Six Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Hire a Property Manager

Being a landlord can be an agonizing and very rewarding business. I have been a landlord for over 14 years and currently have 55 rental units. I happen to love it, but it is not all roses all the time. Surprisingly, being a landlord is not that tough and you can manage many units without a lot of work, but you have to have your business set up correctly. You can scale your landlord business with or without professional property management. I happen to think property managers are expensive for what they do, but I also understand the tremendous value they can bring. There are many different reasons you should consider using a property manager, but before you make that decision consider these 6 questions:

Where are your properties located?

I have tried long distance management and can tell you it is tough. For it to work, you need great systems in place, which is not easy to set up when you are not on the ground. You will also most likely be relying, at least to some extent, on other people who are not licensed to do what you need them to do. This could include anything from signing a lease, to collecting rent, to fixing a faucet. In my business, I feel it is worth the money to hire property managers to manage all my out of state properties.

How many properties do you have?

You can manage a lot of properties with just a few hours of work a month. I manage all my in state properties myself because it is easy to do and is not worth it to me to pay someone else to do it. In fact, when you are getting started, I would strongly encourage you to manage your own properties. This will help you gain valuable experience, even if you want to eventually turn them over to a manger. To manage multiple properties, you need good systems. This includes a team to do your handy work (basic handyman, plumber, electrician, appliance repair, etc.) Obviously, this is all outsourced so you don’t need employees for this to work. You also need a great leasing agent. A leasing agent is someone who will typically give you advice on what needs to be done to get a unit ready and they will market, show, and negotiate your property. You can have them do the lease signing too, although I would recommend you do that so you get a chance to meet the tenant. Other systems you will need to implement include; rent collection, evictions, move ins and outs, maintenance requests, property improvements, enforcing the lease, transferring utilities, etc. I would consider a manager if I got so many properties that I felt overwhelmed, and in this case I would hand select properties to turn over.

Are you organized?

Here is where you have to be honest with yourself, which is not always easy to do. To manage multiple properties you really do need to be organized. You will have payments coming in for rent and going out for maintenance, mortgages, utilities and more. You will be getting maintenance requests, requests to add or remove people from the lease, request from government agencies, and requests from a slew of others. If you cannot stay on top of this, it is time to hire some professional help.

Do you have a problem property?

These are the worst and you won’t know you bought one until after you own it for a while. I have a few that give me trouble. Although I still manage them myself, those few problem properties take up more of my time than everything else I have combined. This is one time that I would consider a manager for a local property.

Can you afford it?

As I mentioned, property management can be expensive. You should expect to pay ½ or more of the first month’s rent in a leasing fee, 6-10 percent of the gross rent amount in a management fee, and additional costs for maintenance (this is usually marked up). I would try to look at this as if the property can afford it, not you. You really don’t want to get into the habit of feeding your investments, so if there is not enough cash flow from the property, then you might consider managing it yourself until you can get your expenses down or your rents up.

Do you have the time?

Because it only takes a handful of hours a month, my guess is you do have the time. The real question is, do you want to be managing the property with that time? As you get older and your goals change, it might make since to start to step away from your landlord business. Retiring is the obvious example. At that point in your life, you will most likely be deciding between professional management and liquidation.

Why Start a Home-Based Business?

