5 Best Tips for Planning Your Property Management Budget

Are you a landlord or property manager who wishes budgeting would just be easier? While it’s a demanding task, budgeting is extremely important toward properly allocating your resources, supporting your desired activities, exceeding your tenants’ expectations, and increasing your property value overtime.

It can be quite the hassle, but if you follow these basic steps, you’re sure to stay on your A game as a property manager and master your budget management process.

Tip #1: Get all your research done

Before you start handling numbers, get a clear understanding of where you should allocate your budget by researching your market, property, and competition. This includes understanding your market incentives, new properties in your area, your price per square foot compared to the market, etc. It’s best to conduct a SWOT analysis to determine the best course of action, and especially to strategize for future opportunities.

Tip #2: Plan long term

If you really want to exceed the expectations of your community, you have to have beyond a 1-year plan. When preparing your budget, take into account future projects that current reserves are unable to fund. It’s a good chance to take a closer look at yearly expenses and set goals and limits for those expenses in order to make room for future projects. The way you manage your budget for the long term will certainly affect what you’re able to accomplish for your tenants over many years.

Tip #3: Track your expenses mindfully

It was just mentioned, but it should definitely be reiterated. Track your expenses mindfully, or your goals will be less realistic over time. As you’re preparing your annual budget, go through your expenses one by one and don’t just annualize each one from the previous year. To meet all your project goals year by year, look for ways to cut expenses by reviewing your vendor contracts and making your property more energy-efficient.

Tip #4: Use a portfolio management software

One of the best ways to make the budget planning process a whole lot easier is to use a trusted property management software solution that will collate all your data and projects for optimized organization and planning. This will help you unlock more insights, get a better handle on tough planning, save you much more money, and help you easily adjust projections where and when you need to.

Rentto is a free software-as-a-service that allows landlords, owners, and managers to organize their portfolios in a safe and affordable way. By using Rentto, you have access to all your properties and leases, payments, documents, and so much more all in one place. There’s no limit to how you want to manage your investments with Rentto, and you can get started 100% free. Software like this is crucial to exceeding all your goals and expectations over the long term.

Tip #5: Your community comes first

Last, but never least, your rapport with your tenants are integral to your planning. As mentioned, you always want to plan beyond the yearly mark, and really look to exceed needs as you work to include impactful projects in your planning.

Rentto helps you create easy pathways for enhancing property values while also maintaining positive relationships and meeting needs consistently. With Rentto, you even have an online portal that will allow for your tenants to make payments and make maintenance requests.

These are all just some of the key steps, but the most important factor would be having a trusted, affordable platform to manage all of your planning for you. We’d love to be a part of your journey of growth; learn more about getting started for free here.