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Tim Hamilton, Founder of Rentlit.comNov 1, 20161 min read

Tech Tuesdays: Are you a new Landlord? Is managing your tenants harder than expected?

Over the past few years in South Florida, there has a been a boom in new real estate investors, particularly in the area of residential rentals.  This has been driven by many factors, including the erratic behavior of the stock market and low interest rates.  In recent years, the real estate market has had much fewer fluctuations than the stock market. With well-screened tenants and good occupancy rates, real estate can provide steady income for many years.

imagesNow, there are a few pitfalls to becoming a landlord… Namely, you have tenants to take care of! Unlike a company you buy stock in, where all the decisions are made by people you’ll never meet, in board rooms you’ll never see, you run the ship with an investment in rental property. Where do you begin to find and screen tenants, track down checks every month, and find someone to fix that pesky refrigerator on a Saturday evening?   Many people hire residential property managers to do this work for them.  This can be a great, hands-off approach, however, it may cost as much as 10% of the monthly rent.  Others are taking a DIY (Do It Yourself) approach and relying on a combination of email, spreadsheets, notepads, calendars and a rolodex to keep their new found business operating effectively.  Institutional real estate investors have the scale and funds to justify implementing sophisticated, high-end software systems to manage their hundreds or thousands of homes.  Unfortunately, there have not been any affordable, easy to use solutions for the small real estate investor that may only own a few rental units.  I am one of those small real estate investors and this is why I founded Rentlit.

Rentlit has taken the hassle out of managing my rental properties.  Now, I  have enough time to do it on my own.  Rentlit provides background checks, a digital lease, automatic payment, and maintenance services in an online, easy to use web-based system.  If you own residential rental units and want to simplify the management process, you may want to check out Rentlit.

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