Should Tenants Do Their Own Repairs?

Should Tenants Do Their Own Repairs? Most often a property manager has received the dreaded midnight phone call from an angry tenant filing a maintenance complaint. Sometimes the problem may require a simple solution, however, there are times where the problem is more complex, requiring electrical or plumbing expertise. No matter the situation, the age-old question of, “Should the tenant fix it?” exists. To aid in the answer, here are some steps to take when considering who should be responsible for repairs.  Assess Urgency: First, determine the urgency of the situation. When a tenant calls, ask for a complete  description of the problem in detail, as well as an assessment of how urgent the situation is. When receiving this information, use your best judgement to determine whether the damage is a pressing matter to take care of now, or something that can wait until the morning. For example, a leaky faucet will survive the night, but a pipe burst requires immediate attention. If the damage requires quick action, it is best to call an expert to handle the situation right away. However, if the damage can withstand some time, go to the property to assess the damage first-hand. You should also ask the tenant how the damage occurred. This will help you get a good idea of what type of repairs will be needed, which in turn, will help determine who is best suited to fix it.  Tenant at Fault: If the tenant is responsible for the cause of damage, and the damage is considerably small, then the tenant should also be responsible for repairing it. Examples of this include patching small holes in the wall, or replacing a broken light fixture. However, if the damage is considerably large and requires more complicated repairs, the property manager should be responsible for either fixing it, or hiring a professional to do so. In this case, the tenant should still be responsible for paying for the damage and repairs.  Normal Wear and Tear: If the damage is a result of breaking down from daily living, then the property manager should be responsible for repairs. However, the question of whether the manager should attempt to repair the problem themselves, or hire an expert still requires more thought. As a good rule of thumb, if the property manager does not have experience in making a specific repair, then he or she should consider calling a professional. A professional should also be called anytime a repair requires a license, or contains potential risk – both safety-wise and money-wise.  An example of this includes electrical wiring repairs. Summary: So, should tenants do their own repairs? The answer depends on the urgency, situation, legality, and your best judgement as a property manager. You should count on your tenant to take care of minute issues, however, a more demanding repair will require someone with special expertise. But, for any repair situation, always remember to communicate your solution with the tenant to avoid any possible confusion. 

Adding Value to Your Rental

Pets and Rental Property “Adding value” to a rental property, addresses the home features, conveniences, or extras that make a rental property more desirable. Added value really is about enhancing the appeal of your rental above other homes it will compete with. What features cause a really good prospect to want your rental property vs another one down the street? In our experience, high quality tenants have a sense of identity that even their rental property needs to portray.  Just because they don’t own the property, doesn’t meant they don’t want it to be their home! The more your property feels like a home, the more likely you will attract quality tenants to live there. Feature Appeal: Feature appeal can be a nicely fenced back yard or more modern luxury vinyl plank flooring in main living areas. It can be low maintenance yards because they require less weekly effort to keep attractive.  Or, it can be extra storage racks in the garage.  Improving your rental property with lifestyle features doesn’t have to be done all at once.  We recommend property owners stay aware of the features that matter most to tenants over time and incrementally make “added value” improvements as tenants commit to stay longer. Feature Appeal: Your goal is to make a profit between your initial investment and incremental improvements for adding value to make your home lease for more money and retain tenants’ long term. The ability to attract the best potential tenants depends on how your property stands out from others. A smart investor chooses to make value-based improvements that do not over improve the property yet keeps it strategically competitive.  Our expert evaluation of your property will temper this cost to benefit decision so that you gain the optimal potential income and reduce repetitive wear & tear maintenance while retaining tenants longer. Added value is a smart ownership strategy to make sure your property stands out in the market, while achieving the highest market rent.

