Blogs

Today we are talking about how to handle repairs and maintenance on your rental property in Santa Cruz. Property maintenance is very important for your rental home, and not just because it reduces your liability. It’s also important to keep your investment in good shape. You have a lot of money invested in your rental home, so keeping it in the best condition possible is beneficial to you and your bottom line. With this in mind, we take the maintenance of our properties very seriously.

Today, we are offering a bit of security deposit advice for both owners and tenants. If you put a group of property managers together in one room, they are all going to tell you that this is one of the toughest areas they deal with on a regular basis. Security deposits and how much gets refunded and withheld are really hard because normal wear and tear is very much a subjective topic. What is “normal” will really depend on the length of the tenancy in a rental property. If someone has been in the property for one year, wear and tear is going to be a lot less than it would be for people who have been in a property for 10 years.

Owners and landlords often ask the question: how often should property managers inspect properties? The really short answer to that question is – as often as possible. Any opportunity that we have to go look at the inside of a residence should be taken. This might...

Today we are talking about what qualifications you should look for in a property manager. I have been thinking about this a lot recently because I just came back from a convention in Las Vegas held by the National Association of Residential Property Managers. This is...

As a landlord, you might be wondering if you require lease up services only, or a full property management service. Sometimes, we have landlords who live in our local area, and they are okay with the idea of taking care of the ongoing management of their property, but...

It’s important to know how to shop for a property manager. When you sit down with somebody and you are interviewing them, what do you really need to find out? What is important to know about this person who you are turning over your valuable asset to manage? I think...

Landlords often want to know what it really costs to have somebody professionally manage their properties. In a previous blog, we discussed the two major types of fees involved in property management. Those are the lease up fee, which is typically either a flat fee or...

Today, everybody is using Craigslist to advertise their properties. Lots of people are going online to list and access rentals. The days of advertising in the local newspaper seem to be over. People are starting their rental search online, and the first place most...

Sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, you may wind up in a situation where you have to evict a tenant. Today we are going to talk about what to do if you are faced with that situation, and whether there might be a way out. When a tenant stops paying rent, you need...