There are four major areas of responsibilities that every landlord should know about. These are: marketing and financial, tenant and occupancy, facility, and administration and risk management. Covering all these major areas of responsibility would take a while for first-time landlords to do. So, for this piece, we will look into the administration and risk management part of a landlord's job description.
As the term suggests, this part revolves around the record-keeping functions of the landlord. Remember that if these records are carefully managed, the end result as far as its effect on the business would be very positive. You should first start with learning what records you need to keep and why they are very important.
The marketing and financial side of the business involves records of spending and income. What data should be kept with regards to marketing and financial area? Advertising invoices for example should be recorded for future reference. The same can be said of tax records, repair costs, property manager fees (if you chose to hire a rental property manager), and the likes.
Tenant and occupancy, another area of responsibility of a landlord also need records to be kept. You need to keep records of tenant applications, the lease agreement, lease policy, and similar documents. One situation where you would be required to produce these documents is if you are being investigated for not following the Fair Housing Act. If you can produce your records to prove that you apply your policy fairly and equally, you can easily beat the case.
The third area of responsibility, facility, also spews out its fair share of documents you need to file and organize. Receipts from contractors should be recorded. Repair records and warranty should also be carefully tracked.
Risk management on the other hand would have you dealing with balancing the risk and reward in any endeavor related to the operation of the property. For example, in building a pool or hot tub within the property, the landlord as well as the property manager should not only look at the possible rewards of having such an amenity.
By learning what tasks are involved in this major area of responsibility, you can learn how to track how well or how bad your business is going. You can also determine the areas you are spending too much money on and could then create a solution to reduce your expenditure on that front. All in all, this is one part of your responsibilities as a landlord that you should be very well-versed at.