Four Keys to Successful Investment Selections in Myrtle Beach

Four Keys to Successful Investment Selections These four keys should help guide you in your pursuit of buying and owning residential investment property in Myrtle Beach. By setting smart buying parameters, you will increase your odds of enjoying better investment income. Emotional Attachment An investment property should not have an emotional attachment to it. Renting the home, that you grew up in for instance, is not a good idea because you are too attached to its out-of-date features that you hold dear in your memories! A rental unit is an investment designed to make you money, not preserve your childhood memories. Keep your childhood home and live in it or use it as a second home, but do not rent it. It’s won’t be a fun place for either of you!  Sell your inherited family home and buy another property ideally suited for its appeal to the rental market and enjoy your intended financial rewards! Bedrooms Your target audience for a rental property is a two-to-four-bedroom unit. One or five- bedroom units take longer to rent and tend to turn over more often.  The sweet spot in leasing residential property is a three bedroom, two or two and one-half bath, with a bonus room, double car garage and fenced back yard.  Stick within these parameters to ensure rental home is always in high demand when it becomes vacant and pays you top rental income. Landscaping Low-key landscape maintenance is critical when selecting a prospective rental property. Few tenants enjoy yard maintenance so yards that require little time maintaining adds value to their lifestyle experience. Grass is usually an attractive basic feature when there are limited amounts and in appropriate areas for use. You can make a home more appealing for a tenant with lower maintenance ground surfaces such as mulch or low maintenance shrubs. Talk to your property manager or a landscape professional about a low maintenance landscape conversion before you buy a property and make sure your ideas are compatible with the community POA requirements. Floor Plans Avoid unique, odd or unusual home designs or floor plans. Someone surely must have had a dream in mind when they built a unique style home.  But unique probably won’t suit many tenants who just want to live a normal rental experience. Attempting to convert the home into something more normal is usually more trouble than it is worth. Just stay in the boring mainstream of housing with NORMAL spaces and functionality to appeal to 95% of your target market.  Play the odds and enjoy the rewards! Finally, call us about the homes you are considering BEFORE you initiate a contract or while you are in your due diligence period.  We will be happy to offer you our observations, recommendations and provide you with a rental value range to help you in your assessment process.  Invest wisely and enjoy solid tenancy retention, income, equity growth and less stress. That’s our formula to making a successful investment!

Kitchen Upgrades

Kitchen Upgrades​ Rental properties that already have an upgraded kitchen hold a market advantage to attract tenants that care about their home and the image it presents to their friends.  Creating affordable and esthetic kitchen upgrades is an investment that will pay dividends to attract and retain quality tenants for you in the years to come. Cabinets: Fortunately, there are a few cost-effective changes you can make, which will give the updated look a tenant craves with significantly less cost to accomplish this strategy. To update the cabinets, you will not need to replace them to change the look of the kitchen.  Consider refacing the cabinets by replacing the cabinet doors and leave the cabinet bases in place.   A fresh coat of paint in a new neutral color can dramatically change the look. Anything too bright or distinctive can clash with a tenant’s color pallet of their furnishings.  Keep it simple yet elegant. Countertops: By adding new wall backsplash and countertops, you can further enhance the impact of your cabinet refacing. Remember that trends come and go, so it is important to stay up-to-date on what people are currently looking for. Countertops vary in price and durability.  Getting the most expensive top is not necessary.  Choose a builder grade quality countertop and keep the pattern or color to a more subdued tone.  Let the countertop supplier know it’s for a rental property so they can suggest the best value options. Backsplashes vary widely from subway tile to stacked stone or colored glass.  It’s best to stay with subtle colors and textures with light gray, light blue, and sand tone colors. Coordinating these accents will quickly change the esthetic feel of the space and present a contemporary appeal.   Lighting: Now is the time to remove the old-style fluorescent lights and replace them with some of the latest options in kitchen lighting fixtures.  There are a variety of options from hanging chandeliers to ceiling-mounted LED lights, ceiling can light, and wall accent lights.  There are so many fixtures to choose from!  A local lighting fixture store can help you fit the fixture to the space you are working to accent. Hardware: The finishing touch to your new cabinets will be selecting new cabinet knobs, pulls and door hinges on cabinets and drawers.  These accents are an important change that will add the contemporary style to the kitchen so that it will accentuate the desirability of this home’s lifestyle to a prospective tenant. Appliances: Outdated black or white appliances can depress the visual appeal of a kitchen.  The good news is that modern stainless-steel appliances have become more affordable.  You do not need to purchase high-end appliances in an annual rental property for it to be appealing.  Always choose a mid-level price point from quality appliance brands so that they will last 10 years or longer.   Summary: Adding a few contemporary kitchen upgrades can be affordable.  Take a quick inventory of the kitchen space needing a new look and explore how just a few strategic changes make a huge difference in the look and feel of your rental property.  Tenants today are looking for updated kitchens that give the impression of life in 2020; not 1990!  To enhance your market position for a competitive advantage, and higher lease rates, influence prospective tenants’ tour, and home selection choice, by offering a lifestyle they are willing to mentally and emotionally adopt.  We hope this information helps you in your decision process on how to update the kitchen in your annual rental property.

