How Many Hours Do You Spend Managing??
How many hours a month do you spend managing your single family homes? Just trying to get an idea of how much effort it will take me once I start getting a lot of single family homes. So far with my duplex, I spend VERY LITTLE. Although I do live on the other side so keeping the tentants at bay is very easy. I imagine this will change if I am not on the property.
[addsig]
Hey,
Hmmmm....define Managing.
Do you include the time it takes to find a tenant and hold Open Houses?
Do you include the time it takes to clean up after a tenant leaves?
Do you include quarterly inspectons?
If you exclude those three items, I spend less than an hour a month per house. I open an envelope and take a check out (45 seconds. Do it slow to avoid paper cuts). Enter the data in the computer (2 minutes. I type slow.) I drive to the bank (55 minutes. Because I stop for lunch.)
When a tenant is late with the rent, add ten minutes (a phone call and a form letter). On average this happens once every two months.
When something breaks, add twenty-five minutes (10 minutes to hear the story of what is broken and why it is not their fault, 5 minutes to expain they have to pay the first $50 in repairs, 10 minutes to call the repair company). This happens about once per property per year. Though to be 100% honest with you, I had three calls last month for furnance problems.
less than a couple of hours a month managing for the most part.
Repairs are another story and very few of ours need them. We are doing ourselves but we hope to farm this out soon.
But we do simular to Bruce.
We manage and repair all of our properties, so it's difficult for me to answer that question.
If I go to one prop. I talk to the old gentleman as he's been there for three years and will probably die there; so he gets whatever he wants. Why, he's old and he's there for the rest of his life.
If I go to another property, I'm collecting late rent or I'm fixing something. But I always spend time talking with our tenents. What' more, we keep up our places and we get referrals from current tenents for perspective tenents.
It kind of depends on which property I go to.
If I had to give an amount of time/unit, I'd have to say at least 1hr/week/prop. That's just us though. Some investment properties in the area look horrible, but they also have the worst tenents.
Thanks,
OnTheWater
The reason I ask is because if I end up getting many many properties, I would like to know how much time I will have to put into it to manage it.
[addsig]
I spend less than an hour a month now. I go pick up the rent, chat with the renters for a little while, come home and give the rent to my wife who deposits the rent into our rental account that has an automatic draft for the mortgage. Amount of " managing " time spent depends on the renters and condition of the property. It is important to be friendly too, because the renters that I currently have asked if I will be getting new properties in the future because they have friends/family looking to rent.
What takes the most time is when someone moves out and you have work to do to get cash flowing again. Last fall I had three at one time, one expected and two unexpected. Before I was done those changes cost me $7800 in lost rents and repairs & upgrades. A lot of time was spent showing to prospective tenants, calling references,etc.
What is most distressing is doing your inspection when someone is leaving and you find your newly renovated cash cow has been trashed and will eat up a deposit and much more.
Landlording can take more time than you want it to. It takes a while before you will feel free to hire all the work done.
I have bought several properties from investors who were fed up with the management side of landlording. Two of them blamed their rentals for their divorce! They were happy to sell, and sorry they had ever gotten into REI.
If you have better quality homes in higher rent areas your management time will be less than in poorer areas where there is more personal distress over poverty and family breakdown. I have my most work with my cheapest houses. My properties over $850 per month give me little grief, manage easily. My $500 houses are more work, and sometimes it is the house, and sometimes the tenants expected in the area.
I wish you well. It takes wisdom, patience, and endurance.
Dan
[addsig]
How I handle management of my rental properties is to have a management company handle www.it.It frees up my time to look for more properties to invest in.
I spend 4 hours minimum on my properties, if nothing else than thinking about them. I don't think of it as having to manage, I think of it as having the opportunity to own my future. Challenging at times to be sure, but things work out and I am, satisfied with my piece of business. I farm out as much work as I can