How to outsource property management successfully
If you’ve calculated the value of your time as a property investor and figured out that being a full-on, 24/7 buy-to-let landlord isn’t paying its way, you’ll need strategies for outsourcing to release the value of your property investment. This means building partnerships with professionals and then managing those partnerships effectively.
You can never be an expert in all the facets of property management, but you can work with people who are. The time spent seeding and nurturing the people side of property management will be time well spent.
Here are four strategies for building and maintaining quality relationships with your property management partners, whether they be tradesmen, lawyers, accountants, mortgage brokers, or tenants.
1. Align goals
You want to make money from your property investment. Realise that this is a goal of most of the people you’ll be working with (tenants don’t have this goal, but they will still want to see the value of renting your property). When you are able to align your goals with those of your partners, and work together towards a shared objective, then the relationship will be stronger.
An example might be the retaining of emergency electrical services for a fixed monthly fee – the electrician gets the certainty of income, while you get the certainty of 24/7 coverage.
2. Set clear expectations
Be clear about what you expect from your partnership with another. The tenant wants a comfortable and well-maintained home, while you want your rent paid on time and no damage to the property.
While the new investor might consider written tenancy agreements to be a formal and unnecessary expense, any buy-to-let landlord will tell you the value of written tenancy agreements: they remove any ambiguity and misunderstanding, preventing potential arguments and legal issues further down the line.
3. Keep in constant contact
Keep in touch with all the partners in your venture. There will be difficult conversations that are needed from time to time – don’t shirk these.
Keep in touch with all the tasks that need doing, monitoring maintenance schedules, legal documents, rental payments, and so on. Remember that outsourcing responsibility doesn’t mean abdicating responsibility.
4. Show your appreciation
Don’t be scared to say ‘thank you’. People like to be appreciated, and when they are made to feel special, they’ll go that extra mile for you.
Building and maintaining relationships is a skill. It takes times to get the best people on board, and then more time to keep those relationships performing the way they should.
Here at Ezytrac, we approach our business as the people business it is. We develop local contacts across a spectrum of support that the buy-to-let landlord requires. We then nurture those relationships, keeping in constant contact and leveraging economies of scale. All this means our clients can get on with their lives while we accept the responsibility of managing their properties. That’s as effortless as it gets!
Chat with the team on +44 1522 503 717 today.
Yours in effortless property management,
Robert Smith