Are you considering dipping your toes into the buy-to-let market? Acquiring a property before renting it out to tenants can enable you to set up a reliable stream of income for the long term. However, should you manage that property yourself or instead offload the job to professional property managers?
Here, we look at how these two forks in the road compare across a number of respects, enabling you to more easily reach an informed decision
Finding the right tenant
Do you know how to spot the ‘right’ tenant? If you genuinely don’t, rest assured that professional property managers can thoroughly screen potential tenants to identify ones who would be likely to diligently look after the property and regularly pay rent on time
On the other hand, you might prefer to meet up with tenants directly in order to personally get to know them better — and forge a close relationship with them in the hope of enhancing tenant retention
Legal compliance
Given that roping in professional property managers would require you to pay them fees, it would theoretically be cheaper for you to take the more direct, hands-on approach to property management
Alas, one flaw of this theory is that you could struggle to keep yourself fully updated with all of the legal rules applicable to New Zealand property management. As a result, you could risk inadvertently violating certain parts of the law and consequently having to incur financial penalties
In contrast, professional property managers already know the ins and outs of the relevant legislation and are adept at keeping pace with changes enacted to it
Property maintenance
A manager would be able to periodically inspect the property on your behalf and so free up valuable time in your schedule. Another time-saving part of their remit would be responding to tenants’ repair and maintenance requests, which could sometimes come at awkward times of the day or night
Nonetheless, when a tenant does need a suitable tradesperson to turn up at the property to rectify, say, an impromptu roof leak or boiler breakdown, you might favour liaising between the tenant and tradesperson yourself if you fear that miscommunication could otherwise arise at some point in this chain
We emphasise, however, that our professional property managers are accustomed to skilfully handling repair and maintenance requests along with many others that tenants could make. In emailing enquiries@omniproperty.co.nz, you can learn more about our expertise in managing Auckland properties
