Rental property investing is a good source of passive income, volatility risk is low, and you have a place you can always move back to whenever necessary. Such powerful benefits are the reason you have decided to invest in Lynchburg, VA, real estate.
If you're a first-time real estate investor, you're excited and can't wait to earn rental income. But buying the property is only one-half of the job. The other half involves several property management activities that you might not have been aware of.
So, if you're wondering what's next, here is the lowdown:
Preparing the Property for Renting
You don't start hunting for a tenant as soon as you've acquired a rental property. Depending on the age and state of the unit, there are repairs or improvements you might need to make to ensure it's ready for renting.
For example, if you plan to allow tenants to keep their pets but the property doesn't have pet-friendly floors, you might need to change the floor.
Besides doing some work on the property, you will need to obtain the necessary licenses and/or permits. In Lynchburg, there's a Residential Rental Inspection Program that ensures rental properties offer good living conditions. If your property is located within the Residential Inspection District, you'll need to comply.
Property Marketing
The rental vacancy rate in Lynchburg hovers around 3%, but this doesn't necessarily mean your property will get tenants immediately. If prospective renters don't know it exists, they're not going to find it.
This is why the next thing to do after you've prepared the property accordingly and secured the necessary permits is to get down to marketing.
Placing a "For Rent" poster outside the property is still an effective way to do marketing, but you're only reaching a small audience. In a competitive market, you need to reach a city-wide audience to stand a chance of getting tenants.
Listing your rental on local real estate sites is the best way to get the property noticed, but you can always market the property on social media sites. With time, you can create a website for the property and optimize it for local search. This way, it'll show up on the search engine results of people who start their search for houses to rent on Google.
Hiring a Property Management Pro
You might be looking forward to being a DIY landlord - and there's nothing wrong with that - but soon enough you'll learn that being a landlord is a full-time job, and often stressful. If you don't have time on your hands, you'll struggle to keep up with all your duties, such as tenant screening, rent collections, and property maintenance.
Be a Smart Real Estate Investor
A savvy rental real estate investor knows the value of their investments, but they also know that it takes a lot more than buying a property to be successful. Taking steps to prepare the property for renting is necessary, but you can forego all that and hire a full-service property management company.
PMI Lynchburg, a local property management firm, isn't an ordinary firm. We're part of a national property management franchise network that has over 300 locations, and over 20 years of experience.
Contact us today to get the help you need.
