Do-It-Yourself Landlords May Be Falling Short When It Comes to Screening Prospective Residents

SALT LAKE CITY — Whether you’re looking for an additional source of income, investing for the future, or having trouble selling your home, there are many reasons people consider becoming landlords. From meeting daily expectations to resident challenges, it’s no secret that investment property owners need to have the right set of skills, knowledge and interpersonal abilities to be successful in this role. At the end of the day, holding the title of do-it-yourself (DIY) landlord is more about managing people than properties.

In an effort to help landlords navigate one of the most challenging parts of being an investment property owner – screening prospective residents – the Real Property Management franchise, the nation’s leading full-service property management organization, announced today key findings from a study that may reveal key areas to improve a do-it-yourself landlord’s bottom line. The survey, conducted in January 2018 among a national probability sample of 290 DIY landlords, posed thought-provoking questions designed to uncover how often key property management activities are conducted.  The study was implemented by Liminality, Inc., a Boston based research company.

The study asked nearly 300 landlords to answer a series of questions focused on how often each activity was completed for their property– always, sometimes or never. Included were things that either the landlord did themselves or that a property manager or other third party did on their behalf.