If you plan on owning any kind of rental property, you need to become very serious with regards to property management. This isn’t something you can afford to let slip. Even before your first tenants move into the property, you need to be working on improving, updating, and maintaining the property. If you have one or two small rental properties, you might be able to do this on your own, however if you have more than one, there’s no way you’ll be able to keep up with everything. In this situation you need to look into property management in Chicago.
The biggest reason that most landlords drag their feet when it comes to hiring a property management firm is money. Most landlords purchased the property as investment. They want to make money. If they have a property management firm come in and take over two things happen. The first will be that the owner of the rental property will now have to hand over some of their profits to a third party. The other thing that will happen will be that the landlord will lose some of their control over the property.
While these are valid concerns, in the long run, most landlords find themselves very grateful that they decided to pass on the property management obligations. They admit that staying on top of things had gotten too difficult and time consuming.
If you are worried about the idea of losing money, you need to look at things from a slightly different angle. Think about how much effort you need to put forth just to stay on top of your renters demands. Just driving back and forth to your units must be time consuming. Now think about the fact that the time you currently devote to making repairs, collecting rent, and dealing with tenant complaints could actually be spent looking at other pieces of real estate that you could develop into another rental investment.
If the idea of losing control of your property to a property management firm agitates you, that’s okay. Instead of handing the reins over completely to the firm, you should slowly make the change. Set things up so that they only handle a few things, like running background checks on prospective tenants, or caring for a swimming pool. As time goes by, and you start to get more comfortable with the situation, you can hand over more duties and expand your contract.
Perhaps the most important reason for you to hire a property management firm will be because they can provide you with legal back up if a tenant causes problems and needs to be evicted.
If you are looking for a property management firm in Chicago, visit Frontline Real Estate Partners.
