; david@rentnorcal.com; www.rentnorcal.com
It’s no secret, San Jose multi family homes are perhaps some of the best investments in real estate. Aside from earning equity for long term owners, San Jose multi family homes can be rented out to multiple families at once; instantly creating multiple streams of income from the ownership of a single property. The beauty of investing in a San Jose multi family property is that, should one family ever fail to pay their rent, the homeowner is still likely to be profitable because of the other tenants who do pay their rent on time. Of course, like any other kind of property management, it’s not as simple as sitting back and collecting checks.
Property owners who choose to manage properties on their own are required to perform all of the duties of property management, no matter how much or how little they may care for those duties. Rental applicants have to be found and screened, tenants have to be dealt with when matters of payments or complaints from neighbors arise, the property must be represented in court by competent counsel who must be found and retained by the owner, accounts have to be balanced and tracked regularly, records have to be kept for tax and other business purposes, and the list goes on and on. Just because a person has no idea how to manage a property, tenants and the law will have specific expectations of individuals inviting others to occupy their property. Compliance with these expectations isn't just required, it is well enforced.
The number of minute, trivial, and often frustrating duties required of property managers is what drives many property owners to partner with professional property management teams. These teams, as the authorized agents of the owners they represent, are able to handle all of the day to day and administrative functions required of property managers. The biggest difference between partnering with professionals and trying to go at it all alone is that professionals are generally more experience, prepared, efficient, and connected to relevant contractors like legal and maintenance professionals than laymen, do it yourself-er property managers.
If they think that they wouldn't be able to afford the services of professional property managers, property owners would be wrong. In fact, property management is one of those services that pays for itself over and over again. This is because most property management firms only take a small percentage of the rent that is collected from the tenants of the property as their fee, passing along the rest to the owners of the property. If the tenants don’t pay, then, in most cases, the owner won’t be responsible for paying their managers their fee. The fee is typically only collected from the rent that is collected, not the rent that is due.
Trying to properly manage San Jose multi family homes without the experience or benefits that professional property managers bring to the table isn't just a less than wise business decision, it also wouldn't be fair to the families paying rent to live on a property. When they move in, they will expect their property manager to have all of the skills and knowledge necessary to deal with their property related issues.