It’s well accepted that small businesses form the backbone of the United States and world economies. In recent years, no part of the small-business sector has grown as dramatically as home-based businesses, which now comprise 52 percent of all small businesses and annually contribute $300 billion to the United States economy.A survey of home businesses conducted in 2008 by the Cleveland-based Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE), revealed that 79 percent of the surveyed companies had annual gross revenues in excess of $51,000. A report by the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) points out that 25 percent of home-based businesses had an annual gross income of between $100,000 and $500,000, and in 2000 there were 20,000 home businesses grossing more than $1 million.Many successful home businesses have never moved away from their home base, while others, such as Lillian Vernon, Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, Google, Bonne Bell, and Xerox began in the founder’s home, garage, or basement and grew into mega-corporations.The COSE survey found that home-based businesses create jobs beyond just employing the owner. Almost one-half had at least one employee, and 17 percent employed three or more workers. The survey revealed that most home-business owners are dedicated people who enjoy the benefits of working from their homes and want to continue to do so, dispelling the myth that running a home-based business is a stopgap measure until one finds a “real” corporate job.Until just a few years ago, there was a stigma attached to home-business owners. The sense was that the businesses were temporary or “play” businesses. But with the proliferation of both virtual employees and home businesses, such biases are seldom heard today.Practically any kind of business can be operated from a home – if the house is big enough or the business is small enough, and providing that local regulations permit it. I have consulted with single practitioners sup-plying consulting services, with photographers with in-home studios, with printers running presses in their basements, with light-bulb distributors whose garages are full of inventory, with a garment manufacturer staffed with almost a dozen people working in her basement, and with companies whose offices are in the owner’s homes but which have plants or warehouses in industrial parks.Whether you are expanding a hobby into a business, starting a consult-ing service, or want to establish a manufacturing or distribution operation, operating your business from home can provide a lifestyle that will be the envy of your friends.For an ambitious young person, an employee weary of punching a time clock, a worker who has lost a job, or a retiree seeking a second career, the lure of entrepreneurship can be mighty tempting. The lowest risk way of starting a business is at home which can often be accomplished with just a small investment. What is required is a marketable idea fueled with passion and nurtured by a dedicated and determined owner exercising good business practices.

Information Product Creation: Never Compete on Price Because There Is Only One You

Information product creation requires extensive preparation, no matter which niche you work within and you want to make sure that your information product has a successful launch. That probably sounds scary and intimidating but here’s the thing: this is a one time effort and it will pay off in a foundation that is strong enough to get your ideal clients to invest in your high-end programs and services without the perils of a traditional funnel. This article will teach you a few of the things that you need to remember if you’d like to invest in yourself and start on the information product creation path using your unique talents and abilities. Remember that you never have to worry about anyone ripping off your ideas because if you understand how to properly position yourself around your story.

Understand Both Strengths and Weaknesses: It is good to have an impartial view of your own strengths and weaknesses when lay the foundation of selling yourself within the information product creation process. It helps you figure out where you are, what you lack and how to move forward so that you get as much growth as possible. It is more than important, it is urgent if you want to create fast success for yourself to have personal positive reinforcement and deep belief to provide yourself the support you need so that you can get over your own limitations to ensure that your information product is as valuable as it can be.

You also need to know exactly who your competition is so you can study them and use their methods to help you improve your own standings. Down recreate the wheel, but understand the wheel and position yourself going uphill from the competition. Check out which kinds of opportunities you’ve already got and try to figure out how best to use them while taking care to remember your strengths and weaknesses. This is a great way to figure out where you stand against your competition which helps you figure out how best to grow.

Launch on Time: No matter what, even if you haven’t officially announced your “launch date” you should launch the site when you’ve said you would. This will force you to stick to your goal and actually work on it. Thinking that “I’ll launch it when I think it’s ready to launch” will only hinder your efforts. You’ve got a responsibility that you need to live up to with your launch, and you can’t move back on that one. If you get close to your launch date and you are getting hung up on your self limiting beliefs in your information product creation, don’t worry this about getting it out there and not perfection. As long as it is usable you should launch it. Launching on time is the professional thing to do and it is more important than creating a “wow” effect in your site visitors. You can always update/upgrade your website when you have to, so there shouldn’t be any issue with that.

Analyze Your Own Concept: If you want to make your information product creation successful you need to understand how good your concept is: is it really going to work for your chosen audience or would something else be better? You already know about your competition; how does your concept measure up? If you haven’t come up with your own idea and are trying to work with someone else’s concept, do some more work on your own before your launch. People want original ideas because they’ve seen too many other me-too websites already.

Test Your Concept Before You Commit To The Information Product Creation Process: One of the biggest failures people have with information product creation is not testing an idea before putting a lot of effort into producing an information product. PPC to a small 5 page site with a landing page is a great way to test an offer before you even produce it. If people will sign up to get it, you can be sure that you can create an information product that will target eliminating the pain of your target market. The small amount of money will be invaluable in using crowd sourcing to direct the final outline of the information product creation process.

You’ll have lots of hurdles to clear after the launch of your information product and the only way to truly take care of them is to follow the advice in this article to work smarter. Plenty of people work hard, but it is the ones who work smarter who make real money online with the information product creation business model.