From Chaos to Control: The Importance of Systems in Rentals

How does this scenario sound to you? You’ve bought a couple of rental properties and things are going well. Your tenants are paying on time and everything is running smoothly. You decided to take a vacation with your family. You’re in Florida about to head out to the beach and you get a call from your tenant. “The oven just broke.” You get stressed out and wonder how you're going to fix this issue when you’re all the way in Florida. This example can easily be solved with the creation of a system that is built just for scenarios like this. In this post, I’d like to talk about systems and how they should be in your business.

Some people talk about systems as these elaborate and expensive programs that are difficult to set up. More times than not most people don’t have the experience, time, or money to use these and honestly they really aren’t that necessary for a decent size rental portfolio. A system can be created for free on Google Sheets and then can be immediately integrated into your life.

Showing Properties

A great way a system can be used to save you a ton of time is with showings. Instead of driving to your property every time you have a prospective tenant, you can use this system instead. All you need to do is add a web-viewable camera to the house with a web-enabled keypad lock and anytime you have someone wanting to view the house you just send them a new passcode. This saves you time in that you don’t have to drive to the house. It also is nice for potential tenants as it gives them some privacy when viewing their would-be home for the first time. It is also great for contractors when you have some maintenance needing to be done on a house.

Maintenance Issues

Another great spot for a system is with maintenance problems. You simply need to create a spreadsheet with all of the issues that can go wrong with a rental property and separate them into different categories. Then you add a solution or remedy for this problem right next to it. If the solution does not work then you have a contact for someone who can fix the issue right next to it.

Taking this a step further you can add a virtual assistant who will answer the call when an issue arises. Then this assistant will walk the tenant through the potential solution and if that doesn’t work then the VA will call the plumber or whoever is needed to solve the problem. This eliminates you from ever having to deal with the issue.

Setting up your systems can eliminate nearly all of your headaches of being a landlord. With the added bonus of having a VA, you may never again have to answer a call from a tenant. I feel that this is one of the main things keeping people from investing. Set up a system and success will follow. You’ve got this!