Screening Tenants

Screening Tenants​ Overview: If you are considering a move to a new area, you will likely need to find an annual rental as your new home.  If so, make sure you know the prequalification issues that will determine your capacity to lease the home of your choice.  When screening tenants, Landlords look most favorably at Tenant applicants with a good credit history, clean background check, clean eviction history, stable employment, sufficient income, and positive landlord and employer references.  Having excellent ratings on all these items provides you with a high level of assurance that your application will gain a favorable consideration for approval. Sufficient Income: When you apply for an annual rental property, ensure you make sufficient income to afford your monthly rent.  Typically, you need five times the rent amount in net pay to establish affordability.  Having sufficient and regularly occurring income helps you avoid running short in the ability to pay your rent on time.  Not paying on time leads to late fees, NSF (non-sufficient fund) fees or ultimately an eviction because you were unable to pay the rent.  Credit History: A healthy credit history demonstrates that you pay all your bills promptly and make it easier for a Landlord to acknowledge that you will pay the rent on time; therefore, they are motivated to approve your rental application.  A typical credit report shows all your loans and credit card balances.  If your ratio is too high, you could be denied because it indicates you could struggle with rent payments. Your credit history can show numerous missed payments or collections, causing you to be denied for a lease. Be sure to ask the property management company early in the process if they have a minimum credit score. Past Evictions: If you have had an eviction, this creates some severe challenges to a new lease approval!  Being evicted indicates that rent was not paid on time, was uncollected.  It could also mean an unwillingness to abide by basic conduct standards or not maintaining a property properly.  Regardless of the cause, an eviction in your recent past is a difficult problem for a Landlord to overlook.  Avoid this issue as much as possible to avoid expensive incentive deposits that may be necessary to give the Landlord a reasonable comfort level to consider you as a tenancy. Criminal History: Any arrest or criminal conviction will also add to the difficulty of gaining a lease approval.  The last thing a Landlord wants is to deal with a person they fear will act unlawfully.  The incident may be in the past, but wrong conduct is a barometer to possible future behavior problems.  They will avoid this type of conflict at all costs.  If you have these issues in your past, you will need to demonstrate a clear history for 2-3 years and a team of respected advocates who will vouch for your present lifestyle of managing your life correctly. Employment: Consistent and longstanding employment is an essential item for property managers and owners reviewing a lease applicant.  It demonstrates the ability to conform to standards and work with other people effectively. Summary: As you can see, a Tenant application is somewhat like a personal profile snapshot.  It provides a Landlord or Property Manager with the necessary but critical information to trust you with a highly valuable asset for which they are ultimately responsible.  Demonstrating you are accountable, stable, and mature in your personal business affairs is the key to securing your next lease on the home of your desires.  Happy home search!

Why Rent vs Buy?

