POSTS ARCHIVE: UNCATEGORIZED

A homeowner recently called me wanting to know, “How can I rent all five rooms out separately in my home?” This wasn’t the first time this question has been posed to me, so I decided it’d be a good topic to cover today.

Further, the more tenants you have in your space, the greater the chances that this will occur, and I can promise you that all of them will be operating on a different schedule. Having five tenants share the expenses for water, electricity, cable, internet, garbage, and mail, and so on is a definite recipe for conflict.

One issue that people often ask me about is whether or not they need to offer parking. Sometimes, investors can get a huge discount on a unit by not offering parking. On the rest of the island, however, there’s no parking unless you pay for it. There’s a parking shortage, as I’m sure most of you are aware.

If you have an investment question about a parking space and if it’s worth it to add one, that’s a good idea. If you have a parking space, you have options. If you don’t, I probably won’t manage your unit because it will be so hard to show and find a tenant for your unit. The bottom line is that you need to have parking and no much is too much. Our island doesn’t have enough parking as it is. Do what you can to add more and you’ll reap the benefits.

As I always say, there are two reasons why you would hire a property manager:

To protect your home, we do thorough four- and six-month inspections. If you have tenants moving into your home who have pets, we also make them sign a property condition form.

If you’re a single-family homeowner/investor and are wondering whether you should allow your tenants to have pets or not, I’ve got some advice for you today. Pet deposits can be taken in addition to your security deposit and it can be up to one month of rent. You can’t take a child deposit or a spousal deposit, but you can take a pet deposit.

I would say that seven out of every 10 applicants that are looking for a home to rent today have a pet. I will also tell you that pet owners are more conscious about their pets these days. A lot of times, more damage is done by guests, termites, and people other than by pets. The pet damage we’ve seen is actually very minimal, and if something does happen, you can just keep the deposit.

Did you know that there is insurance you can get that will cover you in the loss of a tenant or in the loss of your rental home? It’s called loss-of-rent coverage, and here’s how it works.

This is an important step in protecting your investment and your lease income. If you have any questions about this type of coverage, call your insurance specialist today.

I get a lot of calls and questions about vacation rentals. They ask me, “Can I make my home on Kailua a vacation rental?”

Here at Hawaii Property Management, we have all of our tenants sign a move-out addendum. This 15-point document states what the buyer must do when they decide to move out of one of our properties. By signing the addendum, tenants are required to do things like getting the carpets professionally cleaned and generally making sure the property is in the exact condition determined by the property condition form as when they moved in.

We’ve been in a couple situations where we’ve taken over a tenant from another property manager, only to find that there were no addendums signed and no property condition forms filled out—there was only the five-page Hawaii Association of Realtors lease. That’s it.

Property management companies can be distinguished by the services they offer. One additional service we offer owners is the “eviction guarantee.” You aren’t likely to find this service offered through other management companies.

It’s our job to be diligent in conducting background checks and to make the necessary calls up front. Otherwise, we risk letting in a tenant that is evasive about rent payments or worse. Ask yourself: Who pays for that? If you’re with any other property manager, you’ll be on the hook for legal costs relating to the eviction, and I’ve seen that run anywhere from $1,000 to $6,000.

Our city government has passed laws, changed laws, and done everything else in their power to discourage developers from building what some call ‘monster homes,’ which are huge homes that can have upward of 20 rooms inside.

This is a very sore subject for me. The building department holds people like me to the same standard as they do for developers building monster homes, but those developers don’t get fined.

The topic of the security deposit is one I’ve previously covered, but it warrants further discussion. From my experience, nothing is more hotly contested or talked about in property management than security deposits, and problems often arise on both the tenant and owner sides.

We as property managers hold the security deposits, so if an owner is not letting us know what’s going on and not acting within that 14-day window allowed by law, it’s punishable in civil court by up to three times the penalty. That two-week window takes effect the day the tenants turn in their keys.