Renting properties can be a time-consuming process. For short-term rentals, there is often a lot of legwork involved. Long-term rentals usually have a lot of legal requirements. Historically, landlords have turned to agents to search for tenants, and property management companies to handle all the legalese, and perform necessary maintenance tasks. Both agents and property management companies are expensive. You will likely pay 10-30% of your rental income just to these people. The reality is that your agent will have a straightforward job that doesn’t justify the expense. Here are five tips for the do-it-yourself person that wants to maximize their rental profit by not using an agent.

Use The Internet

Your first step is to find a qualified tenant who will take good care of your property and pay rent faithfully. Luckily, there are millions of people searching online for rental properties. Wordtracker, a popular SEO research tool, estimates that approximately 1.2 million people search “home rentals” on Google each month [1]. You probably don’t want to set up a site for the rental property, but submitting it to places that let renters connect with landlords gets exposure for your rental. It also cuts out the middleman agent. As a bonus, chances are your property will be indexed on Google and will be available to the millions monthly that search for rental properties.

At Province & Domain, we provide you with the right tools to list your property online. When you list your property on Province & Domain, our platform will create a unique URL for your listing that is not only indexed by Google and other major search engines but is automatically syndicated to many other rental sites. And although we provide you with the tools to easily share your listings on social platforms with the click of a button, our fanatical team of agents also spend a considerable amount of time advertising the site on social platforms so that you don’t have to.

Advertise A Lot

Instead of waiting for potential renters to find you through Google, once you’ve created your listing why not advertise yourself? Facebook is a fantastic platform for doing this type of advertising. If you have an extensive friend network, have them post your listing. There’s a good chance that someone you or your friends know is looking to rent! If you elect to do paid advertising yourself, you can narrow down your audience to those who live in the city of your rental property. By narrowly defining your audience, you’re not spending money on unnecessary clicks. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that any ads you incorporate, you need to make sure not discriminate. Pick your audience of potential renters carefully and legally.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Take lots of pictures of your rental property. Even better, hire a staging company to come in with furniture that showcases how fantastic the property is. Bright, colorful furniture with beautiful artwork sells homes. It also “sells” rentals. For people looking to sell their home, furniture staging can bring in a 3% higher sales price on average [2]. Likewise, a furnished rental can attract more tenants and allow you to charge a premium price.

It is worth noting that for people looking to sell their home, furniture staging is a recurring monthly expense until the property sells. For a rental, all you need to do is take some pictures to post on your online ad. Once you have those, if you’re looking at saving on listing costs, you could remove the furniture and show the property without it. Once potential renters are hooked with the online photos, chances are they will find the property attractive once they view it in real life.

Brush Up On The Law

Renting can sometimes be complicated, unfortunately. It’s not always as simple as putting an ad out there and picking the most qualified renter. If you’re going to be a DIY landlord, you will need to know the law – at least to a certain degree. Review some of the standard contracts. Familiarize yourself with the anti-discrimination laws in your jurisdiction. In some states, for example, it’s illegal to ask any tenant about citizenship or immigration status [3]. In other states, such questions are legal. Having good knowledge of the laws of your particular jurisdiction will ensure that you don’t accidentally run afoul of the law.

Do Maintenance Work Yourself Or Find Contractors Up Front

It’s 4 am, and you are sound asleep. Your tenant calls you in a panic because the toilet is overflowing. What do you do? For some landlords that call will come as a surprise, and it’ll be the first time they have thought about that question. If you’re like most people, you probably don’t want to be fumbling around at 4 am looking for a 24-hour plumber to fix the problem. Therefore, when renting a property, make sure you have a plan ahead of how you are going to maintain that property if emergencies arise. It helps to know some numbers of 24-hour services you can call. If you trust your tenants, you could even authorize them to call the services directly if there is an issue. The tenants could take the cost of the repairs out of the monthly check they send you. Doing this is inadvisable, of course, until you have a long-term healthy tenant-landlord relationship.

Being a do-it-yourself landlord is not very hard. There are some nuances and complications, but overall it sure beats having to deal with an agent. Real estate agents are often not super thrilled with taking on rentals because it doesn’t make them as much money. Also, agents may not have your property’s best interests at heart. Since you own it, you’re the one who is best equipped to find the right tenants for it.

To summarize, if you’re looking to advertise without the help of an agent, you should post the property online yourself. Use a site that connects landlords with potential tenants. Take lots of photos for the listing and bring in furniture staging if need be. Once the listing is up, advertise it. Use your network of friends and family. If you can afford it, consider paid advertising as well. Before you begin showing your property, familiarize yourself with the law and also find some necessary contractors upfront. Have a plan (and reserve fund) for unexpected maintenance issues. If you do all of these things, you’re well on your way to becoming an efficient do-it-yourself landlord! You’ll be finding the right tenants at the right price, who will cherish your property as much as you do!