Renting Instead of Buying The debate of rent vs buy should be qualified from several vital lifestyle and financial considerations. First, families who rent their homes eliminate routine out of pocket costs such as property taxes, insurance, maintenance, and other expenses involved in homeownership.  Secondly, housing flexibility is an advantage for you to stay in one place or relocate to another neighborhood, community, or housing lifestyle for personal or professional pursuits.  Thirdly, exiting a lease at the end of an annual rental term is as simple as a 30-60-day termination notice, cleaning the home, and disconnecting utilities.  Finally, leasing allows you to relocate your home if you find yourself surrounded by annoying neighbors, their barking dogs, emerging crime, or loss of community conveniences that have changed. Owning a Home Owning a home has numerous advantages for personal wealth building purposes and personal satisfaction. Still, it comes at the price of a long-term commitment and financial responsibility of maintenance and market risk.  Homeowners have more flexibility to modify their living space to customize it for personal preferences.  Rent vs buy is a lengthy and cumbersome process that takes time and expense that can cost many thousands of dollars to sell and repurchase a home. Be sure to check out our amazing available rentals and other resources for renters!

What is the Fair Housing Act of 1968?

What is the Fair Housing Act of 1968?​ History The United States Fair Housing Act was created in 1968 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Federal Fair Housing Act. This came following a prolonged legislative battle after the tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Act extended the basic discrimination protections from The Civil Rights Act and citizen rights into the the housing market. The Fair Housing Law explicitly prohibits discrimination of housing to people based on race, color, national origin, religion, or sex. Additional amendments were added in 1988 that also included a person’s familial status and disability. The Act protects specific types of real estate activity from discrimination, which include the sale, rental, and financing of dwellings. Fair housing laws make it illegal to discriminate because of Race, Color, Religion, Sex, Handicap, Familial Status, and National Origin. In summary, Fair Housing laws allow people to make housing and financing choices free from unlawful acts of discrimination. Application When managing your property, you must be familiar with the Fair Housing Act to avoid discriminating against people. If an individual feels they may have been discriminated against by you, or a property manager, they can file a complaint with state or federal oversight agencies such as SCHAC (South Carolina Human affairs Commission) or HUD (the US Department of Housing and Development). HUD or SCHAC will complete an investigation of all parties involved in the alleged discrimination claim to determine, had grounds of merit, the case would be tried in State or Federal District Court, depending on the origin of the claim. If a judge decides discrimination occurred, then a Landlord could be ordered to pay civil penalty fines and attorney’s fees. To comply with the Fair Housing Act, property owners and managers must demonstrate that they are consistent with Tenant qualification screening. This is done through maintaining the same qualifying standards of leasing annual rental property. We support the Fair Housing laws of our state and nation as the right way to treat all people equally with fairness and mutual dignity that everyone deserves. Protect yourself against accidental or negligent discrimination claims, and you will avoid a costly lawsuit, by thoroughly familiarizing yourself with the Fair Housing Acts of South Carolina since they incorporate all the essential elements of the federal mandates.

Pets and Rental Property

Service Animals: South Carolina law requires a Landlord to allow a registered emotional or support animal to live with its owner. Service animals and emotional support animals are protected under the Fair Housing Law.  Our Policy: If you choose to allow family pets in your rental property, you will have a higher number of prospects interested. Conversely, if you say “no pets” in your rental listing, then the number of interested rental prospects decreases to 30% of the people looking for rental property.  Families with animals are a significant percentage of the family dynamic today.  Real Living Home Realty Group – Property Management requires Tenants to pay a pet deposit of $500 per pet before a lease is signed.  If they are emotional support or service animals, the Tenant prospect must show us written proof from a recognized agency that the animal is a registered service animal.  When the Tenant vacates the home, our lease requires that the unit must be professionally cleaned. We also require pet decontamination procedures completed before the security deposit is released. In general, if you allow family animals in your annual rental, you attract Tenants that respect your property.  Limiting the number, size, and types of pets are the strategic keys to renting your property to Tenants with pets.   Best Practices: We believe the best practice is to limit no more than two pets per unit. Weight of pets should also be limited based on the type of flooring you have in the property.  If the house flooring is a scratch-resistant surface, the pet weight is not as much of a concern.  Allowing pets in your annual rental is typically a strategy that also encourages longer Tenant tenure.  Tenants are more likely to renew the lease, because once a family and their pets are comfortable, it is harder for them to relocate.  We hope this helps you in your decision process to qualify how to manage your annual rental property and pet requirements. Click here for more information on service and emotional support animals