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Property Management Best Practices

For Investors who Own and Manage Their Own Investment Property

For Professional Property Managers

Let’s get started with these 17 property management best practices!

Below is our general property management process including our 17 “property management best practices” for address listing, property access, property repairs and 14 additional property management processes.

Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada

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Turn-Key Rental Property Management

1) Separate Home and Property Address

Separate Home and Property Address | Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada1) Separate Home and Property Address – Key Property Management Best Practices

For Property Management Best Practices, this one is at the top of our list: Never ever never allow your home address to be the same address as the property we are going to manage.

Why? First, tenants will contact you at your home: Tenants are clever monkeys and they will find you if they “slip and fall” or if they are about to be tossed on the street for not paying rent. Nothing will get your spouse more wound up than someone pounding on your door during supper.

Secondly, tenants may receive information you need: You don’t want your property address the same as your home address because that opens you up to receiving tax bills, HOA love letters and other critical pieces of information falling in the hands of your tenants.

Get a UPS Box and List it as a Street Address: It is highly recommended that you get a UPS box (not a US Post Box) near your place of work so you can check mail occasionally. By filling out this form and putting “123 Main St Suite #1234”, the county and everyone else looking for you will think its a business address. If you put “PO BOX” on that form, the county will kick it back. Make sure you put Suite #….”. Here is an additional resource for getting a virtual address at a low monthly cost.

2) Property Manager Access

Property Access | Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada2) Property Manager Access – Key Property Management Best Practices

Yep, this one of the most important property management best practices. We need to get inside. Once we can see the inside, we will be able to better evaluate what your potential rent will be. If your kitchen has Formica countertops with cigarette burns, it will get a lot less rent than a kitchen that has been all tricked out.

  • If Your Property is Vacant – You can either mail us keys/remotes to our address at 1620 E Sahara (89104) OR you can put them in our deposit box in the back of the building. The code is 1600#. Just put the street name on the keys – not the street number. Once we have the keys, we can get rental suggestions and will put a lockbox on the property. This page goes over our Vacant Property Options.
  • If Your Property is Occupied – Generally, tenants move within 3 weeks of looking. Crazy right? If you are moving 4 months from now, you are not going to get much action. About 3 weeks prior to your departure, you are going to want to pick 2 days a week that you are willing to have your property showable. We know you have a life so pick a weekday evening and a Saturday morning that is convenient for you to have the place looking and smelling fresh.
  • Clean and tidy are important. Women will take one sniff and decide at the front door if they are going to keep going.
  • Storage of Keys. Once you leave, you will put all your keys and all your remotes in the kitchen drawer. You will put just one key in the lockbox as you walk out the door.

3) Property Repairs

Property Repairs | Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada3) Property Repairs – Key Property Management Best Practices

Finding the right balance between not enough and too much repairs is one of the important property management best practices.

Focus on Just Clean: Generally, you want to focus on just clean. If your carpet needs replaced, you should switch to tile or laminate flooring or you will be changing it out about every 3rd tenant. If you want to paint, please go with a neutral semi-gloss. DO NOT USE FLAT PAINT or you will be painting it again the next tenant.

Don’t bother upgrading your property: Save that for when you are going to sell it.

Forward Receipts to Limestone: If you do any mechanical repairs, forward those receipts just in case that stuff falls apart and we need to contact that vendor.

4) Pool Maintenance 5) Yard Service 6) Water Softener

Pool Maintenance | Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada4) Pool Maintenance 5) Yard Service 6) Water Softener – Key Property Management Best Practices

Here are three more important property management best practices:

4) Pool Maintenance: We will not manage your property unless a professional takes care of the pool. We don’t care if your tenant has been servicing pools since he was a toddler. All it takes to destroy a pool in Las Vegas is for your tenant to leave for 2 weeks. You can save $10 per month if you pay the pool guy directly.

5) Yard Service: If you have grass that is actually growing in the desert you will want a professional to give it that TLC. Waive goodbye to your grass if you really think a tenant will maintain it. If you have the funds, convert your lawn to desert landscaping before your HOA rains love letters on you.

6) Remove Water Softener: Take it out by re-connecting the loop in the garage. These things eventually die and you may as well disable it before your tenant calls us to repair it. Save it for when you sell the house. It’s pretty easy to do but if you don’t have the courage, we can take care of that for you.

7) Side Gate Security 8) HOA Notification Address

Side Gate Security | Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada7) Side Gate Security 8) HOA Notification Address

Don’t forget security and HOA notifications as property management best practices.

