First-time Investor-What systems are a must?

[John Jones]

My fiance and I are looking to purchase 3-5 rental properties. We are looking in the Tulsa and OKC market and will be doing the property management ourselves. What systems and apps are a must for a newbie investor? What task should we outsource? What team do we need to have in place to ensure we are sitting on a beach sipping a Pacifico by age 35 (jk, kind of)? Thanks in advance! 

[Cassi Justiz]

Hey @John Jones, 

I would say the most time consuming part of rental properties is the leasing. 

For leasing, you can always look into hiring a leasing agent, buying tenant occupied properties, or you can DIY that piece. I would recommend getting a property management software that you can use for your application and rent collection. I personally use buildium, but it's expensive and has a lot of features most people won't use. I recommend most investors check out cozy.co or tenant cloud. They both have free versions that can do pretty much anything that you would want/need. 

The second biggest time suck are repairs/maintenance calls. I am a firm believer in outsourcing as much as possible. The landlords that complain about how much work rentals are, are the same ones that want to go to their rentals every time there is any little maintenance issue. I just budget enough to hire professionals to do it so my time involvement is literally just calling the professional and then paying the bill once it's fixed.  

Landlord on autopilot is a good book that discusses automating some of the processes. You can also check out the BP book on rental property management.  

I would also recommend downloading MileIQ to track your mileage. Those mileage deductions can add up quick if you track them!

 Good luck!