You’ve come a long way by now. You have the rental property. You found the right tenant. Now you need to maintain this source of passive income. It’s time to maintain the rental property and make sure that everything runs smoothly.
Let’s assume that you choose to do all of the work yourself with managing your first rental property. I’m going to assume that you’re ready to be a landlord.
How does the process work now? How do you maintain the property once you have the rental property and source of passive income setup?
Figure out the payment situation.
How are the payments going to work? Will you collect all of the checks in advance? Will you do direct deposit? Perhaps, you’ll be super modern and use Paypal. I ended up collecting the checks in advance. The only problem with this method is that you have to actually go to the bank every single month. You can do a direct deposit or any other method. All that matters is that you figure out how you plan on collecting the monthly rent check from the tenant. Once you figure out the payment situation (as stated in your rental agreement) you can now know how you’re going to earn your income.
Leave contact information.
Leave your cell phone number and an emergency contact number with the tenant and the management company (if it’s a condo). Your tenant needs to be able to reach you at all times. If you’re going to be out of town then you need to leave a trusted friend’s information. The reason for this contact information is that someone needs to be there at all times for the tenant to deal with any issues that may arise. On that note…
Deal with all issues with the property as they come.
There will be problems that arise with your rental property. As the landlord, the onus is on you to deal with the problems. You should expect phone calls at the most random times of the day. You can have a trouble tenant that complains about the water not being hot enough at six in the morning. Then you can have a more respectful tenant that just breaks something by accident in the middle of the night. Expect your phone to ring at the most random times.
There’s no easy solution here. You just need to deal with the issues as they come. There will be plenty of different issues that can potentially come your way. Some issues will be within your grasp to resolve. Other issues could be a bit too complex. When an issue is too complex for you, you need to outsource it. Don’t know how to fix the toilet? Call a Plumber. It’s pretty simple. You just need to deal with all issues as they come.
Maintain a strong relationship with your tenants.
Renting out your property needs to be a mutually beneficial situation. Your earning money while the tenant has a place to stay. This relationship needs to be taken seriously. You’re giving them a place to sleep. They’re paying you their hard earned money to do so. There’s no need to be rude or disrespectful to each other. You both need each other. This is why I recommend doing whatever it takes to maintain a strong relationship. How you do this is common sense and up to you.
That’s what you need to do to maintain this source of passive income. Nobody said that relying on real estate for passive income would be easy. You’re going to have to invest some serious time and money into real estate income projects. The good news is that your first rental property will be an amazing learning experience. You can easily transfer over the skills and purchase more properties as you get more into real estate.