Estimated time required to manage 12 rentals

[Ben S.]

I know this will be hard to give a precise answer on, I'm just looking for rough estimates based on your experience.

So by the end of the year I will have 12 rentals, single family homes, located on two properties, one in Maryland, one in Virginia, each about 45 minutes from my home. All the homes will be recently rehabbed. I want to manage them myself, including managing tenants, doing maintenance and repairs (I have a lot of construction experience), and lawn care for one of the properties (with 10 houses on it). 

Part of the reason I am doing the repairs and lawn care is to have more face time with my tenants, and more importantly, to bring my younger siblings and children along to learn the business. 

I will be able to fully live off the income from these properties, and assuming managing these properties takes less than 40 hours per week, plan to spend the balance of my normal work week hours volunteering with a couple non-profits. 

Right now, I feel like I can knock out everything on an average of one full day per week (maybe a bit more in the beginning as I get my systems in place). In the summer it will be a bit more with the lawn care, and the winter a bit less. 

This sound reasonable? 

[Nathan Gesner]

If the property is well maintained and your tenants are screened, you should be able to handle the bookkeeping and administrative stuff in 1-2 hours a month.

As @Dan Schwartz said, if you allot too much time you are likely to putter around and fill it with nonsense. Set the time aside, focus on the tasks, and move on.

I would not spend three hours driving and mowing every week just for face-time with Tenants when I could hire someone for the same price and focus my time on something of greater value. What you see as face-time may be seen by the tenants as baby-sitting or stalking. A phone call or scheduled drop-by once every quarter should be more than sufficient to supervise the rentals.