a neighbor. Maintenance might be required or a new appliance could be requested. If your rent isn’t coming in or you’re worried about deferred maintenance or a departing tenant is disputing what you withheld from their security deposit – it’s likely you’ll get stressed and lose sleep.
Stop losing sleep. Partner with a professional Santa Rosa property management company.
If you’d like to hear more, please contact us at Prestige Real Estate & Property Management. We manage homes in Sonoma County, including Santa Rosa, Windsor, Sebastopol, Petaluma, and Rohnert Park.
