All Forum Posts by: Hector R.

I'm writing this to provide our experience in managing our first rental property. Since this was a property my wife and I were planning to manage, we wanted a way for both of us to have access to the same email and phone while at the same type giving our prospective clients a single point of contact. We ended up deciding to use G Suite, by Google: 

1. First, we purchased a domain (e.g. greatrentals.com) to put our property details and present a more professional look. This cost us $12.00 for a whole year. 

2. Then we got the basic G Suite plan, which is $5/per month. This gave us email, google sites (to create your own website), storage (Google Drive 30G), calendar, etc. 

3. With 1 and 2 in place, now we had an email address to match our domain (e.g. info at greatrentals.com) and for me and my wife to use.

4. Google Drive is used to store our application forms and other useful documents. We maintain a document of potential client details so we know who is interested, what they are looking for, etc. Any time we schedule a viewing, we add it to our the calendar, and it appears in both of our calendars, that way no one misses important appointments. 

5. We also activated Google voice, and got a number that would ring on both her phone and mine. The really cool thing about this is that when we receive a call from a potential client, we know it is for our rental property and that we can answer the phone in a professional manner, "Thank you for calling greatrentals, how may I help you?). If we can't answer it, it will go into that number's voicemail, not our personal's voicemail. Again, a professional voicemail message is setup for this. 

Anyway, those are just some tips we wanted to share since this community has been so great for us. As you can see, our goal in establishing this method was to try to separate as much as we could our personal means of communication from our rental business. I believe this not only makes us more efficient, but also gives clients the feel that they are dealing with a more serious, more professional company. l hope this helps someone out there. If you have other tips, feel free to share them.

I have a rental house with a back fence, but no fence on the sides. Some of my potential tenants have asked for me to close the fence so they have privacy. Is this an expense I have to incur or something I can negotiate, for example, by raising the rental price?

Thank you for the thorough answer Suzette! As far as HOAs being evil, they can be good or bad. It all depends on how they are run. But if they are run well, they can be of great benefit to your investment. 

If you have a rental property in a subdivision that has an HOA, how do you deal with this? I'm assuming you pay for the HOA fee, and just account for it in your rent price. In addition, even though you own the home, the tenant is the one that actually lives in this house, so now they automatically become HOA members, correct?

Great advice everyone! looks like inspection is the route to go and worth the piece of mind. Thank you.

When buying a new home and the plan is to rent it out, would you perform an inspection? One answer that I've heard is "no". The home is new and so it already comes with warranties. It seems like the best option would be to perform the inspection at around 10 months, just two months before the 1 year warranty on some of the items expires. Does this make sense? It seems logical since most of the main issues should come out within that time frame and the builder should be responsible for fixing them. What do you recommend?

Hello everyone. I just got into real estate investing and I found this great resource after buying "The Book on Managing Rental Properties". Which by the way, it is an excellent book for those that are getting started on the rental business. So, as you might have already concluded, I just got into the rental business. I'm a do-it-yourself type of guy, so I joined this community to learn as much as I can so I can have a better chance at succeeding. Looking forward to collaborate with everyone.