4 Common Issues in Property Management and Their Solutions
Profitably managing an owned property is quite a daunting task. Many owners incur losses, when they are unable to tackle certain situations. Here are five problems that are quite common, while managing properties, and their possible solutions.
1) Maintenance Issues
Buildings and individual houses need ongoing maintenance in structural aspects, plumbing, and electrical systems. Anything can pop up at any time, and repairs have to be attended to immediately to avoid inconveniences to tenants. The best solutions for managing maintenance issues is to have a preventive maintenance program in place, and have a professional staff attending to the repairs.
2) Handling Tenants and their Complaints
Complains from tenants can keep pouring in on a daily basis. These complaints range from small issues with other tenants, to major complaints to do with the state of the property. However, most complaints are to do with repairs or correcting something on the property. It could be about the illumination in the common areas and requests for brighter lights, or it could be about the potholes in the driveway. Every complaint needs to be looked into and cannot be ignored, especially ones that show potential problems in structural aspects of the building. Tenants should also feel that their complaints are being heard and appropriate action is being taken.
3) Payment Issues
Not receiving rent on time is a major issue faced by all property owners. Most tenants have a range of excuses at hand for not making payments. Missed payments, late payments, check payments are all cause of concern and can eat away at the profits. Solution to this problem requires a multiple pronged approach. Firstly, there should be a person in charge who will go around collecting payments on the due dates, which will make tenants aware that they have to keep their payments ready on time. The second aspect is to levy some penalty or late fees, which is a percentage of the total amount owed. This usually works when the property owner is able to enforce it strictly and with precision and reason.
4) Profitability
Profitability is affected by several factors and the overall management of the property. One of the reasons could be due to many units laying vacant on the property. This issue can be handled with the right marketing technique for attracting tenants to the property. Proper advertising and good reputation about the property can make a major difference in getting the right tenants. Sometimes, even when all the units are occupied, the business might still run into losses and this could be for a number of reasons.
This could be due to charging low prices to tenants or improper overall management. For assigning the proper rental price, it is necessary to have the property assessed to know the actual worth of the lodgings, and analyzing what people would be willing to pay. It also helps to do some research on what people are already paying at similar properties in the area. However, in most cases, losses occur due to improper overall management, and the best solution is to hire a professional property management company that is offering comprehensive services for handling all aspects of the property.
