Grow Your Property Business By Outsourcing

 

When I first started in property I would do everything myself. For example, I would source the property, prepare the property for letting, look for tenants, reference them, arrange viewings and do a lot of the property maintenance myself.

This was a real drag on my time and I found myself working harder and for longer hours than I would have preferred to. However, due to a lack of focus, the business wasn’t growing.

I later learnt that this was not the best way to run a successful business. By doing everything myself, I was actually hurting the business. I was focusing on menial jobs and not the most important job of all – that of growing the business.

I then began to outsource and the business benefited significantly as I was spending my time as a business owner and not as an employee.

Some of the things a property investor can outsource are:

 Property maintenance – anything including painting the walls, changing washers and the gardening can be outsourced.

The cheapest way to handle property maintenance is by finding a good ‘odd job’ man. This is basically someone who has skills to complete most of the general maintenance tasks around the house.

For specialist jobs such as roofing and electrics, you can outsource to professional tradesmen.

 Finding tenants – this can be outsourced to a letting agent.

By outsourcing the tenant finding you will save yourself a lot of time as you will no longer need to organise property viewings, interview tenants, apply for references etc

 Handling calls and general administration

If you are not able to afford a full time assistant, you can hire someone part time to handle any business enquiries.
An alternative to using a traditional assistant is to hire a virtual assistant. This is a great cheap alternative as you only pay for the virtual assistant’s time on your jobs, rather than a fixed income per week.

A virtual assistant can not only handle your phone calls, but can also be used for general secretarial tasks including answering your emails.

You can find a Virtual Assistant by for example, doing a Google search and choosing a firm that you can work with.

The only job I would recommend you don’t fully outsource is that of property sourcing.

Finding your investment property at the right price is the primary role of a property investor. If you were to outsource this, you could be in danger of losing your business.

However, you can still use property finders to source properties – but this would be to supplement your activities in this area, not to replace them.

Your business will only grow if you focus on it on a daily basis. Leave the subsidiary tasks to the specialists as your time is certainly worth more than the £10 an hour you would pay a painter and decorator.

You should aim to develop your property business into a fully automated system. This way, you can remove yourself from the business and the business would still continue to run without you, on autopilot.

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Utilise Your Tenants

 

Every property investor will agree that without tenants you do not really have a property business.

Your tenants will pay the rent set by you. This rent will be used to pay for:

 Your mortgage repayments
 Recurring property maintenance
 Fixtures and furnishings in a furnished property

Any money left over will be used by the property investor for

 Advertising
 Finders fees for further property acquisitions
 Further acquisition financing costs
 Legal fees
 etc.

As you can see, there are numerous expenses here. To be successful, you need to treat property investing as a business and not just a hobby.

I know of a lot of people who have tried property investment only to find that their costs far exceed any income – this is certainly NOT the right way to run a successful business.

As with any business you need to look for ways to reduce costs or increase the income. Now the only way for you to increase the money coming in would be to increase the rent. This is not as easy as it may at first look.

If you were to increase the rent over and above the rent dictated by the market you may never be able to rent out your property. A tenant will only ever pay market rent unless your property is one of the best properties on the market and in an exclusive area where it is very difficult to find rented accommodation.

Unless your property meets the above two criteria, I would forget about increasing the rent. You must therefore focus on reducing costs.

One way to reduce costs is by making the best use of your tenants.

For example, you could ask your tenants to do a lot of the simple upgrading tasks on your property for you. I’ve often asked tenants to paint my properties for me! If I supply the paint in a colour that is agreeable to both myself and the tenant I find that they are only too happy to paint the house for me.

By painting the house, the tenants feel more involved in their property and also house proud; hence they often stay longer resulting in fewer voids.

I also make it clear to tenants that I am looking for other properties in their area. If they know of any vendors that may be looking to sell, please let me know. This is another way to find that elusive deal. I am happy to pay the tenant a finder’s fee for this service.

Finally, when a tenant decides to move on, I ask him/her if they know of anyone that might want to rent the same property. I normally ask them to put a notice up at their place of work or local pub.

Again, I will offer the tenant a small financial incentive if they are successful in finding me someone.

This financial incentive is far less than it would cost me to advertise the property, hence I’m saving money straightaway.

I’m sure you can probably think of a few more ways your tenants can help you run your business. The bottom line is that you must treat your tenants as an asset and help them help you grow your business.

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