7) Side Gate Security: Go get a small combo lock for the latch. The easy thumb combo types – not the dial types. The simplest way to keep zombies out is to lock your gates. They cost about $8 and can save you thousands of dollars.

8) HOA Notification Address: Most HOAs require a form to be filled out. Contact them and have them email their form to your agent. They will need that along with your property management agreement. This enables us to get love letters before you do.

9) Pricing Your Rental Property

Price Influences Rental Speed | Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada9) Pricing Your Rental Property

We don’t care how much you want to rent your property for, but your price will influence how fast your property rents, so getting the right pricing is one of the important property management best practices.

Don’t Ask Too Much: If you go too much over market, your property will sit vacant for a long time and become a target for vandalism. Owners who ask too much initially often regret their decision later.

Pricing Recommendation: Your agent will recommend a price to move your property within 3 weeks.

Price Determines Speed of Rental: The speed at which your property gets rented is a function of price. There is no Tijuana dance involved in rentals. Everyone uses the web to find a property and they select a price filter first. If your property is above their price filter, they don’t even see your property.

10) Utilities

Rental Utilities | Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada10) Utilities

We could not create a list of property management best practices without including the subject of utilities.

If you have a pool or anything growing, do not turn power or water off! Obvious right? You are authorized to turn it off 2 days after your new tenants start their lease. We tell tenants to turn on utilities before they move in. If they forget, they will remember once the lights go out. There are 3 different municipalities so here are our procedures:

  • Las Vegas Utilities: You will be paying sewer and garbage. If you want to increase your rent to cover that, fine with us. You never ever never want tenants responsible for utilities that can put a lien on your house.
  • North Las Vegas & Henderson Utilities: Unfortunately, these folks combine water with sewer and garbage. Annoying. Since you never want to sign up for paying water, we will have to cross our fingers and pray your tenants pay that utility. If they don’t pay it, and they vacate, you will be on the hook to pay the balance due. Sorry.

11) Advertising 12) Dropbox

Rental Property Advertising | Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada11) Advertising 12) Dropbox

Advertising and communicating are important property management best practices.

11) Advertising: Once your agent has sent you comps and after you have signed the property management agreement, you will have the ability to review your property before it goes live. Once it goes live, your property will be seen on every website imaginable including craigslist.

12) Dropbox: You will get a link that enables you to see all the files, photos, HOA docs and invoices related to your property. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to use it. Some of our clever owners will download the dropbox application onto their phone so they can see stuff the minute we put it in there. Isn’t America awesome?

13) Contracts / Leases Electronically Managed 14) Tenant Placement

Rental Property Contracts | Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada13) Contracts / Leases Electronically Managed 14) Tenant Placement

No list of property management best practices would be complete without streamlined management of contracts and tenant placement practices.

13: Contracts / Leases Electronically Managed: We do all our stuff electronically. Authentisign will send you an email when you need to sign something. It’s pretty simple and even our most computer handicapped are able to figure it out. You can do stuff by fax but that’s even more painful than mail. We don’t do mail. It kills trees, wastes time and costs money. If you are “old school” and want to do stuff by mail, we can’t help you. You will need an “old school” property management company that will pay you the old school way too.

14: Tenant Placement: This page covers our processes and procedures for finding awesome tenants. It costs us more money to find a bad tenant than it is to find a good one. We are very selective and use a proprietary system that scores tenants to determine their deposit.

 

15) Receiving Money 16) Sending Money 17) Security Deposits

Receiving and Sending Money  | Property Management Best Practices | Limestone Investments LLC | Real Estate Investment | Las Vegas, Nevada15) Receiving Money 16) Sending Money 17) Security Deposits

You goal as a Real Estate investor is to generate income. Therefore a few property management best practices are needed around the management of funds.

15) Receiving Money: Your property management agreement will have fields that will ask you for your routing number and account number. If you don’t know what that means or have doubts about your checking account, send us a voided check. We take pride in sending money promptly. If your property is a single family property, you will get your money about 4 days after we get it. If you don’t get money within 10 days of rent due, it means they didn’t pay and our team of tenant tossers will be contacting you on status.

16) Sending Money: You guessed it. We don’t accept checks in the mail. You will be sending money via our Quickbooks / Intuit system through your checking account. If this is a show stopper for you, we can recommend you to another property management company.

17) Security Deposits: This money is held in a trust account monitored by the real estate division. We get audited every year to make sure we don’t run off to Mexico with security deposits. WHEN your tenant leaves, we will have a full accounting of how that’s distributed. There is a whole chapter on this subject. In summary we attempt to be fair to both parties.

Save Headaches!!

Turn-Key Rental Property Management