If you’re a hands-on property owner who is renting out a home, you’re potentially wasting a lot of your time and money. You invest many of your own resources in preparing your property for a tenant, marketing the home, showing it, and screening potential tenants. You need to stay available for anything your tenants need and collect rent and respond to questions. When a maintenance need pops up, you need to take care of it, and you need to do that quickly. What if your plumber isn’t available or you can’t find an electrician?
There’s also lease enforcement and lease renewals. You have to balance your own books and track your income and expenses.
Instead of being hands-on, we recommend that you be hands-free.
Working with a partner like Maryland Property Management allows you to enjoy all the benefits of owning a rental property (rental income, tax breaks, long-term appreciation, etc.) without dealing with any of the day-to-day logistics and the endless legwork.
Your property manager partner will also ensure that your hands-free investment experience includes better returns. We’ll protect you from vacancy and turnover costs. We’ll screen tenants thoroughly to ensure you’re getting the best, and we’ll look for ways to reduce maintenance costs and recurring expenses.
Here’s how Maryland Property Management transforms homeownership, whether you’re renting out a home you once lived in yourself or you’re growing an entire portfolio of rental properties in the area.
How to Move from Hands-On to Hands-Free as a Maryland Property Owner
Most experienced real estate investors you talk to will agree that it’s much better to be hands-free as much as possible when you’re renting out a home.
Your success with any investment property – whether it’s a single family home or a collection of condos – depends on your ability to step back from the operations and let a professional with more experience handle the logistics. Even if you want to be part of the process, you need to trust your property managers and the other professionals you’re working with. We have the experience, the resources, and the systems to take the lead on what needs to be done.
You have better uses for your time, especially if you have a career that needs attention or a family or other passions to pursue. You’re not renting out a property because you want a second job. For most owners, the goal is to earn income every month and leverage equity and appreciation as you continue to rent out your home while it grows in value.
A successful hands-off landlord in Maryland understands the importance of professional partnerships and treating the rental property like a business.
If you’re accustomed to doing everything yourself, this might be a difficult transition for you. We’ll help you, at Maryland Property Management. Here are some strategies that may help:
- Focus on your investment goals
Have you established your own investment goals? You’ll need a set of goals to help you make decisions about the homes you’re renting out. When you hand over the day-to-day management to a professional, you’ll have the time to focus on what you’re really trying to accomplish. You’ll also have a partner who is going to help you strategize and reach those goals.
If you have not set your own investment goals, do so with the understanding that you will not need to micro-manage every part of the leasing, management, and maintenance processes. This won’t be your role; it will be that of your property manager’s.
- Treat your rental like a business
It will help you to be more hands-free when you think of your rental property as a business.
As your property managers, that’s how we’ll be thinking about it.
Real estate can easily become emotional for both you and the tenants we ultimately place in your property. If a tenant doesn’t pay rent for one month or they’re found to be violating the lease, it’s easy to lose your professional composure. We’re your buffer, and more prepared to be objective and calm when holding tenants accountable.
Detaching yourself from the property can sometimes be difficult, especially if you’re renting out a home that you once lived in. Think of this as an investment. It’s a business.
- Stop thinking about yourself as a landlord
Change the way you talk about yourself. A hands-free investor is not a landlord. A landlord is someone who deals with tenant complaints and problems daily. A landlord collects rents and shows their vacant property. Landlords deal with maintenance and repairs. They have to follow rental laws and make sure they’re in compliance with all regulations. They have to screen and manage accounting and lease renewals.
That’s a lot of work.
Instead of doing the work of a landlord, start thinking about yourself as a real estate investor. None of the successful investors we work with are worried about security deposit mistakes and pest control. We’re taking care of these things for them, and they’re totally hands-free.
The hands-on work that’s required in property management takes time and knowledge. It’s better to be hands-free, so you can spend your time doing the things you do best.
Property management is what we do best.
Help yourself transition out of the hands-on landlord mindset to the hands-free investor mindset. It’s the difference between feeling like you have another full-time job and enjoying the passive income you can earn on your rental home.
Rely On Your Maryland Property Management Professionals
When you partner with the experienced professionals at Maryland Property Management, you don’t have to be hands-on with your rental property. You know that it’s already getting the attention and the service it needs. Our team takes care of every part of the leasing process. We’ll keep up with ongoing management tasks and we’ll respond to maintenance. We can handle lease renewals and mediate disputes and conflicts.
To be a successful investor in Maryland, let your professional property managers do what you hired us to do. Put together a smart team of experienced professionals to give you advice, resources, and support. The most important thing to remember is that you’re running a business. You don’t need to be hands-on.
What You Get as a Hands-Free Property Owner
We’ve talked about some of the benefits you can enjoy when you’re hands-off as a property owner. You’ll have more time. You’ll face fewer expenses and less liability. Here are some of the most important gains you’ll notice when you work with professional property managers in Maryland.
- Routine, Preventative, and Emergency Maintenance and Repairs
Property managers ensure that your investment is well-maintained and kept in good condition. We perform regular maintenance and repairs and we also respond to emergencies right away. By investing in preventative maintenance, we avoid many of those potential emergencies and protect your asset’s value. You can remain hands-free when it comes to maintenance, but we will be hands-on and make sure everything is functioning exactly the way it should.
- Rent Collection and Eviction Prevention
We’ll make sure that rent is collected on time each month and that there are no issues with the tenants living in your property. In the case of any missed payments or potential eviction proceedings, property managers ensure that the necessary steps are taken promptly and efficiently. This saves you time and money, ensuring a healthy and profitable investment. More important than understanding how to evict your tenant is understanding how to prevent that eviction. We rarely have to evict the tenants we place. That’s because we screen thoroughly and invest in tenant relationships.
- Tenant Screening and Placement
The process of finding tenants can be difficult, especially if you don’t have the necessary experience. At Maryland Property Management, we will advertise your property, find proper tenants, and do background checks on potential renters to ensure that they are responsible and can take care of your rental home. Property managers are also experts in placing new tenants, which means your units won’t stay vacant for long.
- Expert Legal Compliance
Can you stay up to date on all the relevant state, federal, and local laws? Your property managers are familiar with all the necessary laws and regulations related to rental properties, so you don’t have to be. They ensure that all legal requirements are met by collecting the right documentation and conducting inspections to ensure good standing. This covers everything from safety inspections to inspections of utilities and more.
Hiring a property manager can save you a significant amount of time and minimize your stress. Instead of spending countless hours worrying about the daily operations of your investment property, property managers handle all tasks, allowing you to focus on your other duties. This is a hands-free approach, which means great peace of mind for you.
Investing in rental properties can be rewarding, but it can also be time-consuming and challenging. A hands-free investment experience provided by Maryland Property Management allows you to enjoy the fruits of your investment without the added stress it can bring. We will take care of everything from tenant placement to repairs to regulatory compliance. As a result, you can rest easy knowing your property is in capable hands and that you’ll see returns on your investments without the hassle of managing every detail.
Let’s talk about how we can move you to a hands-free investor. Contact us at Maryland Property Management.
