Being a landlord or landlady is a full time job on its own without the extra trivias of tenants needing appliances fixed or fending new tenants to fill empty apartments. Soon enough you get sick and tired of running around all day every day and never having any time to enjoy any of the money you make from your tenancies. Here are 7 tips to help you get out of doing it all for yourself and start to live life whilst enjoying a healthy income.

1.    Create a welcome pack for your new tenants when they first arrive. By creating a pack for your tenants you can give them a list of all your contractors that you trust. By having this list your tenants can contact them directly instead of you getting involved. Your contractors can then invoice the work to you when the job is complete, cutting your work load in half.

2.    Don’t be greedy. We all like to make money on our investments but if you charge rates which do not justify the space and utilities being provided you won’t get the tenants. Reduce your prices so you break even and make some profit. A steady income is better than the occasional short burst.

3.    Be human and have a heart. Be prepared to give a little leeway instead of having a heart of stone. Some genuine people do have genuine problems so cut them some slack if they have previously given no issues to you. This will cut down everyone’s stress levels and earn you brownies points in the long term.

4.    Get an assistant. If you have lots of properties which you find hard to cover sufficiently get an assistant in to help. They can be in regular contact with your contractors and tenants to make sure everything is running smoothly. Then you only need to be involved in the bigger problems.

5.    Regular maintenance. Keep your contractors friendly and their prices low as you keep them on board with regular maintenance checks and jobs. This way means they will be handy should there be any issues with a property and they can deliver the job faster. Saving time and money whilst waiting for the job to be seen to.

6.    New age payments. An ongoing issue with tenants is paying rent on time. Get out of the rut by getting them all to join a direct debit so it always goes in when it should. Immediate payments save a lot of time on your behalf rather than going round each property collecting rent money.

7.    If being a landlord is too much, then you could always sell up your property. Nothing is as bad as being a tired landlord and having to make so much effort running a property. It’s easy to change that.

8.    Advertise all your vacancies on the Internet. There is a much bigger and wider world on the Internet so drop an advertisement for any vacant properties on the web. Minimal effort is required for the advertisements and most sites will be fighting to get your business. Even with one bog standard advertisement it can be used on multiple sites.