Residential Property Management: Top Tips

Our top tips for residential property management

Being a property manager can be time consuming and stressful if you’re not on top of things. It's challenging enough to manage your own personal time, but when you manage rental properties, someone else's crisis automatically becomes your own.

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To help you, we’ve compiled a list of our top tips for property management. By incorporating these top property management tips into your operations, you can grow your productivity, save time, and become a successful residential property manager.

Follow these residential property management tips for property managers to improve your property management abilities and reach all of your daily, weekly, and annual goals:

What does property management involve?

Throughout the duration of the tenancy agreement, property managers are in charge of managing the property physically. This includes - but is not limited to - regular maintenance, emergency repairs and payment of rents. Property managers must maintain good rapports with landlords in addition to their relationships with tenants.  Property managers typically have a portfolio of properties for which they are accountable, which can be a small number or up to several hundred.

The Top Tips

Keep your books impeccably organised

…or hire someone to do it for you!
It is crucial to keep detailed financial records for your tenant’s rent and other costs associated with your property, such as maintenance, upkeep, any payroll, and taxes. You must be aware of both the incoming and outgoing flow of funds. Consider employing a trained accountant/bookkeeper if your other property management responsibilities leave you with insufficient time for bookkeeping.

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Hone in your communication skills

The most crucial skill you'll need is excellent communication. Any role in residential property management that involves liaising between landlords and tenants must have effective communication skills. You'll need to project a composed, authoritative demeanour.

Establish and keep to set office hours

Although it may seem like the simplest residential property management advice, it's crucial for your tenants to understand when the management office staff is available for problems that aren't emergencies. When a maintenance call is required, tenants may quickly get in touch with property management during regular business hours rather than waiting and letting the issue in their apartment get worse, which may result in expensive repairs. Additionally, having regular business hours makes it simpler for potential tenants to stop by and ask about available rentals. Any property needs a lot of laborious work to be efficiently managed.

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Wave goodbye to procrastination

Successful property managers complete tasks as soon as they are due. They are also knowledgeable and skilled enough to realise which areas of their profession are more important than others. It's crucial to have solid work habits if you plan to enter the field. Plus, staying on top of things stops tenants chasing you and damaging your relationships with tenants or landlords. Your properties will be much more successful when you master your own day to day operations.

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Become a paperwork expert

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As a residential property manager, you have to deal with paperwork on a daily - sometimes hourly! - basis.

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Luckily, if you have a good paperwork management system in place, you can save time and better handle the likes of legal disputes, audits and legal claims.

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For example, you’ll be handling tenant files like: 

• Inventories
• Property maintenance notices
• Rent payment records
• Move-in and move out inspection paperwork
• Security deposits and security deposit refunds
• Correspondence regarding approval
• Eviction paperwork

Address typical difficulties that residents have

What recurring issues or tasks give you the biggest amount of trouble? Each property will offer a unique set of problems! Occasionally, it could seem like there are always new issues to solve after an old one has been resolved. Nevertheless, there are problems in many properties that, for a variety of causes, tend to recur frequently. This could be anything from issues with parcel theft to difficulties caused by a shortage of parking. Spend some time coming up with remedies for the specific problem to hopefully resolve it permanently, which should hopefully bring relief to both you and your tenants.

Consider scheduling regular inspections to manage damage risk

Regular inspections of your property and the surrounding hardware can help reduce the risk of potential problems in and around the property and its units. Items to inspect include but are not limited to:

• All smoke and/or fire alarms
• Fire/emergency door access
• Roof and downspouts
• Decks
• Windows (check for cracks and sealant issues)
• Water lines for laundry purposes

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Establish protocols and be strict about keeping them

To prevent miscommunications, possible issues, and missed payments with tenants, property managers must have protocols and standards in place. 

All guidelines for tenants should be written down and issued at the time of signing the AST or Assured shorthold tenancy agreement between you and your tenant. Similarly, landlords must have procedures in place for a variety of circumstances. If a tenant ignores the parking rules, the property manager must obey the process, which could include issuing a notice or even having the car towed!

Familiarise yourself with  knowledge of (and maintain!) current trends in all areas of property management

Keep up with things like local rent rates, rule and regulation changes, and other new real estate developments. Always be learning since property owners want to know that the manager they're working with is knowledgeable. Do this by signing up to relevant newsletters, reading property sections of news websites, reading the Oasis Living blog, and following social media accounts focused on property management.

Be confident!

Becoming a successful property manager requires hard work. It takes a lot of time to master the craft. But once you’ve become a trusted expert in your industry, you have every right to feel proud of yourself.

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Other helpful tips

If you're looking for more property management tips and tricks, we thought you might like these other blog posts:

• ‍The Oasis Living guide to property management in London ‍
• A complete overview of the costs of property management ‍
• 30 habits of successful property managers

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Oasis Living

Alternatively, it is always wise to speak with well-versed experts in the field. Whether looking for advice or full residential property management, an experienced London letting agent who can guide you through each step methodically.

If you would like any advice on property management in London or want to have a property or entire portfolio managed, speak with a member of the Oasis team. Our expertise in London property management for landlords and tenants is sure to help you and your property achieve the results you deserve.

Using Oasis Living to manage your property

If you are looking for an alternative to an unreliable high street agent, we are here to help. We offer a 5% fee to manage your property, with a more reliable service than that of a traditional agent. Why? Because we use tech and automation to make the processes faster and more transparent. We also have an intuitive property management dashboard that helps you manage payments, compliance and more, all at a glance.

‍We can also help you find tenants with a service that offers property staging, and professional photography. If you're interested in talking to one of our experts, we'd love to show you how we can improve your property letting experience.

If you think you are better off managing your property by yourself, we offer some helpful tips on how to do this in our article on how to set up a property management company.