Putting up a residential rental property is profitable. You can never miss residents searching for condos, single-family homes, townhouses, duplexes, or multifamily residences. However, it’s never a smooth sail. You may have to grapple with low occupancies at some point in time. Moreover, potential tenants may be reluctant to pay the proposed rent if the building standards aren’t up to par. Fortunately, you could use some strategies to maximize your residential real estate revenue. Read on for details.
Outsource Management
You can solely manage your property, but you may miss important aspects of your tenant’s needs if you have a busy schedule. You could seek help from property management companies to help you increase your residential real estate revenue. Their expert tactics and round-the-clock availability can help keep your property occupied, meaning you don’t lose money. You only have to pay them a small percentage of your rental income. The prices they’ll charge will depend on the services they offer. For instance, property management costs in Toronto rely on the following:
- Tenant location and the services: Under this, they’ll evaluate the value of your property, perform a re-screening of all applicants, provide feedback on tenant’s questions, fix up the lease agreement to meet your needs, and take pictures for your rental advertisements.
- Rent collection: They collect, do accounting, and are in charge of taking care of unpaid rent.
- Tenant portal: The company gives tenants access to an online system where they can communicate, relay their issues, and send their rent.
- Financial administration: The property management company will take care of expenses, insurance, property taxes, and the compilation of financial reports.
There are various services a property manager will take care of on your behalf. It depends on whether you’d like to have some contact with your tenants or outsource the whole management role. Thus, it’d help to know which services you need urgently and discuss them with your property manager. Doing this helps you get quality services at affordable prices, enabling you to increase your revenue.
Conduct Regular Maintenance
Carry out regular maintenance on the property to keep the home clean and enable it to retain its value. Examples include scheduling gutter cleaning, checking the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to see if the filters need replacement, and refinishing worn flooring. Regular maintenance can also help you save the money you’ll have used to do repairs and replacements.
You could send surveys to tenants to find out what makes them pleased and disgruntled, and what areas you need to enhance. Remember, when your residential real estate property is in good condition, even if you charge higher prices for it, the tenants will be obliged to pay.
Offer Additional Services
If your multifamily or triplex building doesn’t have an in-unit washer and dryer, you can set up a number of coin-operated washing machines for the tenants. You should place them in common areas where everyone can access them.
On top of this, you could offer storage spaces for your tenants as well. Here, they can keep their cars, bikes, or other valuable items at a certain fee. Your tenants will highly appreciate having somewhere they can place their valuable items.
Furnish your Building
Furnishing is another excellent option for making more money. It’s an excellent idea for short-term renters, especially if they don’t want to buy furniture. You could also include utilities in your property since tenants may want to avoid constantly opening and closing contracts catering to gas, Internet, water, and electricity when they move. If they find such simplified procedures, they won’t hesitate to pay higher rent. While at it, ensure you specify in the contract that the furniture and utility fees differ from the rent to avoid complaints from the tenants.
Provide Mid-Term Rental Options
Long-term rentals are stable and a secure way of generating income. However, most people are currently considering short-term rentals because of the mobility of their jobs; some may only stay for a few weeks or months before moving. In this case, introduce midterm renting options for your tenants since it requires little work, while enabling you to make money.
Allow Tenants to Keep Pets at a Fee
Most renters are pet lovers and would highly appreciate it if they’re allowed to stay with them on the property. Thus, it’d help if you permitted your tenants to live with their beloved pets. All you need to do is establish rules indicating why they need to pay higher fees than the others. Capitalizing on such needs is an excellent alternative to making money. But, you must have an agreement indicating you’re allowed to take out some cash from the security deposit when their pets destroy something in the property.
Implement Extra Fees
Create leasing tenant rules and stick to them. You can charge additional fees when the tenant fails to do what the contract stipulates. Firstly, you can charge holding fees when clients drop their application forms. They should make a refundable deposit should they stay in your building. Secondly, put a lease termination fee for which a tenant is held liable when they break them. Lastly, collect an application fee you’ll use to perform background checks on tenants.
Conclusion
Implementing workable strategies can help boost your residential real estate revenue significantly. Therefore, only implement the ones your tenants won’t raise the alarm over. You could even enlist reliable property management services to take the burden off your shoulders and enable you to make revenue passively.
Jason is the Marketing Manager at a local advertising company in Australia. He moved to Australia 10 years back for his passion for advertising. Jason recently joined BFA as a volunteer writer and contributes by sharing his valuable experience and knowledge.
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