Regularly considering how to make the most income from your properties will keep your investments healthy and growing. Landlords are always looking for new solutions to either cut their costs or provide more value to their tenants (and thus, charge them more). At Central Erin Property Management, our experience has taught us that there are a few great ways to increase property income over time.
1. Increase the Rent
Do a little market research to discover how much similar properties in your area are charging. If you have room to increase your rent, it’s smart to do so relatively slowly. Too quickly and you risk increasing your vacancy rate. However, you must keep up with the market price in order to remain profitable.
2. Provide Amenities
Properties that have multiple units have many amenity options that can increase the value of the property in the renter’s eyes and justify the extra cost. Consider adding coin-operated laundry or vending machines. If your tenants pay their own water, and your properties are homes, this isn’t the wisest idea, but if you own large rental units with five families or more, coin-operated laundries are still the norm.
3. Reduce Costs
Reducing your costs will allow you to take home more of your revenue. Your properties have a few ongoing costs that can often be trimmed. Choose low-maintenance landscaping options that are more affordable to maintain. If you pay the utilities, consider adding energy-efficient improvements to reduce your costs in the long term.
Or, consider having your tenants pay the utilities. You may need to reduce rent to compensate, but whether or not your tenants waste energy will no longer be a concern for you.
Whatever you do, never neglect routine maintenance of the property for short-term cost savings, especially its key functions like plumbing, roofing, and HVAC. Allowing these systems to degrade will cost you more in the long term than you could ever save upfront.
4. Apply Fees
When you first rented out your property, you may have neglected to charge certain fees that may be typical in your market. You should look into fees for parking, late rent payments, application fees, and more. Be sure to match or charge less than your neighbours’ fees, or you could drive away tenants.
5. Rent Out Storage
Many different types of property have separate, potentially unused storage capacity. Homes often have sheds and garages. High rises may have room to install new storage for tenants, or partner with a company that offers modular pay-per-use storage. Either way, you can rent out this storage either to a tenant or to someone else. Charge the tenant a rental fee for this storage instead of including the cost of storage in their monthly rent.
Are You Getting the Most From Your Property?
How do you really know if your plan to increase your property income will work? Have the experts figure it out for you! Central Erin Property Management works tirelessly to increase the income and value of our client’s properties, without driving away tenants. Contact us today to request a property proposal.