9 Best Practices You Should Start Using in Your Rental Property Management Right Away

Rental property management can be a juggling act. When you're managing multiple properties, you need to prioritize urgent needs, manage and resolve chronic problems, and act in a proactive way to ensure that your properties are well-maintained. Learn from the experiences of industry experts and adopt these 9 best practices for your business:

1. Find the right renters

Do you promote your properties to everyone, or are you strategic in your marketing plan? Strategic marketing will help reduce your rental turnover rates by bringing you the right people for the right neighborhood. Watch rental trends and amenities in each area, and if a particular neighborhood seems to be orienting itself to the retirement crowd, market accordingly. You'll find renters who appreciate the neighborhood and you'll have fewer worries about vacant properties.

2. Market proactively

Even when you have nothing available in a particular neighborhood, your name should be on peoples' lips. Focus on building relationships within the community. Whether you fund the local softball league or you create web content that draws people to your neighborhood-focused articles, keep your marketing in the public eye so that when rentals do come up, people know and trust you.

3. Keep an eye on day-to-day management

With a growing business, it can be hard to keep in touch with every aspect of your organization, but this is critical to business success. While you may not be on the ground working on a leaky pipe, you need to watch for trends and manage them. If many pipes are leaking in many different buildings, this could be a sign that you need to maintain a more consistent preventative maintenance schedule.

[Additional Reading: How To Create an LLC for Rental Property]

4. Understand your niche

In the world of property management, every company has its niche. What role do you play, and what role do your competitors play? Understanding your competition not only helps you learn from their successes and challenges, but it also helps you brand yourself and define what makes you different.

5. Embrace innovation

Understand industry trends and social trends and think about where they'll go next. For example, if you note that a neighborhood is attractive to seniors, can you rent multiple homes in the area and help create the community that people are looking for in their retirement? By staying one step ahead, you'll become a leader in your field.

6. Educate your employees

When you hire an employee, make sure you invest in that employee's success. Whether it's a maintenance professional who could upgrade to work on appliance repairs or an administrator who could work with newer, more efficient software, investing in your employees will pay dividends as your business runs more smoothly.

7. Keep up with the times

When you can see what's coming, you can act before it happens. For example, if there are new recycling rules that come into effect, you can set up systems in advance that will help your renters comply with these rules instead of acting at the last minute. The goal is to be able to keep your eye on the big picture and plan for the long term, rather than constantly worrying about what's coming up today or tomorrow.

8. Watch your bottom line

While you're probably aware of the general state of your finances, have you taken a closer look to patch up holes? If your financial management is missing something, what's missing? If your properties don't rent as quickly as you'd like, you might see that you need to be a more proactive marketer. Looking for financial trends will help you succeed today and in the future.

9. Add to your network

Learning from others is part of your job as a rental property manager. In addition to education, you need to strengthen your own network, both in-person and online. Developing a strong network will help you understand your field and will give you a group of people to call upon when you have questions or need resources.

When you're looking for tools to help you with your rental property management, contact Propertyware. Our software can help you manage your business so that you can focus on the future. Visit us and take a free online tour of Propertyware today.

"We wouldn't be the company we are without Propertyware...it allows us to manage the entire business with only 2 people." - Jeff Shelton, 3rd Base Realty

[Editor's Note: We have updated and republished this article to benefit readers new to the Propertyware blog.]