You could be sabotaging your ROI and rental income if you aren’t conducting routine property inspections for your investment property in Long Beach.
Many landlords with rental properties in Long Beach rarely check in on their property when a tenant is living there. They trust that the tenant is taking care of the property and reporting any maintenance required.
Unfortunately, not all tenants are responsible and doing what it takes to keep your property clean and free from damage. Often landlords will discover that tenants ignored maintenance issues only to discover them when the tenant moves out.
How do you prevent these potentially expensive damages that can ruin your long-term investment property ROI from happening in the first place? With routine property inspections.
Taking time throughout the tenant’s lease to come and check on the property is a great way to build a relationship with the tenant, see that they’re taking care of the property, and uphold the property’s value.
In this article, you’ll learn why you should have routine property inspections in Long Beach, how often to do it, and tips for a successful inspection.
How Often Should You Hold Routine Property Inspections?
Landlords in Long Beach are busy, especially if their investment property is a side project. So, how many times a year should you conduct a property inspection? A good rule of thumb is at least three times per year.
The best times to inspect the property are when a tenant first moves in, sometime during the middle of a tenant’s lease, and when the tenant moves out.
Feel free to have these inspections more often if you can find the time. Although, when you work with a Long Beach property management company, which we’ll discuss later, you’ll never have to spend your time inspecting the property yourself.
Why Should You Conduct Routine Property Inspections?
It’s true that routine property inspections do take up your time as a landlord in Long Beach. However, we wouldn’t suggest doing them if they weren’t crucial and could even increase your rental income with the next tenant.
1. Make Sure the Tenant is Following the Lease
Your lease agreement is an important document between you and your tenant that states what the tenant can and cannot do while renting your Long Beach property. If the tenant breaches the lease, you do have grounds to begin the eviction process.
Most landlords never know if a tenant is breaching the lease (unless they stop paying rent) because they don’t conduct routine property inspections. For example, some tenants adopt a pet even though their lease strictly prohibits pets in the property.
Checking up on your tenant to ensure they’re following the lease is just one important reason to conduct these inspections.
2. Keep Up with Maintenance
As a property owner, you can identify when something needs repair or attention. Some tenants simply have no idea what damage can become worse and more expensive to repair.
For this reason, walking through the property to see what kind of maintenance must be performed is important. You can catch small problems that could potentially become costly projects and fix them right away.
You can’t always rely on your tenants to let you know when something isn’t working. It’s always a good idea to check on the property yourself and see what needs repairing.
3. Maintain Property Value
Additionally, not staying on top of maintenance issues can directly affect the value of your investment property in Long Beach.
This isn’t just for repairs inside the house. When you maintain your property well and take special care of the exterior and curb appeal, you’re protecting, and even increasing, the value of your rental property. This is especially important if you are considering raising the rent for the next tenant.
4. Hold Tenants Accountable
When your tenants know that you will be conducting routine property inspections, they are more likely to take better care of your investment. These inspections are a way to hold them accountable for what they do on the property.
They will likely be sure to follow the rules in the lease and show more respect to the property. This is also a great way to avoid landlord-tenant disputes.
How to Conduct a Successful Routine Property Inspection
Now that you know why routine property inspections are important for your rental property let’s dive into how to conduct one successfully. Your time is precious and you must take time out of your day to do this, so you don’t want to waste it!
First, schedule your inspection with your tenant. Many landlords prefer their tenants to be at the inspection so they can talk and go over issues within the property. By law, you must give your tenant at least 24 hours notice before entering the property.
However, if you want the tenant to be home, it’s a good idea to schedule the inspection a couple of weeks in advance to ensure they’re free.
Before conducting the inspection, create a checklist of the rooms and items you would like to check. This ensures you won’t forget anything and will perform a thorough inspection.
Lastly, during the inspection, make sure to keep notes and documentation of damages through photographs. You’ll want to have a date on everything in case you need to use it as evidence during an eviction.
Who Performs Routine Property Inspections?
There are two people who can perform routine property inspections in Long Beach. These include the landlord who owns the property and a property manager hired by the property owner.
Many landlords prefer that their property manager takes care of the inspections. It saves them a ton of time, and they don’t have to interact or confront the tenant if there is something wrong.
In fact, 66% of landlords work with property management companies because they conduct property inspections. This saves time, increases profit, and maintains property value.
Your Long Beach Rental Property is in Great Hands with CMC Realty and Property Management
Are you tired of running back and forth to your investment property in Long Beach to make repairs, answer tenant questions, or conduct property inspections?
When you work with CMC Realty and Property Management, the area’s leading Long Beach property management company, you can say goodbye to using up your own time performing critical steps to maximizing your ROI. We’ll take care of everything from acquiring new tenants to maintenance to accounting.
Contact us to see how we can help you maximize your rental income and save time today!