The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Real Estate and Landlording => Topic started by: clarkfan1979 on June 15, 2020, 04:27:00 AM
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I self-manage my rentals and would like to share my experience of re-renting 3 units from March 15th to June 15th.
Rental #1: I showed the rental March 21 & 22. Less traffic, but 3 groups submitted applications. I increased the rent from the previous tenants from $2700/month to $2900/month. New tenants moved in April 23rd. Old tenants moved out April 8th. Two weeks of vacancy.
Rental #2: Showed the house May 10th to June 10th on 5 different days to 6 different groups. It normally takes about 5-7 days to get a signed lease. It took a full month. Much more labor intensive with showings. Decreased the rent from $2500/month to $2475/month. Old tenants move out July 31st and new tenants move-in August 1st. No vacancy.
Rental #3: Showed the house June 11th to 4 different groups. I got 3 applications and had a signed lease within 4 days. Rent stayed the same at $1850/month. Old tenants move out July 31st. New tenants move-in August 1st. No vacancy.
Many prospective tenants thanked me for physically showing them the rentals. They told me that many rentals were only available to view via video or photos. Current tenants were ok with showings as long as prospective tenants wore masks.
Overall, I was happy with the outcome. It was definitely more labor intensive this year in comparison to previous years. However, the end result was $175/month rent increases, which is about 2.5% of the total rent across the 3 rentals.
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Incredible work, maintaining such a low vacancy and managing a smooth transition.
How many rentals would you feel comfortable self managing?
Even my best property manager would suffer 3 weeks of vacancy in between tenants and usually longer. Showing the rental while occupied generally does not happen.
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I have a rental near a college and, when it shut down, potential tenants dried up. Worst I've ever seen -- no traffic at all for a month.
The college recently decided to be in-person open for the fall and traffic has picked up.
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Incredible work, maintaining such a low vacancy and managing a smooth transition.
How many rentals would you feel comfortable self managing?
Even my best property manager would suffer 3 weeks of vacancy in between tenants and usually longer. Showing the rental while occupied generally does not happen.
Good question on maximum of self-managing. If all of my rentals were local, I think I could manage 10, but I would hate my life. I think I could comfortably self-manage 5 without it being too stressful. My niche is that I teach community college and do not work May 10th to August 10th. I do 80% of the work of self-management and repairs during my 3 months off during summer.
I'm currently at 3 rentals (4 doors), but they are not local, so I am pretty close to my max. The closest one is a 3 hour drive. The other two are out of state. Within the next 2-3 years I will probably sell one rental that is out of state and buy a local duplex.
Rental #2 and #3 are college rentals and typically do not have any vacancy because of the cycle of the academic calendar. Rental #3 is going to be a family for the first time in 5 years. I am interested to see if they will be more work or less work than the college students.