Landlords

Charlotte Property Management Weekly: Better to Rent or List Your Home for Sale? 3 Question Litmus Test

This seems to be a FAQ these days. As a property manager in Charlotte, we get many calls from people asking themselves this question.

I didn’t think there was a one-size-fits-all answer to this, but I was corrected. It just seems to come down to who you ask.

Charlotte Property Management Weekly: Importance of Getting Paid from Rentals in the Next 5 Years

According to an article in Barron’s this month, the future of the real estate market is in rentals for the next five years. Most real estate agents are hoping this news is akin to the Bush White House claiming the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD); hopefully, it is just another example of faulty American intelligence.

Charlotte Property Management Weekly: 700+ Credit Score Tenants Not the Best Option for your Rental Home?

He wanted to make sure that we placed a rental tenant into his home that had 700+ credit scores. That was it.

I told him I didn’t think that was a good idea; it would reject a lot of better suited applicants. He told me I was crazy (in so many words).

Charlotte Property Management Weekly: 52 Consecutive Weeks of Writing- Some Random Thoughts on the Real Estate Industry

Writing a blog every week is hard! My hats are off to the people who write multiple times a week, and especially to those that do it every day- kudos!

Charlotte Property Management Weekly: Making Rent-To-Sell’s Story Sound like BP’s

2. Misery. Agony. It will definitely lead to eviction which means years of court battles that will make the OJ trial seem like a traffic ticket. Once the tenant moves in, your life will be drastically different. It’s like having another child; be prepared to be over to your old house weekly at 1 AM to fix the toilet. I feel I must present this offer to you, but I would highly recommend against it.

Charlotte Property Management Weekly: When Will Rental Rates Rise?

Which leads to the question we really care about: When can we raise the rents to my properties? In short, soon. Why is that?

Charlotte Property Management Weekly: The Only Property Management Question You Need

Here’s the logic: if you put the average Charlotte house up for rent for $100, we could have someone locked up today to rent it. Conversely, if you put your house up for rent for $10K today, it would take us years to fill with a tenant (if ever).

The equation is:

Charlotte Property Management Weekly: The Top 3 Reasons Why Good Property Managers Matter More Now (Reason #3)

3. The skills needed for selling a home have (and will continue) to trend to more of a solution-based, “cash now, sell later” approach; outright sales are becoming scarcer as there are less qualified buyers available in the market

Charlotte Property Management Weekly: The Top 3 Reasons Why Good Property Managers Matter More Now (Reason #2)

Traditionally, this could be considered a “lowering” of standards; however, in today’s market, I would argue that it is understanding, collecting, and interpreting tenant data better. Tenant selection has become more of an art and less of a science.

And this makes it much harder!

Charlotte Property Management Weekly: The Top 3 Reasons Why Good Property Managers Matter More Now (Reason #1)

1. If this economy has taught us anything, it is cash is always king and real estate is an investment. The ONLY decision criteria for hiring a prospective property manager should be their ability to maximize the cash flow of your investments. Period.