Are you thinking of renting out your home in full or in part to earn extra income? Some extra income is always welcome to help offset bills and pay for the mortgage in these hard times, but you need to prepare yourself.

When you rent out your home you may earn extra income, avoid the vandalism that may happen when your property is unoccupied, receive tax breaks, and all that, but there are some responsibilities. Regardless of whether you wish to rent your home for a short term or long term, there are responsibilities that you cannot eliminate. You will need to carry out repairs and maintenance, prepare home owner’s insurance, look for tenants, collect rent, and communicate regularly with your tenants. Here below, we have highlighted four key steps that you need to take to rent out your home.

Make it clean

Prepare to rent out your home by doing a thorough cleaning because renters now have more expectations and also because there are so many homes to choose from. All appliances should be working and in good condition. Heating and airconditioning should be in good order, windows- sparkling clean, the carpets- dazzling and the beddings and towels changed. If your house has a lawn, this would be a good time to trim it and remove all the weeds. If you have any valuables, make sure to keep them secure in a different location.

Make it safe

Tenant safety should be an important consideration before contemplating renting your home. Seek to make your home family-friendly by resolving any obvious issues that would make it unsafe and avoid the law suites that this may entail. Is your home safe for children? If not, try to make it so or at least raise any pending issues with your potential tenants.

Market it

To market your home, you could take pictures and post on sites like Zillow, Airbnb, and Vrbo to get tenants. Pictures should be amazing to give a good impression. List it on different sites to increase your chances of getting potential tenants. Airbnb says that they only show 300 properties at a go on their search page. If your property is located in some popular tourist destination where there are hundreds of other competing properties, it may remain lost somewhere at the bottom of the list where few potential tenants would venture. Listing it on more sites increases your chances of being seen. Once you get a tenant, as any seasoned homeowner would tell you, it is important to do a proper screening.

Maintain it

Once you get your tenants in, that is not the end of the story. Your property should remain in good condition for your current and future renters. You may receive several calls from your new tenants to come and fix all kinds of issues. Those leaking faucets, peeling wallpaper, and plumbing would need fixing. This, among other reasons, is why you may want to consider hiring a property management company.

While you may go ahead and manage your rented property yourself, it would be ideal to use a property management company for your peace of mind. Peak Property Management could be your one-stop-shop for all your house rental needs. We can help you right from the start by preparing your home for rent, renting it out to the right person, and getting it insured. We do a proper background check on potential tenants so that you do not have surprises later on. We also handle legal issues including tax laws, local laws, and rules. We draft a professional lease agreement in adherence to local laws that also clearly spells out each party’s responsibilities.

Are you asking yourself how much rent you should charge? We will help by recommending the amount to charge for your property based on its value and location. You will also not need to collect the rent as we will do it on your behalf.

Peak Property Management offers short term and long term rental services, home watch, concierge, and real estate brokerage services for Summit, Eagle, Garfield, Gunnison, and Pitkin counties of Colorado.

By Peak Property Management