Jeffrey Asselstine
Managing Director
NelsonPark Property LLC
Once you have purchased your investment property, and perhaps even during the purchase process, you may be asked by your agent about considering utilising the services of a Property Manager. This service, although available in Qatar, is not widely well known about by investors. Most consider the issue of how to find a tenant as quickly as possible, but do not give consideration on how best to manage the property once the tenant has moved in.
As an investor landlord, you need to understand your responsibilities in regards to paying service charges, utilities (whether the tenant or landlord is paying them), inspections, fixing any issues that may come up, and most importantly keeping your tenant happy to ensure that they stay in the property, and hopefully as well renewing the contract at the end of the tenancy agreement. This can be quite overwhelming even to the most seasoned investor.
The good news is you don’t have to worry about these issues. By outsourcing the property management of your property to an agency, the vast majority of these issues will go away, particularly the weekend calls from a tenant who has a problem with the water pressure!
We have put below six things that your property manager will do for you:
- Find good quality tenants:
The first thing that a property manager should do is arrange the marketing of the property with the leasing agents to help you find the right tenant for your property as quickly as possible. They will help in coordinating the viewings, particularly if a departing tenant is still in the property. They will also be responsible for moving the tenant in, making sure any initial teething problems with a new tenant are taken care of quickly to get the tenancy off to a great start.
- Conduct regular inspections:
After the tenant has moved in, your property manager will inspect the property on a regular basis to ensure the tenants are taking good care of the unit, and also highlight any problems that may not have been taken care of, had an inspection not occurred. A report would then be sent to you with a checklist of items and photos where applicable and notes of any work that may need to be done. The property manager will keep a record of the reports to ensure at the end of the tenancy that nothing is left damaged or broken.
- Manage all repairs and maintenance:
During the course of the tenancy there will always be some type of repair request that will come up. They could be small such as a closet door that is not closing properly, or something major like a burst pipe that is flooding the property. In either case, the property manager can have it dealt with promptly to protect the value of your investment and also maintain the tenant relationship. We often see tenants leaving properties that they generally like but are simply unhappy with the landlord not fixing things in a timely manner.
- Take care of bills and paperwork:
Beyond depositing the rent each month, your property manager can take care of paying any bills on your behalf, including Qatar Cool, Kahramaa, service charges and any repairs needed.
- Provide market advice:
The property market is always in a state of change, particularly now that we are in a World Cup year in Qatar. Your property manager will be keenly aware of what is happening in the market in regard to rental rates helping you to achieve a high level return on your investment.
- Minimising void periods:
Void periods are those gaps between tenants that unfortunately occur from time to time. A good quality property manager will minimise those periods in two main ways. Firstly, by having a strong relationship with the tenant where the tenant feels that the owner cares for the property and cares for them, the chances of a tenant leaving the property is lowered considerably. Secondly, when unfortunately a tenant is going to leave, the property manager will immediately liaise with the leasing team to start marketing the property, even before the existing tenant leaves, with the plan to keep the void period as short as possible.
At NelsonPark Property we have a dedicated Property Management Service, and we would be very happy to speak to any property owners who would like to hear more about the service that we provide.
This article was published as part of the seventh edition of Property Finder Qatar’s Trends Report.
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