Tips for Owning Rental Property While Traveling

TODAY'S ADVENTURE

Tips for Owning Rental Property While Traveling

If you own rental property and like to travel, here are some tips for managing your properties and taking good care of your tenants even while you’re not around.

Tips for Landlords Who Travel Frequently

Many landlords love to travel, and some even travel for the purpose of acquiring additional properties in various locations. The challenge is that while traveling, landlords end up being unavailable to their tenants. This makes it hard for tenants to get their needs met, whether it’s a small issue, like a broken cabinet door, or something large, like a leaky roof.

If you own rental property and like to travel, here are some tips for managing your properties and taking good care of your tenants even while you’re not around.

1. Hire a property management company

If you’re traveling around a lot, that means you aren’t physically available to meet with prospective tenants, show your vacant units, perform safety inspections, or verify contractor work. However, when you have a property manager, they’ll take care of all that and more on your behalf. Most importantly, a property manager will give you peace of mind.

Being away from your rental units without a property manager to take over is risky. You can’t predict when a tenant will need urgent repairs or maintenance, and if you don’t fix certain problems quickly, you can get sued.

For example, in most states, the absence of hot water, heat, and potable water are all things that must be fixed or be in the process of being fixed within 24 hours of the tenant notifying their landlord. If you want to verify the situation before sending a repair crew in case it’s a simple fix, that’s not possible while traveling.

Essential Travel Resources

Start Planning with these hand-picked trustworthy resources:

Accommodations: Find the right place to stay for your journey here

Or check Hostel World for cheaper options.

Flights: Start your journey by booking a flight here

Car Rental: Find cheap rental car prices here

Book a Tour: Don’t miss out on any local tours here

Transfers: If you need a ride, get prices for city and airport transfers.

Money Exchange: Exchange your money to local currency here

Having someone available to handle emergency repairs and maintenance is just one of the benefits you’ll get from hiring a property manager. Other responsibilities they’ll tackle for you include:

· Tenant screening

· Rent collection

· Issuing legal notices

· Starting evictions

· Property maintenance

· Walk-throughs

· Safety inspections

· Managing repairs and maintenance

All of these responsibilities are important to manage correctly. It’s not easy to do most of these things while traveling, and if you’re in another country, you’ll probably have a hard time making phone calls to schedule repairs.

You also won’t be reachable and when you own property, you need to be available to your tenants 24/7. Hiring a property manager to work on your behalf will satisfy all of your responsibilities.

Recommended Reading: If you’re looking for more useful information, check out Unwinding by the Beach: The Ultimate Guide to Renting a Beach House in the UK.

2. Hire someone to check on your properties

While you hopefully have a reliable, trustworthy property manager, it won’t hurt to hire someone else to independently check up on your properties periodically. It’s really the only way to verify that your properties are being well-maintained – at least from the outside.

Try to visit your properties in person at least once a year, if not every six months so you can assess the condition of your property in person.

3. Touch base physically once in a while

One of the biggest mistakes people make with rental property is never showing up to see the condition for themselves and staying in absentee mode. Try to visit your properties in person at least once a year, if not every six months.

Even when you have people taking care of your rentals for you, they might not prioritize everything you would see as important. For instance, if there are cracks in the driveway, you might want to fix them right away. You also might want to trim back some tree limbs that aren’t quite reaching over the roof, but will soon become a problem.

You know your properties best. Other people can only help you to a certain extent. Although a professional property manager will be your biggest asset, make sure you view your rentals with your own eyes once in a while just to make sure things are okay.

Now you know how to travel with ‘peace of mind’ knowing your rental properties are managed well.

But emergencies can still happen anytime while travelling. Be prepared!

Get travel insurance before starting your journey.

I recommend Visitors Coverage.

4. Only acquire property in locations you’ll visit

If you’re collecting properties during your travels, make sure you only buy new properties in locations where you plan on visiting again. It sounds nice to own properties overseas, for example, but if you’re never going to go back to that area, it’s not wise to buy property there. There are people who do it, and there are benefits, but you have to really trust the people you hire, and hiring foreign property managers can get expensive.

Owning overseas rental property is generally a better idea for experienced investors because it takes a different set of skills and knowledge to be successful. Mistakes made from ignorance can make it less profitable than purchasing something in the country in which you reside.

Before you travel, cover your bases

It’s great to have the freedom to travel whenever and wherever you want. Just make sure you cover your bases before you leave. Never take off without putting someone reliable in charge of your properties and tenants. The legal consequences of being an absentee landlord, even just temporarily, can be financially devastating.

Disclosure:This blog post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission for any purchases made through the links.Your trust is important to us, and we ensure that all products or services we recommend meet or exceed our editorial standards

Last Updated on April 5, 2024

The post Tips for Owning Rental Property While Traveling appeared first on Travel Experta - Travel, Lifestyle, Freedom.

-

By: Waisale Naqiolevu
Title: Tips for Owning Rental Property While Traveling
Sourced From: travelexperta.com/owning-rental-property-while-traveling/
Published Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2024 19:40:24 +0000