Many new landlords don’t expect to have to interact very much with their tenants on a day-to-day basis. However, they are often surprised to learn how much daily stress is involved in managing a property. It’s not quite as simple as signing the papers and waiting for a check. These are some of the most common daily property management stressors encountered by landlords:
Lack of cleanliness in tenants: Your tenants are entitled to keep house as they see fit – to an extent. You are still the owner of the property, and you don’t want your home to be trashed. You can’t necessarily force a client to pick up their dirty socks, but you do have a responsibility to ensure that the home is clean enough to be safe. If exits are blocked or a health or fire hazard is present, you can and should require the tenant to clean it up.
Destruction of property: Destruction of your property by tenants can be intentional or unintentional. They might purposely punch a hole in the wall because you charged a late fee or threatened eviction. The innocent child of a tenant might hit a baseball into the window and shatter it. Truth be told, it doesn’t really matter whether the damage was intended; you have to fix it and pay for it either way.
Use of illegal substances: The tenants may have seemed fine when you met them, but then you discover after they have moved in that they are using illegal drugs on your property. What could be worse than that? Well, they could also be manufacturing or selling illegal drugs on your property.
Lying tenants: The check is in the mail. That damage was present before we moved in. No, I don’t have any undeclared, long-term guests staying with me. I have no idea why the cops were here. The list is long.
Unpaid rent: This is one of the issues that even inexperienced landlords are usually aware of, and this issue really lives up to its reputation. Some tenants intentionally skate by for as long as possible without paying. Other tenants are people who have good intentions and have fallen on rough times. Either way, you aren’t getting paid.
Complaints from neighbors: Unfortunately, you can’t really screen your tenants to discover whether they will be considerate. (Unless a previous landlord is kind enough to tell you that the tenants were evicted due to complaints from neighbors.) You may end up getting calls from neighbors who are complaining that your tenants are too loud, too messy, or are infringing on their peace and happiness in any number of ways.
Legal issues: Many landlords think that the only legal issues they will face will be eviction-related. However, you may discover that your tenants have issues with the law in the realms of drugs, alcohol, or domestic violence. No landlord wants the police coming to their property because the tenants have criminal problems.
Keeping tenants happy: On one end of the spectrum, you have deadbeat tenants who trash your property and bring down the neighborhood. On the other end of the spectrum, you have difficult tenants who call you and want immediate repairs every time a kitchen drawer sticks. You want to keep good tenants happy, of course, but there are only so many hours in a day.
These property management stressors may seem like a lot. That’s why McMath Realty offers property management services for landlords in Phoenix and all of Maricopa County of Arizona. You don’t have time to deal with all of these issues, so we’ll take care of them for you. Contact McMath Realty today.