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 are some things you can do to 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 for ensuring you’ve got rent money coming in each month to cover your property 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. Recognize filling your vacancies as a major aspect of your REI business success and deal with it quickly and efficiently every time.
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. We use an independent company, Screen the Tenant, to review any and all potential tenants. They are experienced professionals and will thoroughly examine the tenant’s credit history (Not just the score), criminal background and check the sex offenders registry to insure you have all public information available when reviewing your applicant. In addition, always call the current and previous landlords as well; often times this most valuable information you can gain. And we always ask for proof of payment for the last 12 months rent. If they have been late or evicted in the past; don’t take a chance on them. It is too costly to lose the income and incur the expense and headache of having to evict.
Look for longterm tenants. Don’t assume that quality tenants will necessarily be longterm ones. Some good renters may know they can’t stay over a few months at most. They may be students or 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 make filling a vacancy at least a more infrequent possibility.
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 be sure they know you’ll be unavailable for awhile. Better yet hire a professional management company to handle the calls, repairs and headaches for you, most will charge 10% of the monthly rent and some will give a discount for managing multiple properties.
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 they want to keep that relationship intact.
In a tough economy, it’s important to do all you can to avoid facing the difficulty of paying the mortgage. That applies just as much to an REI professional as it does to the average renter. These simple tips can help as you work to develop lasting, longterm, rent paying tenants to keep your properties bringing in the income you need every month.
If you need to sell an investment property fast with the tenant still occupying the home with or without a lease. We can buy it quickly for a fair price and close in as little as 7 days! Even if your tenant is delinquent on rent payments and not communicating with you, We can still buy it.