Florissant rental properties make investment property owners active throughout the year; yet, you may end up a little less occupied during the rental market’s slow season. While it may be enticing to put everything on autopilot for some time, it may not be the best use of your time. The slow season permits you to concentrate on a couple of important but often overlooked tasks. By utilizing your slow season sensibly, you can be better prepared for the busy seasons and optimize the potential of your investment property.
Develop a Marketing Plan
The slow season is excellent for building a good marketing strategy if you don’t already have one. With more effective marketing, you can quickly attract outstanding tenants and keep your rental property occupied year-round. At the least, your marketing strategy must incorporate things like a newspaper or classified ad for each property you own, identifying all the suitable places to post your ad online, and how to utilize social media to attract applicants. With your marketing prepared and ready to go, it’s one less thing you’ll have to consider when things get busy.
Ask for Online Reviews
Together with effective marketing, it is important to have a positive online presence. In today’s digital world, prospective renters will investigate to see what past tenants have said about their encounter with you and your rental home. You can guarantee that what they discover is positive by asking your tenants to leave you reviews online. Using platforms like Google, Yelp, and social media, you can ask tenants to leave feedback. Keep it short for them by sending them a link, and don’t let the fear of a bad review impede you. People who rely on reviews understand that the infrequent unfavorable review exists and don’t let it affect their final decision.
Re-Work Your Budget
If it has been a long time since you updated your operating budget, the slow season is an ideal time to do so. The rental market, just like your rental properties and tenants, is always moving, and your budget should be updated occasionally to incorporate recent changes. To begin with, you could go through your expense items and update any out-of-date numbers. After that, calculate things again like your vacancy rate and capital improvements, changing the numbers when needed. Having an accurate budget can help you make more confident decisions about your rental properties throughout the year.
Get Your Paperwork In Shape
The slow season is also an ideal time to get your paperwork in order – particularly if you’ve been rescheduling a couple of tasks, such as collecting all the invoices for replacements or upgrades to the property, tax records, reconciling accounts, or auditing your books. It can be difficult to keep up with smaller tasks like monthly bookkeeping and bank reconciliations when you’re occupied. And then there are the important annual tasks, such as tax document preparation and auditing. Utilizing the slow season to solve tasks like these can streamline your schedule and keep your attention where it should be.
Plan Your Next Investment
Lastly, one of the perfect opportunities to evaluate your investment strategy and make plans to expand to your portfolio of rental homes is when things are a bit slow. Regardless of whether your objective is to hold and rent a single property for future use or to build a large, lucrative portfolio, utilizing the slow season to establish plans is a smart use of your time. Then when things get hot, you will be ready to take those following actions with courage.
If you realize that your busy schedule is causing you to overlook these and other tasks, it may be better to call in professional property managers to help. At Real Property Management Three Bridges, we manage much of the day-to-day work of owning rental properties for you, freeing up your time for more essential activities. To learn more about the range of services we offer, contact us online.
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